Gift Economics and Reunion in the Digital Age
Reality Sandwich is facing financial difficulties that threaten its continued publication. That's not because of dull content, nor failure to connect with an audience. On the contrary: it's an edgy, relevant, and provocative publication with some very talented (ahem!) writers, but what it doesn't have is what they call a "monetization" scheme. And in this, it is not alone.
How to monetize digital content? This is a question facing everyone from Rupert Murdoch, the record labels, and the movie studios, all the way down to Reality Sandwich and the lone blogger. You see, fundamentally the marginal cost of production for digital content is near zero, which drives the price toward zero as well. Fixed costs may be quite high, but once those are paid it doesn't cost much more to serve a million readers than it does a hundred.
Like most websites, Reality Sandwich offers its content for free. How, then, to meet operating expenses? Various possible solutions include charging for access (remember Encarta?), walling off special "premium" content, relying on advertising, associating real-world pay services with on-line content, and asking for donations. I think that, with the exception of certain niche applications, only the last of these has any real future.
What I am saying here is that the only business model that makes sense for most digital content is the model of the gift: to offer it as a gift, and to receive gifts in turn.
Primitive economies were wholly gift economies, which was natural when each consumer was also a producer. Today, the dominant model for profit-making business is to control scarce resources and sell their produce, or the resources themselves, to people who need them. The earliest example of this was the control of land. In early times, when land was not the subject of property, it was very difficult for one person to become significantly richer than another, simply because the source of all wealth was equally available to all. Unable to compel the labor of others, our primary means of economic circulation was the gift.
When, as in Roman times, land ownership concentrated in the hands of the few, the many were cut off from the once-abundant source of all wealth, the land. The conventions of property made land artificially scarce, and the landless had to sell their labor and surrender their freedom just to survive.
Since then, scarce resources have, one after another, fallen under private control, while many resources that were once abundant have been made scarce. It is hard to make someone pay for something that they can easily procure themselves. The quintessential example is water, perhaps the most abundant substance on the planet, but made scarce today through our our separation from nature and the pollution and chemical treatment of the water supply. As a result, bottled water has been the number one beverage growth category over the last two decades.
Water is inherently abundant because of its inexorable tendency to recycle, to flow downhill and return to its source. The same dynamics apply to another resource equally vital to the human species: information, by which I mean the sum of human invention, culture, story, and art. Drawing from the reservoir of the ideas that surround us from birth, we fashion yet new creations which flow back into that reservoir to enrich it still further. Yet the media has found a way to bottle it up and sell it back to us.
The question, in the Age of Money, has been how to profit from something abundant, because that which is abundant falls naturally into the realm of gift. In the modern era, it has been possible to profit from the control of information because the means of its gathering and dissemination required significant capital. To run a newspaper or record company required a vast coordination of labor. To mass-produce vinyl records or newspapers required an investment beyond the reach of most people, allowing producers to maintain scarcity. They were aided by copyright laws that prevented unauthorized replication, which would have compromised that scarcity. But today the inherent abundance of information is reasserting itself.
With the Internet today, we again have a situation in which the source of (at least a certain kind of) wealth is equally available to all, and again in which the distinction between producer and consumer blurs. Less and less is it possible to compel people to pay for music, for news, for software, and for many other items of cultural wealth. Websites that charge for access go the way of Encarta, and I think that recent plans by Rupert Murdoch and The New York Times to put their content behind pay walls will prove just as disastrous. If you are trolling the web and hit a pay wall, you will probably just go somewhere else to find similar content for free. Why should I pay to read the NYT, when I can get more-or-less equivalent news for free elsewhere? Can the NYT compete with the entire Web? And why should I pay for Microsoft Office when I can use OpenOffice software, which is just as good, for free?
When something is freely available at zero cost, it is impossible to charge money for it. That is why music, software, publishing, and film companies have lobbied so hard for intellectual property protections and digital rights management technologies. They are essentially trying to impose artificial scarcity on something that is fundamentally abundant. It has worked, to some extent, but as the total amount of free digital content expands, the pay world becomes less and less important and necessary. You can get your news, your intellectual stimulation, your software, and your entertainment elsewhere.
The financial problems faced by Reality Sandwich are thus nearly universal. With the exception of highly specialized research firms, charging for digital content doesn't work, nor does charging for certain "premium" content as Reality Sandwich tried to do with its Backstage feature. Five minutes of a particular video would be freely available, but if you wanted to see the whole thing you'd have to pay for Backstage. The problem was that, although the content was quite good, there is plenty of other great content for free elsewhere. Moreover, this approach essentially boils down to, "I could give you this at virtually no cost to myself, but I'm withholding it until you pay me," It feels like extortion, and I think I am not the only one turned off by it. I suspect that the people in charge of the site were turned off by it too, but proceeded out of a feeling of necessity. They need to meet their operating expenses somehow! Fortunately, it now appears that Reality Sandwich is abandoning this idea and moving more fully toward a gift paradigm.
The third approach I mentioned, advertising, is also subject to severe limitations. The first limitation is the ability of the scarce-goods economy to support advertising. The second is that the Internet's ability to foster peer-to-peer connections is eroding the value of advertising, along with all other forms of intermediation. Just as the Internet has decimated the professions of stockbroker and travel agent, Craigslist has, according to one estimate, destroyed $100 billion of classified ad revenue over the last ten years. And whereas once producers needed advertising to make consumers aware of their products, we can now find them ourselves with an Internet search. Finally, our capacity to take in advertising has nearly been saturated. When nearly every blank surface and empty moment, whether on a bus, in a theater, or at a sporting event, is filled with advertising, we become inured to it, and the effectiveness of all advertising suffers from diminishing marginal utility. Don't get me wrong -- I am not proclaiming the demise of advertising (I am an optimistic person, but even my optimism knows limits!). I am suggesting, rather, the advent of Peak Advertising, and a long, slow decline to follow. The parallel with Peak Oil is nearly exact: in both cases, a vast commons -- in this case, the commons of our collective attention -- has been exhausted. In any event, when even YouTube with its tens of millions of daily users is unable to break even with ad sales, the prospects for Reality Sandwich in that regard are dim indeed.
