The Mainstream Problem

I’ve previously referred to a phenomena, which I’ve chosen to term the mainstream problem. The mainstream problem describes the effect that distribution of information and cultural expressions acquires “hitlist” characteristics, when subjected to limited space, time or attention.

Chris Anderson, spokesperson for the advantages of the online niche economy in his book The Long Tail, describes ‘mainstream’ as that which many people are moderately interested in, while ‘niche’ describes that which passionately interest few people.

In industrial mass media such as the publishing, newspaper or television industry the scarcity of ressources means that one produces the product which sells well enough to finance it’s production. Since most people collectively demand the mainstream product, this product sells best and is therefore the one produced. This does not imply, however, that the mainstream product is the best. But it is the best possible product given a specific set of economical conditions, borne by specific means of production, which are too expensive to fulfill the needs of the niches.

A limited space (such as a webpage, the frontpage of a newspaper, television air time or the size of a screen) leaves space for just some information, in place of other information. Given the economical constraints discussed above, this space will be distributed according to ‘most popular’ hitlist criteria, meaning that the mainstream information, i.e. the information which hits the most people moderately, but none passionately, takes up the space.

The effect of displaying information this way is often amplified, since more people will take a closer look at the contents of the frontpage and further strengthen the visibility of the mainstream information. On the web, social recommendations strengthens this hit economy, in what has been termed the Justin Timberlake effect. On websites such as YouTube it has the effect, that few videos have millions of views, while millions of videos count below one hundred views.

As the amount of information on the internet grows (millions of new websites are created every month globally) the mainstream problem becomes a greater and greater problem for our access to relevant information on the web. The information may well be accessible somewhere on the net, but it is no good, if noone sees it or is capable of finding it – or rather, if people who wants it doesn’t see it or is capable of finding it.

Even Google will have a problem showing search results which are more than just moderately interesting for the websurfer, unless he or she has the patience to trawl the search results for the results which are passionately interesting. A main component of Google’s PageRank-algoritm is how many incoming links a given website has. This makes Google vulnerable to the same problem. The more who link to a website, the more visible the site will be on Google, all other things equal. The more visible it becomes, the more people will likely link to the site.

What is interesting to us, is what happens, when the economics change. Because they have already changed, and they are changing fast. There are no expensive means of production, which justify the limitations imposed on cultural production. The means of cultural production today equals the costs of a computer and an internet connection. But it is only slowly dawning on us. We have become so accustomed to the economics of limitations, that it is difficult adjusting to the economics of abundance.

Timeline

← Paid work and fan work
→ Amazon’s eCommerce Offer