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Trading Analog Dollars for Digital Pennies

December 1, 2008
by Fred Wilson
Principal, Union Square Ventures

Fred Wilson

Jeff Zucker, head of NBC Universal, was famously quoted earlier this year warning that the media industry had to work so “that we do not end up trading analog dollars for digital pennies.” It’s a great line and an even better observation. But I think it’s inevitable and it’s going to happen no matter how hard they try to avoid it. Analog and digital, it turns out, are polar opposites. Analog has physical costs which lead to scarcity-driven business models. Digital has zero marginal cost (or near zero), which leads to ubiquity-driven business models.

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