A fourth approach is to piggyback value-added services onto free content. This is what bands are doing when they give away music in hopes of increasing concert ticket sales. Software companies do the same when they give away software and charge for technical support or consulting. Reality Sandwich does this by offering teleseminars and retreats. While this is a valid strategy, I think in the case of Reality Sandwich the value lies more in its synergy with the site's mission and purpose than with any financial contribution, since it is hard to make significant amounts of money from such events. Moreover, teleseminars, online classes, and so forth suffer from the same dilemma of making people pay for something that has a zero marginal cost. Unless there is one-on-one interaction happening, it doesn't matter how many people are listening. It is a broadcast model, and the production cost is the same whether one person or a hundred are listening.
That leaves voluntary donations -- the model of the gift -- which I believe is the only model for digital content that is viable in the long run. Reality Sandwich is moving in that direction with the pay-what-you-like subscription to the Evolver Social Movement. The gift model is quite natural for digital content. In the age of paper, vinyl, and other physical media that demanded physical distribution and incurred significant unit costs, it was both possible and to some extent justifiable to charge money for cultural creations. But today, the medium has nearly dematerialized, and the unit cost to deliver digital content has dropped to nearly zero. This dematerialization means that no depletion is incurred by giving something away. No matter how many copies of my book or recordings people download from my website, my store of them is not depleted thereby. Supply is infinite; therefore, according to the law of supply and demand, the natural price point is zero.
What, then, shall induce me to produce such content in the first place? It is the same thing that motivates Reality Sandwich's creators and the creators of innumerable other websites that are contributing to the Great Turning that is underway today. It is the desire to give of our gifts in order to create a more beautiful world. While this website's creators may have had notions of launching a successful media enterprise, and may have incorporated those notions into various business plans to seek investment, I think their true motivation was that they wanted to give something new and important to the world. Such is the motivation of any true artist, and when a person betrays his art and subordinates it to the goal of pecuniary gain, the result is an obvious sellout. It is time for this website's creators to fully embrace the gift paradigm, for it is aligned with the true spirit behind what they have created. Part of this embrace would be to release all of the Backstage content to all readers. Another part would be, in addressing investors, to say, "The purpose of this enterprise is to contribute to the evolution of the human species. You will receive no financial return on your investment, but we promise to treat your contribution as sacred."
I have found that the more I step into the spirit of the gift, the more the world responds in kind. When we witness true generosity -- giving without any agenda except that the gift be received -- we are moved to generosity ourselves, and when we are the recipient of a gift we are moved to gratitude. Accordingly, as the producers of this website step more fully into owning and enacting their true motives, its readers will step in to support it. All of us desire to contribute to what I call "the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible." So, I would like invite this website's readers to respond in kind to Reality Sandwich's embrace of gift principles. I would very much like to be part of an explicitly "gift-based media enterprise". While it costs a lot of money to produce this website, your particular copy costs nearly nothing. There is thus no justification to make you pay. But if you feel grateful for what is provided here, then act on that gratitude and give.
Like many artists, I feel uncomfortable selling my work, because any amount I charge seems at once too much and too little: too much, because it is sacred to me and I desire to give it without condition; too little because to put a price on the sacred devalues it, turning the infinite into something finite. Many of us prefer to offer our work as a gift, and that means contributing to publications that operate on gift principles themselves (if their main goal is profit, then we feel taken advantage of). Reality Sandwich is a website in which the spirit of the gift is blossoming. It is about launching (or, to be more modest, helping to accelerate) a social movement. They call it the "Evolver social movement," but of course it extends far beyond this site. Ken, Daniel, Jonathan et al have merely named it, yet names can be a powerful way to crystallize attention, to bring what was unconscious into consciousness.
Part of the shift in human consciousness that is underway today is a transition to a different kind of economy, an economy that applies the principles of the gift to a modern technological environment. I am writing a book, Sacred Economics, to create a vision and a vocabulary to speed this transition. Yet writing about economics, I feel totally at home at a website that also includes articles on ayahuasca, crop circles, the prison system, dream psychology, and so on. To me the link is clear: all of these topics are like gift mentality in contributing to a reversal of the ideology of Separation, and the corresponding sense-of-self that has increasingly dominated our civilization for thousands of years. For the discrete-and-separate self, inhabiting an objective universe, more for you is less for me. This is the self of usury. In a gift society, that maxim is no longer true; instead, more for you is more for me, because I know that if you have more than you need, you will give the surplus to someone who needs it. In this very simple way, we become connected; I wish for your good as you wish for mine, and do unto you as I would have you do unto me. Foretold thousands of years ago, the Golden Rule is the truth of the coming age.
Today we are transitioning into a time that realizes the truth of the connected self, in which not only my well-being, but my very existence, my very being-ness, depends on the well-being and indeed the existence of all other beings on the planet. I am merely describing the economic dimension of the truth of interbeingness. That same truth is also what moves us to compassion for prisoners; it can be experienced directly in psychedelic states; it manifests in the eerie connections between the crop circles and our own minds. To move fully to a gift model would bring the form of this website into alignment with its content.
The common thread that ties this website together is the feeling that we are awakening to a much more wonderful world, something magical, something mind-blowing. We want our minds to be blown because we are done with the Age of Separation and the small, isolated self that inhabits it. It is time for this social movement to begin in earnest.
Let us hope and hold for this website that it let go of any residual, unconscious motivations of profiting from the readers, which is the old media model, and open up fully to the spirit of the gift. It is happening -- it must happen, for there is really no other way. And let us hope and hold that its readers respond in kind, with generosity and forgiveness, and take Reality Sandwich another step forward as a cocreated, gift-based catalyst for the evolution of human beingness.
To join the Evolver Social Movement and make a contribution to Reality Sandwich, click here.
Image by MarcinMoga / Lolek, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
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Comments
Transperency
Some Answers
Hi Little Lightening Bolt,
We describe how Evolver operates, and who does what, here:
http://www.realitysandwich.com/esm/evolver-mission-transparency.
cheers,
Ken
A couple more thoughts
This is a business then...
