What is the Ignorance Economy - John Armitage

Part I: What is the Ignorance Economy?

by Jeff Molander

“Utube.com is making a mistake in suing YouTube.com for the misdirected traffic (Web site visitors) it gets. Doesn’t Utube realize the grand gift it has been given? Many sites would kill for that much traffic — even accidental traffic… Drop the suit, Utube. Revel in people’s ignorance.”

Christopher Mahoney
San Francisco
(via Inc. Magazine)

Digital media and advertising technology. It surrounds and sometimes engulfs us. Business people, parents, legislators… we’re all forced to cope with technology and the advancements it brings. It perpetually confounds yet pleases us.

The commercialization of knowledge has been a big part of our advancing world. If there is a Knowledge Economy (a widely accepted business notion) might there be an Ignorance Economy too?

We live in a globalized, knowledge-centric world where services are replacing manufacturing and information is more valuable than physical stuff. Being ignorant today is dangerous… right? Well… not really. Not knowing can be empowering, freeing and can make one feel as powerful as knowing.

In a technically challenged world not knowing can sometimes feel just fine. People will even pay money to not know — so as to access desired goodies. John Armitage - Ignorance Economy

“As products from cars to computers become more and more technologically sophisticated, many consumers are content to let manufacturers and service companies take on the burden of understanding how such products work and how to repair them when they fail to work in the expected manner.”

The above is offered by Doctors Joanne Roberts (Newcastle University Business School) and John Armitage (Northumbria University) who are releasing a groundbreaking paper arguing for the existence of a growing, global economy based on what humans do not know (PDF). Specifically, they argue…

“… the so-called knowledge economy is one wherein the production and use of knowledge also implies the creation and exploitation of ignorance. For not only knowledge but also ignorance now plays a main role in the formation of advanced global capitalism.”

Drs. Roberts and Armitage successfully argue — for the first time — that ignorance is fundamentally and simultaneously tied to the global Knowledge Economy. They’re intertwined.

Capitalism, today, produces ignorance as a commercial product. As I’ll discuss in Part II, there is an unrivaled, growing demand for ignorance in the digital media and advertising industry that has led to the unbridled enrichment of few at the expense of many.

October 24, 2007

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Alex So
June 19th, 2008 at 9:54 am

I’m guessing that Utube’s bandwidth is growing due to the misdirected traffic. UTube was registered on Oct. 1996 while YouTube on Feb. 2005. Like you said, it would be best for UTube to capitalize on the free traffic being generated their way.

Time is becoming a precious resource and there’s a limit to what we can do with our time. Searching for information and learning cost time. We need to look at what’s the ROI on the time invested in such activities.

I remember I used to spend half an hour going through stacks of coupons that saves me around 0.50 cents each. I sometimes even buying something I never planned because of the discount.

Well, not anymore. I have better use for my time. I rather use the time to enjoy life right now instead of sometime in the future, which might not never come.

And that involves not know everything there is to know. Maybe there is truth to the saying “Ignorance is bliss”.