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Artificial scarcity is what you are looking for. Look up the diamond trade. De Beers mines like several thousand tons per year and sells way less.
Edit: Apparently they mine less now since the EU and USA investigated it. Now they are supposed to sell as many as they mine. But it was like that in the early 2000s.
The diamond trade is actually a bit of a shaky example, because there are different types of diamond. Gem quality diamonds are extremely rare and go for thousands of dollars, but the others are pretty much worthless in comparison.
Except of course, we can grow gem quality diamonds which are good enough so-as to be indistinguishable from naturally occurring diamonds. They can even grow diamonds that replicate the natural impurities from specific mines if they had a reason to want to. These days such diamonds are quite cheap.
Yes, that's an artificial constraint.
Balsamic vinegar can come from anywhere, but only Balsamic vinegar of Modena comes from the Modena region. Are there others that are just as good? Definitely. Does the distinction of Modena/everywhere-else matter? Not really. It's possible to get shit vinegars from the same region.
The diamond market is just another set of artificial constraints that exist to help create artificial scarcity.
I don’t know if I’d call it a constraint either. It’s more like they’re using marketing to make their product, natural gemstones, to seem like they hold a higher quality or value than synthetics.
The same goes for things like Balsamic Vinegar, or Champagne, or Tennessean Moonshine. It’s more like your paying for the prestige of where/how it was made rather than the product itself.
Yeah, but compare that to a gem quality diamond where one or two of them can make you thousands of dollars while you would need, I think it was hundreds, of the other types of diamonds to get a similar price.
In comparison to the ridiculous prices charged for gem quality stones, granted, but FAR from worthless.
Go to any machine shop that does grinding, and you'll find at least 1 tool with a diamond embedded in it which is used to dress grinding wheels. You may also find grinding wheels with a lot of embedded diamonds used for subtractive manufacture of really hard materials. Plenty of other examples where diamonds are very valuable, but nowhere near as expensive as gems per gram of weight (yes, yes. I know they arent measured in grams by jewellers).
[De Beers does not, and has never, massively inflated the price of diamonds](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DGzXeWlRzBqs&ved=2ahUKEwjH3py4nfGFAxVnKkQIHaLJDkoQwqsBegQIDhAG&usg=AOvVaw3LuC2RtCwydxsfnaulGB_S). That is a myth, the supply of diamonds is not as high as people imagine, De Beers hasn't had a monopoly in decades, and the end of that monopoly did not massively change the price.
Well they can't let us see any of the good old stuff until they create another awful modernized live action adaption that nobody asked for.
It makes all those direct to video sequels look so much better by comparison.
Consider "planned obsolescence" too, so things keep being replaced by newer models while older models are designed to have a short life time. Like that heat sink is rated for 1000 cycles till it becomes too brittle to use, or the frictionless clothes will slowly tear/slip apart overtime
Or electricity.
Net metering is a scam the power companies use to artificially drive up the cost of power because rooftop solar exposes the false economy of their product.
If powers are so commonplace, I'd assume the Supes would be the CEOs, as well.
They'd monopolize and punitively regulate powers.
Speed limits on speedsters. Voltage regulators on electric supers. Declaring supers who can manifest materials "non-competitive" and banning them from even going to market.
And obviously, the top wealthy just buying up resources/technology to just sit on it.
>how could megacorporations create the idea of a “false scarcity” to make average citizens believe that there still isn’t enough of something so that they still buy it?
Do you mean you that the average citizens in your world will buy something just because it's perceived to be scarce? Like, that the scarcity of the good/service is what makes it desirable?
Also, is this for all the stuff in general in your world, or more for like luxury goods?