This is a business then... This is not a social movment it is a busienss.
I think its wise not to confuse the two.
some good points!
I agree about transparency -- it is key. In ancient gift economies, it was generally a matter of public knowledge who had give what to whom, and how much each persoon had. Life was pretty much public, and that also meant that needs, as well as wealth, were apparent to the community. Today we as a society seemingly do our best to hide away poverty, illness, and other states of neediness. So, I agree with you that transparency is fully in keeping with the gift model. It would reassure givers that their money is going toward a good purpose. Ultimately, I think that all assets and income should be transparent in a Sacred Economy.
Speaking of transparency, as far as I know none of the writers get paid ofor their work on RS, nor is there any expectation of that happening. I certainly don't expect it, though I would be amonth the last to qualify as I am only an occasional contributor. I do know that a lot of the main people work really hard on this website and the Evolver movement.
Charles
P.s. ha ha, you know something really funny: I am having trouble typing in this response because an advertisement is blocking part of this window. "Adtech", it is called.
That does not appear to be
That does not appear to be true Charles
"The company has a paid, professional team of 3 full time and 3 part time editorial and administrative staff. It includes:
All staff perform tasks for both Reality Sandwich and Evolver. In addition, we employ a team of web developers, led by Technical Director Dan Robinson, paid on an hourly basis. Our lead developer is Andy Laken.
The Evolver team collaborates with and coordinates an extended network of incredible, dedicated volunteers, who participate in much of what we do, including: grassroots organizing, editorial tasks, media making, social network marketing, community facilitation, and event production. These volunteers are the heart of our community, and enable Evolver to have a wide impact even with limited financial resources.
The staff is based in New York City and rents a table at an office space in downtown Brooklyn where the team meets and coordinates interns."
if they are not getting paid I could see why they would want to get paid...because its a buisness... and its being run like a buisness or at least they would like it to be.
No that there is anythign wrong with that...but a social and ecological change movement of the people is nto a buisness. If it is a buisness then it is a buisness that capitalizes off of people desperate needs for change.
"We can maintain our current operations for $20,000 a month. That averages out to $10 monthly contributions from 2,000 people."
perhaps maintianing the way you currently opperate as a business is not the ideal way of doing things... perhaps thats the problem... maybe you should think of reducing what it requires to run this "social movement" and think of the social movment as an act of humble service and find other ways of making a living...
or perhaps RS+E should clarify that they are not a social movement but a buisness capitializing off of other social, spiritual and eoclogical movements. Which is fine if your honest about it... once again transperency allows others to see your ethics...
Reality sandwhich is "a web magazine that reaches 100,000" if that is the case and 100,000 thousand people join at a membership of 10$ a month at the least... then you stand to make a potenital profit off of other peoples social, ecological and spiritual movments at a profit sum of $980,000... potentially if your numbers are correct in that you reach as many people as your site says you do, and that that many people would be willing to pay 10 $ a month.
You are not a non-profit organization, or a real social movement social movements do not set them selves up to profiteer off of those they attempt to help. RS+E is a buisness that hopes to profit off of the social movements of others.
As I said there is nothing wrong with this if your honest about it.
who are you addressing?
I am a little confused -- you seem to be addressing me (as "you") as if I were one of the RS staff. I am not. I am a contributor commenting on the situation. Whether it is run like a business or not is not my decision. Also I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to when you say "that" is not true.
Anyway, I agree with your point that there should be more clarity. Based on the comments Ken Jordan has made here, it looks like the main people involved are in the process of coming to clarity. I agree that it should not be a business masquerading as a social movement. What I think is happening, is that they started out with the idea of making a business out of it, but then saw it could be much more. My impression is that any dreams of being a big new media enterprise have given way to the much bigger dream of helping to shift consciousness. And I think that more clarity would be helpful in furthering that goal.
Charles
Excuse me, I could see how
" I agree that it should not be a business masquerading as a social movement."
This is my feeling exactly.
I also agree that there needs to be more clarity.
I see that it started out as a buisness and they ended up finding out it could be much more... but from the outsider perspective and as a reader of the site it apears differently. It appears as if very shred buisness minded people found a way to capitalize off of the current social movments. With the internet its really easy to do a reverse promotion strategy where you get people very involved and interested and then start charging them. You loose a few in the transition but you end up making bank.
Either way there needs to be a clarification of RS+E's intentions. Are they a social movement or are they a a buisness that sees that they can make several million dollars a year if they play their cards right.
What I said that did not apear to be true was this statement... I do not beleive that you meant it to be untrue but that you had missed this some how...
"Speaking of transparency, as far as I know none of the writers get paid for their work on RS, nor is there any expectation of that happening."
Dan Pinchbeck is a paid staff member of this site (or is attempting to be according to the post ken sent a link to), he is a major writter on this site. If he is a paid staff and writter on this site, then he stands to make one hell of a profit in doing so... if they continue to go forward with memberships and other contributors such as your self continue to write for free then those writters that create quite a draw to this site will be making paid staff members LOTS of money. These unpaid writters need to look at this carefully.
If reality sandwich decided that they wish to be a social movement more power to them I think that this sort of work is important. It needs to happen, organizers are very welcome.
If they want to be a buisness that works as a counter culture online journalism site supported by membership fees similarly to magazine subscriptions then I am sure that will be well received and people will pay and they can make their money and hopefully reivest it int he communities that will be making them a boat load of dough if they do so.
But for gods sakes I really hope they make a clear and concise boundery between the two. Because I feel that not doing so is unethical.
My appologies for the misunderstadning of it being dirrected towards you it was not.
BLESS AND BE BLESSED
A Question!
Hello friend Charles,
After reading your article, I've decided to give to RS. Now, all I could find on the website is a place to give a monthly amount. Please tell me if there's a way to give a one-time amount -- that's the way I feel more at ease with.
No rush, though. If RS must fiddle with their webpages a little while to make it possible, I'll still be here when it's available. Just let me know when it's ready.
Thank you for your article -- I always read them with great enthusiasm.
Peace
Exactly my response!
