Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

.... but in practice I don't think this is worth worrying about because the possibility of piracy already acts as downward pressure on prices to keep them reasonable. ie. govts regulating media pricing is a bad idea because the pricing is "regulated" by The Pirate Bay already.

"Negative externality" is a weird take on the organic generation of a cultural schelling point but ok

The argument may be easier to see if you substitute "JK Rowling's work" with eg. "Facebook". But I would agree that the effects in the former case are much milder than in the latter case

I'd argue that one might sooner bite the *other* bullet than favor a world that broadly hamstrings its own ability to navigate search space for the best stuff

Who is proposing hamstringing the ability to navigate the search space for the best stuff?

You've described one major process by which this occurs as a "negative externality." Maybe you're defining that in some way other than what I'm accustomed to.

*Having* a negative externality, not *being* a negative externality. The point is that one component of the motivation to see popular things comes specifically from their popularity-qua-popularity, and not their quality-as-evidenced-by-their-popularity.

I just tend to assume that virality is adaptive, and that the apparent quality of e.g. Harry Potter even on sober reflection should be reassuring. If anything, I'd pick on the social status goods that *don't* gain value as they're made *more* accessible, e.g. Rolex watches