The title of this post comes from the beautiful book by Co-Blogger David Henderson 2001 The Joy of Freedom: an economist Odyssey. It is one of my favorite books; David catches the optimism of liberalism in a way that few other authors can. Since David wrote the book, the world has entered the digital age. The proliferation of the internet, cheap digital storage and transmission and cloud computing has made amazing levels of creativity and entertainment possible. In particular the Indies Scene.
Indie (independent) artists are artists who are not bound by a certain film studio, video studio or music label. For the digital world, an artist would need a contract with a studio to be a viable artist. The studio dealt with a lot of the “back room” elements of art: promotion, distribution, production, etc. For a reduction in the artist’s income, the studio lower the costs for the artist. However, this system was often full of corruption with studios that often weakened gross terms, IP ownership and other conditions that the artist’s ability to produce considerably (see here In the “Hate capitalism, or hate specific capitalists”). Moreover, the studios tended to work as a conspiration oligopolies: a small group of large companies that worked together to keep prices relatively high by lowering production. Consequently, the genres of art were limited to what the studios were decided for that year ‘in’. With a few exceptions, radical forms of art were not widely promoted.
The digital age heralded a new era of creative freedom. With the rise of platforms of digital content such as YouTube and later Spotify, artists were able to cut out the intermediary. The websites would host, distribute and (via increasingly advanced algorithms) advertise the art of potential consumers. Since the marginal costs of using these sites are almost zero, indie artists can also produce new music and distribute quickly. All kinds of new genres and beautiful music started to originate: Lo-Fi, synthwave, atmospheric, new covers of classic hits, and so on. Indeed, my friend listens to a band that only uses different blunt instruments against different flat surfaces to produce their music. Is it niche? Yes. But that’s it are Niche and thanks to liberal markets he can enjoy it.
We see the same in video games. While the Big Three Studios (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) keep producing and promoting their own games, they also have digital store fronts where Indie developers can sell their games. Some studios, such as the Sabotage Studio, established in Canada, have hit it big: their 2023 game Sea of stars has sold more than 6 million copies since it was released in August 2023. Sea of Stars is a retro-inspired JRPG; It is a love letter to classics such as Chrono trigger. Other studios, such as Remedy Entertainment in Finland, were able to break into the big competitions with their hit Alan Wake (And later Control). Alan Wake and Control are inspired by Lovecraft, which are highly dependent on atmosphere to tell their stories. Such games existed, but were quite rare pre-digital. Now Indie games have their own sections about digital stores and their own Game Award Ceremonies.
Liberal markets, not mercantilism or central planning, created digitization. The market process has broken down the barriers (the costs) that did not develop niches. In contrast to the story ‘Market failure’, these junction thresholds were exactly what caused the ruin of the cartels. Creative entrepreneurs found a way to bypass the entry thresholds by making things digital. Consequently, the market has been expanded and people like me can sit in Louisiana and listen to Atmospheric music made by a South African musician Via a digital streaming service that costs less than a CD.
The joy of freedom comes not only from finding an elbow space of the furious suspicions of someone’s “bters” (to paraphrase Thomas Sowell). It is the ability to be creative, to enjoy, to satisfy a niche. Do you want a heavy metal number about how great it is to be a dwarf? You can have it. A gender-sampled version of Stacy’s mother named Stacy’s Dad? Friend, I have news for you. Freedom is the freedom to be You. Markets promote that freedom.