Charles, I loved the article, as I usually love your articles, and I am especially motivated to join in the spirit of the gift. So I, too, clicked on the link at the end of the article, and found myself turned off by what I found there.
I AM interested in giving RS a gift; I am NOT interested in purchasing an ongoing membership which will entitle me to a specified list of services.
It's an interesting psychological phenomenon: my initial intent was to give a hundred dollars, yet I balked at signing on for ANY monthly amount, even one that would have cost me less over a lifetime. I'm not interested in a social networking site, or retreats, or chatting with authors, or any of it. I do strongly believe in a gift economy -- I run a free online games website, and I spend a lot of my free time writing games for it from which I will NEVER see a monetary profit, and I do it purely for the joy it brings me. But a paid membership is not a gift.
So I'm with you, but unfortunately, I'm not ready to be with Reality Sandwich, not yet.
marie
http://www.tomargames.com
Just give the one time
Just give the one time amount at "join for your own price" and after it goes through. . .go into your account here, click cancel, and it takes you to paypal and you cancel the reoccuring payment there.
thanx
yeah
Yeah, I think a "donate" button would be good. The monthly thing would be a turnoff to me too.
Charles
Thoughts on gifts and advertising
Recently I've been pondering this question wrt. the gifts I give to my children (like a hot meal, for example). Do I want them to say "thank-you"? Do I want them to give a gift in return (say, washing the dishes)? Why do I feel so miserable when they say "I don't like this" without even trying the food?
The answer I came to was that I need my gift to meet the needs of my recipient as much as possible. In the case of the meal, I want to meet my kids' needs for nutrition and pleasure of eating that food (two sides of the same coin) and to know that they are the recipients of love and caring from their dad.
If I make food when they're not hungry, or make something they don't like, then I can't meet their needs as much, and so don't get the full joy of giving.
If I give them cookies, I know that it is meeting some need, because I see how happy they are when they eat it, but I am also sure that I am causing their need for nutrition to go unmet.
When I read the previous comment about transparency of donations to Reality Sandwich, I have similar thoughts. Would my gift meet a need? What need? How deeply?
-------------
Regarding advertising: Charles is correct that we are are being bombarded with advertising at every turn. They're not done; expect to see ads become more ubiquitous over time.
I bet that showing ads to someone who doesn't normally see ads is pretty effective. Previously they were making decisions based on other criteria, and the impact of the new force of advertising in their lives probably had a substantial effect.
Today we see ads all the time. Most people in my culture spend all the money they earn, and then borrow as much as they can with credit cards to buy more. Advertising has encouraged them to do that, but now they can't be encouraged any more. No matter how much advertising they see, no batter how well the ads are done, there's not much they can do to increase the amount of money they spend on ads, because they're already spending all they have.
Perhaps ads have an effect on *how* we spend our money: on this brand vs. that one. In that case, ads today are really about shifting spending around, but not increasing it. The ads are competing against each other. Effort put forth by brand A is canceled out by competing advertising for brand B. Net is 0 gain for the brands being advertised.
So who is really benefiting from all this increase in advertising? It's not the consumer, who is already locked in to how much they can spend. It's not the brand, which is locked in to competition with the next advertiser.
My answer is that it's the advertising agencies that are benefiting. They are doing a fantastic job of convincing businesses that everyone should be advertising as heavily as they can, thereby increasing their own business. And they're right, since in a world of ubiquitous ads, the business that doesn't advertise disappears quickly.
What does this mean for me, as a user of "free" web sites? They're not really free, since someone is paying for them. The money comes from businesses that buy ads, who in turn are getting their money from me. So, I'm still paying for the web content I want, but along the way I'm also paying the salary of an advertising executive and for a product that I may not have purchased otherwise. All that together is way more expensive than the price of the web content by itself.
We also know that advertising directs content to produce an audience that is attractive to advertisers. So a web site that tells you not to earn or spend money has a harder time getting advertising revenue to cover their costs than a site that offers stock tips. Essentially, the whole web site shifts toward being an ad, itself.
In the early days of the internet, most content and access to it was either a gift or paid for by government, and so seemed free. As internet usage grew, actual costs increased (more bandwidth required) but the expectation of "free" made it difficult to collect money for those real costs.
Meanwhile, we experience an onslaught of advertising every time we use the internet. I don't have TV in my house, but when my children play a "free" online game they see a tiny square of game in the middle of the screen, with ads on all 4 sides. Many of the ads are crudely sexual, which I'd rather not put in front of my 8-year-old. At least on TV we have an FCC to regulate things, but on the internet anything is fair game.
Today we have the worst of all worlds. Consumers, content providers, and businesses all lose. Only advertising agencies really win.
expectation of return
Interesting to juxtapose this comment, with its observation that we need to know that the gift is being received, with the first comment, that gifts are supposed to be without expectation of receiving anything in return. Some spiritual traditions say that to even expect or want a "thank you" pollutes the purity of the gift. But I think this is unnatural. I think that gifts naturally inspire gratitude, not only in the recipient but in all those who witness the gift, and that there needs to be a channel through which to act on that gratitude. There needs to be a return channel. Traditional gift cultures had such channels in abundance. But today, we are alienated from the gift mentality, so that we have forgotten not only how to give, but how to receive. Both have become awkward. In a way, to fully receive is itself a kind of generosity, since it puts one in a position of obligation or gratitude.
Another reason why expressions of gratitude like thank you's and return gifts are necessary, is that they cue us in to where to direct our gifts. If you have bread, you'd rather give it to the hungry person than the tired or thirsty person. The response ideally tells us whether we are giving our gifts well. So, for example, if I give a talk somewhere on a gift basis, and the sponsor treats me shabbily, I will understand that my gift was not well given. Either I spoke poorly, or my message was not needed there. But if I am thanked generously, I will want to go back again and do similar talks in the future. So, receiving return gifts helps guide me to give more effectively of my own gifts. Of course, sometimes the return gift is not very obvious. It could be money, or words, or just a look in the eyes. I need this affirmation, maybe because I am such a novice in the world of the gift.
