The problem of Overwelming Abundance on the Internet

The internet is a virtual world where the same social and cultural events happen as in the physical world, yet the virtuality of the internet brings new meanings. Cultural and social events are visible on the internet; anyone is able to join in or visit websites, from anywhere, seemingly cloaked in anonymity, visualized on your screen. The internet is a copy machine and digital content is accessible to anyone. Unlike the physical world, the internet facilitates infinite storage and linkage of digital content. Thus, the web keeps content visible for the public on demand. The factors time and place are no constraints on the web. Openness and affordable prices of online space resulted that there is an oversupply of digital content on the internet. Most internet users do not have the skills to manage the overwhelming abundance on the internet; there is too much choice and too much lack of quality. A search on Google for “good music” brings you about 394,000,000 results, it is impossible to check each result one by one. Our limitation of time – our lifespan is limited - entails that we have to build a new strategy for handling the overwhelming digital overproduction on the internet. This qualitative study applies several instruments from the field of cultural economics in order to confront the problem of overwhelming abundance on the internet. The cultural economic instruments in this study have regard to the complexity of the internet economy; the internet’s virtuality requires an approach that goes beyond mainstream economics. Conventional economists are familiar with the notion of scarcity, yet they are not used to the problem of abundance. The digital overproduction on the internet is crowding out quality; there is an abundance of choice and a lack of quality filtering. In order to ensure quality; it is time for abundance management.