Scarce Again
When machines make copies free, a few human things turn expensive. Kevin Kelly names them.
In 2008, the copy machine was the internet.
In 2026, it’s AI.
Type a prompt, wait a few seconds, and out comes a competent essay.
A usable logo.
A decent chunk of code.
And it doesn’t stop at copies, it generates endless fresh variations, all for nothing.
Which leaves a question worth sitting with: if a machine can produce a “good enough” version of what you make, instantly and endlessly and for free, what are people still paying you for?
Kevin Kelly figured this out back in 2008, and it’s even more true today.
The line that reorganized how I think about my own work:
“When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. Stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.”
For most of history, the copy was the product.
You paid for the copy.
Now the copy is free, so the money moves to everything wrapped around it that a machine can’t fake.
Kelly calls these “generatives.”
Qualities you have to grow, in place, over time, between you and one real person. You can’t store them, clone them, or download them.
Trust is one of them.
You can’t prompt your way to it. You can’t buy it. You earn it, and a stranger will choose the person they trust over the cheaper unknown every time.
Kelly names eight of these. I won’t list them here, because the exercise only works when you find the one that’s yours.
Which is why I can be straight with you about how this newsletter gets made.
I didn’t think up today’s idea. Kevin Kelly did. My job is to read widely and carry the one thing that shifts how I see the world across to you. That’s curation, and it’s most of the work.
AI now runs through all of it, from the way I hunt for ideas to the way I shape the sentences. I use it openly, and I’m an optimist about where it’s headed.
Because AI only makes the words cheap. It can’t hand you the taste that pulled this idea out of a thousand others, or the trust that made you open the email. The tools keep getting better. The reason you’re here hasn’t moved.
Read Kevin Kelly’s updated essay, “Better Than Free,” on Tim Ferriss’s blog.
That’s it for this week.
Manoj
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These are precious curations Manoj 🙌🏽