Nearly all of us are novices at it. I think we should therefore be charitable in our judgements toward websites like this one, as they navigate uncharted waters and learn from their mistakes.
Charles
alignment
http://www.RadicalRelocalization.com
"They'll never see us coming!"
All Across the Board
If, in fact, this is problem for everyone, maybe the only real solution will come when the "whole system" crashes, and/or gets rectified.
Many of us are aware of this prophetic type scenario. Of course the motive for such alternative brainstorming is done on sites such as this.
A "Catch 22" ... as we only charge each other to the degree we can pay ... advertise only to degree one is attentive to desire.
Some have too much .. others two little ... the only real problem is balance.
Every aspect of social exchange could be gifted in principle, in other words.
Maybe "part" of the overall problem is for all of us to regulate all of our "plug-in" time ... get more used to solitary contemplation
... way too much inertia, in other words ... mere habit
Freeing up our information crazed tendencies
.. sheer necessity is a bitch
Home Roaming
{on the art of inner contemplation}
Scratchy-itch twitch … ‘in twilight that twinkle
nit-picking winch … ‘of circle … and crinkle
Frustration fist … ‘summoning muster
fight to the death … ‘all other “Buster” … {mister}
Peaceful as please … ‘war-goring fit
‘nomads of wander … hermits that sit
Culture of crude … ‘judgmental as civil
wild as willing … ‘ball and chain chisel
A lock to ‘but pick … ‘a safe ‘but to “blow”
a gain to ‘but loose … ‘forget ‘but to know
Remember …’relive … prophesize … ‘sin
temptation and toil … ‘before garden … {Eden}… of whim
Escort and manage … children of thee
‘lest “fruit-of-vine” urge … beckons to flee
Each others wager … ‘a life to ‘but gamble
‘lest brother and sister … forgives all such ramble
Purpose of “spirit” … ‘unknown as “we”
‘anointing all curse … just for trying to be
Godless … ‘or given … taken … ‘or free
boundless … ‘or law … squabble … ‘or plea
License of leader … ‘imprison … and preach
‘thorn-crowning wincer … as if dying to reach
Lord of abandon … ‘on mission of mess
‘pilgrims on hand … to glorify guess
Surging of soul … ‘fuel beyond fire
water and earth … ‘quench until dire
Borrowing time … lending all space
providence … ‘farce … ‘lest place without trace
Symbol and myth … ‘science … or quack
‘proving only nescience … ‘costing only lack
Fortunes of fetish … ‘needs all too real
meekly, poor … ‘inherit … the debt that others ‘but steal
A place to call home … ‘or no-mans-land path
the un-carving of block … [Tao} … ‘lest graffiti and graph
Insightful … ‘adored … understood better
incentives … ‘but to hoard … in the name of only letter … {legalities}
Gloat-voting gripe … ‘before ears of the peer
policing the free … ‘rioting sheer
No law to women … ‘lest men who ‘but rule
sacrifice … ‘sorrow … dumb-dumb Eden …’clever school
Pippalayana
gifting sharing tithing ?
Paragraph one.
As a person living month-to-month if not day-to-day in Mexico, I have become immensely appreciative of and learned a lot from a culture that is Sharing in nature, and historically given to community collaboration and an exchange economy. Here I've learned to exchange every chance I get (in the last month I exchanged yoga classes at my studio for garden work and for artesan crafts, which I later gifted for birthday presents, and this month am exchanging yoga and therapy work for murals at home and at work.) In all honesty the principles of sharing, exchange, and tithing are still easier for me to get my head around than gifting, giving without expecting anything in return. My survival fears still get worked up! Although the more I give the more comfortable I get with divine order and divine caretaking.Paragraph one.
If I think of Reality Sandwich (or any other group that nourishes me that asks for support) in terms of the exchange mentality: I don't have the time or the resources or even the ability to bring together thinkers and written and multimedia material to educate and challenge myself, so I'm awfully grateful that someone else, like Reality Sandwich, does. And so, I'm willing to share something I have in appreciation for what they share. It's a like a potluck meal--everybody puts something on the table. And money is what they need and I'm willing to offer, or exchange, that item, because I respect that need. I mean, when my friend asks me if I can bring a loaf of bread to dinner and I have access to picking up some bread, well, I don't show up with roasted carrots, you know? It has to do with trust and respect, I think. We're so suspicious in the neoliberal world about hanging on to what's "ours" and not getting taken advantage of!Paragraph one.
For me, as I continually try to establish an exchange economy as my day-to-day reality, I have found that for most of us it is important to be clear about what each party exchanges. At this point I don't tell people, oh sure, come to yoga, I'm sure you'll gift me something later. Maybe I should! Normally we discuss the needs of each party and decide mutually on a fair exchange. I've found that this creates enormous trust, gratitude, clear limits that help keep the relationship smooth and safe, and more often than not authentic generosity on both ends. Hopefully as we keep evolving we will reach a point where we are all comfortable enough to simply give, no explicit exchange necessary.Paragraph one.
In this sense I can understand the whole RS Backstage concept, I guess, wanting to offer an explicit exchange to people apart from the general gifting that RS does for everyone. It does feel a little hokey though, or clique-ish--maybe it's the name. Like the real cool scene is only for the people who can pay to get there. Kind of iffy. I'd say put a huge donate button on the top of the page and a blurb about exchange or support or gifting or whatever. Also at an NGO where I worked we always had a wishlist up on our website. So if people wanted to support us they always had the option to gift money or any one of the items or services we had on the wish-list. Maybe RS needs a wish-list! You can wish-list anything. DJs for a party, film editing, toilet paper, coffee for the office, weekly massage. Anyway. Some people really like to donate in-kind.Paragraph one.
In general, for me in addition to the exchange idea the idea of sharing is helpful at this point. Sharing for me means that, as they say in Mexico, if I eat, my child eats. Another way of putting that is that whatever food is available is equally split between everybody at your table, doesn't matter who brought what. It's a sort of hive-mind, I guess, or collective thinking, or maybe it's just a lot of love. In my town people are always opening up their doors to give food to people who ask for it and to animals without owners as well. And at big group gatherings you are invited and welcomed whether you bring something or not. You only have to spend a little time in "poor", "developing world" situations to have an experience with sharing and generosity that blows your mind. Not cause everybody has so much abundance that they can afford to give, but first off, because everyone is used to living with a little so we're not that attached to hanging on to a lot, and secondly, because there's this idea that we're all in this boat together: the idea that later on someone will take care of me in a moment when I need it. That that's what we do for each other. Take turns.Paragraph one.
So coming back to the metaphor I kind of think of the world as this huge potluck dinner. Sometimes I put something on the table and so does everybody else and sometimes it's only me cooking up a storm and other times I show up empty handed without one single thing to offer and I'm served a this overflowing plate without one judgment or comment. Taking turns. Right now I'm gifted something, later on I will have the chance to gift to someone else. And vice versa, and ad infinitum...the wheel of life.Paragraph one.
Curiously enough I do resonate with the idea of tithing, and related notions of seva or karma yoga. Which are "giving"-based concepts I guess. The idea that I give away a portion of my time or services to those in need, or in support of causes that I believe in, or to spiritual leaders or artists or whomever whom I feel nourish my community or the world in an amazing way and through my gifting they can keep gifting. I don't feel like I owe any person or any institution a portion of my time or services or income, but actually I do feel like I owe it to the universe. In that sense I gift out of my gratitude and generosity, yes, but I also give or exchange or share out of my sense of equality and responsibility. So I pick certain individuals, or groups, or organizations as representatives of the universe. If that makes sense.Paragraph one.
Charles what do you think of these concepts of exchange and tithing and sharing etc etc? I'll be eager to read your book as I'm sure it will blow my mind... Thanks again Kategifting, tithing...
Thank you for these thoughtful comments, Kate. I too have learned a lot about generosity from my time in less developed places. As I mentioned in one of my responses above, I am not so sure about giving only being real when there is no expectation of return. In a traditional gift culture, if a member of the community receives without giving back, eventually he or she will be ostracized. Gift cultues usually had very strong unwritten rules about the appropriateness of gifts. There were, however, some key differences between gift economies and monetary transactions today. For one thing, even if something was expected in return, it was usually not specified in advance. A money transaction is "Give me money or I won't give this to you." In a gift transaction, you give first and hope to get something back, or maybe not hope to, it depends. Secondly, in a gift community the return gift may not come from the recipient of your gift. Gift circulation was very complex, dependent on age, social status, kinship, and so on. In some relationships, you might give much and receive little; in others it might be the opposite.
Gifts that are public, in the view of a community, are crucial in maintaining that community. In fact, some have defined "community" as a group of people who share gifts with each other -- a circle of the gift. You give and you know you will receive from someone else in the circle. So I think that much of our giving should NOT be anonymous, and should be done within a circle of the gift, a community of people who are aware of each other's giving. However, I also think that some of our giving should be done within the broader ecological community, social community, and spiritual community. We should give to the world, to other beings, to humanity, to God. This is where tithing and other forms of anonymous giving come in. Each level is necessary, because we are multi-layered beings composed of an individual self, a family self, a community self, a social self, a planetary self, and a self that partakes in the being of the entire cosmos.
Charles
BRANDING, Biz Models, etc
OK, I've chipped in my $10/month, so I'd like to make some scattered comments.
I love the whole gift economy model. That was the basis for all my own activity for many many years - parties, workshops, booklets, leaflets, zines, all on a purely "donate whatever you can" model. Generally I took a loss but it always felt good. Sometimes I covered my fixed costs. So I thought it was brilliant when Burning Man began to endorse the gift economy idea. Its the part of Eisenstein's writings I like the most. He may be right that the gift, or less rhetorically, the donation economy, may be the way to go for digital culture. (But can we avoid the word "sacred" please? Is it really necessary?)
But, I don't see RS as having started off that way, with that intention. I witnessed up close the early organizing around Metacine/Evolver as a print zine, later morphing into RS the group blog (in fact I can buff my badge a bit and lay claim to having suggested/endorsed the group blog idea in the first place to DP) and it was all very much about creating a viable for-profit business model, alternative in content, perhaps, but very much a for-profit business. There were years of brainstorming and rehashing and recasting different biz plans, in the end only a single pilot issue of a print zine was produced, groovy and slick as it was. I think people got way too hung up on all that stuff in the first place, rather than just hunkering down and getting something real out. But that was all prelude to RS, effectively. With RS I have no insight into the planning process, beyond what the crew have posted publicly so far about it. It seems like the good intentions are there, but even as a longtime moral supporter, content contributor, and now financial donor, I'm still not entirely clear what the actual plan is. Maybe its in a state of metamorphosis.
So, umm, perhaps I've missed some words on this somewhere on this site, ... but ... isn't BRANDING what modern capitalism is all about? Isn't that where RS is going to make its real revenue from, later or sooner? Isn't the whole idea to launch products to build a brand in the long run, which can then be monetized a zillion which ways. The initial products may or may not pay for themselves, but they are a loss-leader for the overall business enterprise, and once a brand is established, all kinds of other niches and opportunities to make a buck become feasible at much reduced overhead.What's seems to me, from the outside, to be going on currently is that RS is operating at a loss in order to develop a BRAND, no? Perhaps someone just underestimated the required time-line to break even?Once the BRAND is popular enough, you can do anything with it: RS ride-sharing services. RS lipgloss. RS video-games for psychic youth. RS new age tours to egypt, chichen itza and shambhala. RS-branded cell phone services. Who knows, any physical product that people want that generates bucks.
Please don't tell me, after years of brainstorming business plans, this wasn't part of the scheme.
OK, so the money just isn't flowing so far in the right quantity from initial attempts like the teleseminars, retreats and backstage passes. How soon did you guys realistically think you were going to break even?
And why no Google ads? 100,000 visitors (or hits? please clarify) a month is easily in the range where a lot of niche sites supposedly support themselves from google ads. RS is saying there's 100,000 "readers", not just 10,000. I'm sure you have a good reason for not using Google ads, but I don't know what it is offhand, and haven't noticed it addressed in all these appeals of late.
SO, ... IF we "users" are being asked to keep the project alive, why not at least share the actual biz plan documents with us supporters, so we have a better idea what our resources are supporting?I don't think its necessary to turn RS into a non-profit operation, but if its really sooo hard to monetize it, maybe that's the way to go.
Really, RS is very similar to public radio / Pacifica stations that are almost entirely supported by their listeners. Unless of course the aim was to USE RS to create a brand to make profits down the road... Those are not for profits.
As an effective small-time investor into a for-profit RS, am I in line to get a share of future RS profits when someone figures out how to capitalize on the brandname? If the aim is not so much to return a "PROFIT" to investors but to provide the service and have the crew make a decent living, then it shouldn't hurt anyone to reveal more about how the money is used, and what the overall biz plan is, than a simple pie chart.
Probably all these are issues the RS crew is wrangling with amongst themselves, and within themselves. There's probably no easy answer. But we are certainly in a time of economic transitionS, and I hope RS and Evolver can become models for a new economics of cultural creation, and a new economics in general.
The thing we are all really lacking is a cool, safe place to keep our money, and see it used for projects in line with our personal vision and principles -- "triple bottom line" in the current parlance: People Planet Profits. I've had my savings for a while now in Permaculture Credit Union. A great cause, unfortunately its almost a zero interest rate. But you know your savings are helping other people implement real sustainability changes in their lives.
I don't think that's a task for RS per se, but it could be something that RS could help articulate and advocate for, and Evolver social NETWORK could help more pragmatically incubate and organize people around.
If you think about the power of leveraged numbers, consider the 50,000 people who attend burning man each year. What if they were all to sink $20 a month into a savings fund, and part of the interest was used for visionary community, cultural projects, and everybody could vote on which projects they wanted the leveraged power of their savings to support? That's $1 MILLION a month. In two years $24Mil. What's the interest on $24mil? Umm, let's see at a modest 5% a year, like, uh, A LOT OF MONEY. supposing we're not all looking for high interest rates, but a minimal rate above inflation, and then using the additional interest for jump-starting needed PROJECTS AND SERVICES. Think how much you can leverage just that semi-liquid fraction with some outside financing? Basically "our own" credit union. Evolver Credit Union. <p>Can you imagine if the entire Burning Man community at large - say a few hundred thousand people, put their entire checking accounts into such a fund?Part of the money could be invested in real communities, buying real estate, blocks of run down homes ($10 homes in Detroit, anyone?) that could be developed as alternative living experiments, and which one could eventually have the option of living in oneself. And if not, at least of having helped support with one's bucks.
There's a pretty good argument that productive land (agriculturally productive, that is) may be the only long-term holder of value as the effects of net energy decline, oil depletion and credit collapse deepen. I have more detailed notes on this scheme I should post soon. There's also an old post on RS along these lines.
Well, nuff random babbling for now. There's a proverbial two cents.
Twist
some responses
Lots of interesting points here! I'll just respond to a couple things.
Very interesting description of the origin of RS. I think they are not the only ones who come to the gift model from somewhere else. Hey, back in the day I had ambitions to become a hot-shit bestselling author and I promoted myself with that end in mind. It was a collossal failure, and it was only when everything totally fell apart that I was born into the gift spirit. It wasn't any particular nobility on my part, that's for sure.
I understand about the "loss leader" model, creating lots of free content with the hopes of somehow monetizing the resulting mindshare in the future. The point I'm making is that this eventual monetization is proving elusive, and that is no coincidence, but inherent in the nature of a digital, P2P medium with near-zero marginal costs. As for Google Ads, I think these are becoming less and less lucrative, right, as they become more ubiquitous. I woudl guess that RS looked at the numbers and decided the revenue wouldn't be worth cluttering up the site, but I don't know for sure.
As for pooling money to invest at interest, as you describe above, risk-free interest is at the root of the essential question I am investigating in my book: Why does money, which should theoretical make us all richer by connecting gifts and needs, instead generate social polarization, environmental destruction, etc.? In some of my earlier RS essays (Money and the Crisis of Civilization, Money and the Turning of the Age) I go into this in depth.
Charles
Give vs. Join
As an NGO, non-profit veteran, I come to Evolver with my own set of prejudices. The vast majority of non-profits and NGOs consider their memberships as passive cash cows, who they milk for the occasional donation. They don't want their memberships to be involved in their organizing or decision making process -- they want them to sign petitions and show up for rallies, and that's basically it. The relationship is clear -- the organization does the work, and the work is supported financially by donors, who are courted aggressively with non-stop emails and direct mail solicitations so the checks keep coming.
When the crisis hit RS/E+, and we had to shift gears, we knew that we didn't want to be that kind of old school, donation supported institution. RS/E+ is largely a volunteer-driven effort. It is hugely an expression of the gift. So many people are bringing their gifts to this project: writers, editors, grassroots organizers, designers, socnet posters, video producers, musicians, dedicated interns of all kinds, etc. Each year, it's hundreds of people. At the same time, we often hear from the broader community -- which participates in the comments threads, posts blogs on Evolver.net, and takes part in our live events -- that they feel a stake in this project, that it means more to them than other websites. Indeed, it's the community that makes what we do special.
Our vision of RS/E+ is for it to embody this multifaceted collaboration in the organization's very structure, that we become a model for a new kind of "interdependent media." That's why we created the Evolver Social Movement -- which simply puts a name on something that was already happening. Rather than receive donations given by passive readers, we want our community to participate in what we do, to join the effort, to contribute whatever they feel is appropriate (money, labor, and resources), and stay involved.
The way we saw it, monthly payments are a better expression of ongoing participation than one-time donations. The fullest expression of someone's gift is their ongoing commitment. So we didn't include a "donate" button.
The program for E+SM is still in development. It's only been five weeks since we decided to take this route, and three weeks since E+SM went live. Our main challenge at the moment is to raise the funds we need to stay in operation. That has to be our focus for the next couple of months, until we establish a financial foundation that ensures this project has a future. But as I said, this is a work in progress. Look at what RS/E+ has achieved over the last three years, and decide for yourself if we're moving in the right direction -- stumbles and all. If you like what you see, I hope you'll join us going forward, in part by making a monthly contribution (of whatever size you choose).
Of course, if you'd prefer to just give once, and have no monthly charges, there are two simple work arounds: You can join E+SM, and after the payment goes through, login to your RS account page and cancel your membership. Canceling only takes a minute and you can do it anytime. Or if you'd rather not use PayPal, you can mail a check, instead. Make it out to Evolver LLC and send it to me (I'm the publisher and handle the bank account): Ken Jordan, Evolver LLC, 400 Argyle Road, Apt. RH7, Brooklyn, NY 11218.
However you choose to participate, I thank you for it.
commitment to transition
institutions
One thing that has always amazed me is that an institution like a corporation or government is perfectly capable of taking actions that *not a single person* in the institution supports. It's not just that a minority gets its way in shoving through an unpopular agenda, it is that NO ONE supports it, but everyone thinks it is iimpractical to do anything otherwise. It is as if the institution had a mind of its own.
Charles
Cultural Sphere/Civil Society is a Healthy Place for Capital
Leap of faith 2
RS Imprint?
Innovating around the psychology of the gift; the golden rule
A couple points for this great article/conversation:
The success of the economy of the gift is built on the promise of self-expression in the support of others and the recognition and community integration which this fosters. The workability of a gift economy thus lies in upholding these facets: self-expression, sense of support, recognition, community integration. The abstract, impersonal nature of money degrades its capacity to facilitate self-expression and recognition. Likewise, the impersonal and instantaneous nature of the money gift makes it a poor catalyst for community integration.
Innovations must be developed which address each of these shortcomings. RS has addressed the latter by implementing the necessity of contributing on a monthly basis, the thought being that monthly contributions would facilitate community integration. While this is a step in the right direction in terms of creative thinking about the problem, my sense is that it is a failure because it hinders the already slim margin for self-expression around the money gift - and the personal freedom which attends and grounds the gift's efficacy. Putting limits on how and what people can give is precisely what needs to be avoided if one wants to enrich the gift economy to a point where it functions at a community-sustaining level.
Essentially what is needed is just the opposite, a system of personalization which cultivates integration by offering opportunities for self-expression, a sense of textural, personal support, and recognition. What might this look like at the level of RS?
Here are a few brainstorms, many of which may be impractical: gifts of user-chosen amounts (no pre-requisite options) for specific articles and other facets of the site, each facet/article with publishable amounts given; gifts for specific uses, i.e. CSA for the office, and published 'registries' of what is urgently needed (note the connection between transparency and the appeal of the gift); gifts other than money; opportunities to publish comments along with gifts (here's my comment and here's the link that says I donated x amount along with it). Reciprocity and giving: give this and we will donate this, expand this, give you this service or access, etc. Partner with like-minded members of the community and organizations to enrich these opportunities. More generally, brainstorm around avenues of self-expression, cultivating a sense in the giver that they are supporting you in an individually recognizable, textural way, cultivating more avenues of recognition, and connecting the community with opportunities to participate. Note the order of operations which makes up the system behind the gift in the first place and follow its logic. I'm sure that you're already doing some of these things too.
One more thing, just a sidenote to Charles. My sense is that the golden rule needs to be looked at as a harbinger of the isolated self mentality. I thought your article was so solid and this stuck out as a less developed aspect. The logic behind the Golden Rule seems to be: others are like me and deserve the same treatment; the best way to understand others is to understand myself; I can love others well by treating them as if they were me. There is perhaps merit in this filter on one level, inasmuch as it helps us to expand our conception of Self, but we must be able to step outside of it and recognize others' difference as well. We are not all the same, and thank God for that. Tuning in to that is a great way of furthering our expansion of Self to include Other without simply projecting ourselves with a small s onto others. Thanks for a fantastic article and I'm looking forward to your book. - Edward
great ideas
That was quite a brainstorm. One of the basic distinguishing characteristics of money is that it is anonymous and anonymizing. That makes it inherently destructive of community, as you have pointed out. But perhaps that shortcoming can be remedied, as some of your ideas seem to do, by attaching something personal to the gift of money. I agree that gifts should be recognized by the community; at least, that is how it always has been in gift economies. Those who give the most deserve to be celebrated.
As for the Golden Rule, I have written elsewhere about it in more depth. But basically what I think is that it started as a mere statement of fact: "As you do unto others, so you are in fact doing unto yourself." This statement of fact was a reminder early on, at a time when our felt connection to Other was only beginning to atrophy. Later, the Rule changed into a prescription, a moral precept to strive toward, and not just a statement of fact. That's my take on it, anyway.
Charles
re: great ideas
I like that reading of the golden rule Charles! Yes that brings out the expanded view of Self, as well as the many times hidden correspondence between self-relation and other-relation - these seem to be the valuable parts of the rule. The trouble comes with projecting oneself onto others and the editing out of difference - and presence - which this involves. What might it look like to permeate the barrier between self and other in a way that allows each to persist, enables us to be present to both aspects of the dialectic of same/different or self/other without gravitating to either pole? In doing so we inevitably give the self's immune system the go ahead to shut out, again, some aspect of reality, and thus isolate itself. A good onion, thanks :)
Economic gift
Cart before the horse
A commercial venture or not? I don't care
'What is realitysandwich.com
If you are so critical of RS
I have no problem with this
I have no problem with this site being a LLC, or even it charging money for membership. I do have an issue with the site posturing as something other then that. My hope is that they clarify that and are honest about it. if they dont I probably will not be here because I will not be paying to be here unless they are straight forward about their motivation. I've no problem supporting a magazine that informs people on interesting subjects. I would have a problem supporting a LLC that postures as a social movement and then charges membership. I have seen it before, and I have seen many profiteer with the façade that they are doing what they are doing for a reason other then profiting.
As it stands currently they seem to be on the fence. So until they fall to one side or the other... I am on the fence as well.
My 2c worth
Getting from A to B...The Transfinancial Paradigm..
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