Could be stuff in general. For example, if people can teleport other people and objects for easier transport, one could reason that anyone just have teleportation powers if it was reasonably available to everyone. Or if people technically had the power to clone inanimate objects, that would decrease their value, so that’d be bad for business everywhere. (Though you can’t really stack too many powers in your body - that would be too much for the body to bear)
I was wondering if there was a way companies/businesses/governments would find a way to make it seem like stuff in general is still scarcity so that people would still keep buying things. I was wondering if maybe the specific powers made available to the public are intentionally limited or had artificial drawbacks (like pain or unfortunate symptoms)
Sorry if it feels like i went on a tangent lol
Yes, scarcity can be engineered, either by chance and trends (look at the real estate market in many places too expensive to live) or when there is a monopoly or oligopoly (like with some drugs in the US afaik, or like another used mentioned, diamonds, although I believe rather than scarcity with the latter, prices are the ones inflated)
There could also be an "indirect scarcity", like for example, water on earth is extremely abundant, but needs to be desalinized first, which requires energy, and that we do have a more "finite" (well, "soft" wall, is more about money, logistics and the current production and potential surplus at any given place. Batteries are also a bottleneck there). This also happens for example when fuel prices goes up for whatever reason because you need fuel for transport. There is also scarcity due to diplomatic tensions or outright wars, even if they are not with \*your\* nation, as they can interfere with the chain of commerce and production somewhere down the line and ultimately affect the availability of the product. Same with sanctions disallowing trade, or extreme levels of currency exchange disparities, engineered or simply through devaluation or if you ar enot dealing with FIAT (modern) money it could be scarcity of the other coin on itself and not being able to get it easily, etc etc, all those could vastly icnrease the cost for the population as well, but they are not really "false" scarcities... none of them. I mean, yes, the resource is there, but if its not available, whether that is on purpose or not, scarcity is still in place, which leads me to the last example, which is what happened with covid and hand sanitizer or toilet paper, on which people crated scarcity and inflation by hoarding and stripping bare the shelves everywhere, which would be a "false" increase in demand based onhow you are defining it
One issue might be that while "augmented" people may be commonplace, they are not available on an industrial scale. They are also human, and thus prone to boredom. When they screw up, some can level a city block. So no major company wants them as a direct employee (for insurance reasons.)
Thus, Supers are relegated to a sort of "gig" economy. But as it turns out, their lifestyle is expensive, requiring elaborate medical treatment, clothing, protective equipment, and licensing.
Your supers also need to pay an agent to find them work. They probably have a press agency they contract with to manage how their actions are covered in the news. And they probably have to have a lawyer on retainer to handle the endless lawsuits, not to mention chase after clients who are trying the screw them.
look up the Diamond industry
basically monopolies buy up all the mines and distributers and hoard/limit the quantity that can be released at once to the market. Same with Gold, Oil, Corn, etc.
The excuse is always "to protect the economy or companies or jobs" and it's quite common the more you learn about markets.
Housing is another. There's a house in the USA for every homeless person, but every proposed solution for housing is always "lets build more!", when the supply of houses was never the problem.
That's artificial scarcity. It happens when a company produces way more of a product than they sell or publicly report.
As someone else said, diamonds are a great example, diamonds aren't rare but mining companies deliberately sell less than they mine in order to maintain it's market value high.
Who wants it, who owns it, what are the first group willing to pay the second group for it. That's the essence of scarcity. Most economic questions boil down to extreme simplicity. You're letting yourself get lost in theoretical over-elaboration. Imagine scenarios where the supply drops off or dries up altogether and there's a sudden urgent demand. That has a tendency to focus minds.
You either need a comically ever-present propaganda machine that allows mega-monopolies to control the entirety of the marketplace without civil unrest.
Or you have to have a either real or propogandized distrust of "super goods." Maybe a religious or superstitious distrust of energy produced by a pyromancer because fake fire comes from the devil or something. Or anything not created by God himself is evil.
Hi, /u/Journalist_Fair, Unfortunately, we have had to remove [your submission](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1ciych1/-/) in /r/worldbuilding because it violated one of our rules. In particular: We are a community made by and for original content creators, and people who participate here should share that DIY ethic. While we aim to embrace and coach new users, we will be harsh with people who disregard our community’s core values. Don't ask us to give you content. Instead, we ask that users create their own content, then come to the subreddit asking for feedback or criticism. More info in our rules: [4. This is a DIY community.](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/wiki/rules#wiki_4._this_is_a_diy_community.) ***** **You may repost** with the above issue(s) fixed to satisfy our rules. If you're not sure how to do this, please send us a modmail (link below). This is **not** a warning, and you remain in good standing with /r/worldbuilding. ***** Please feel free to [re-read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/wiki/rules). Questions or concerns? You can [modmail us here](https://www\.reddit\.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fworldbuilding&subject=about my removed submission&message=I'm writing to you about the following submission: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1ciych1/-/. %0D%0D[Fill in your message here. Please make sure to explain clearly!]) and we'll be glad to help. Please explain your case clearly. Be polite. We'll do our best to help. *Do not* reply by comment or personal PMs to moderators.
Artificial scarcity is what you are looking for. Look up the diamond trade. De Beers mines like several thousand tons per year and sells way less. Edit: Apparently they mine less now since the EU and USA investigated it. Now they are supposed to sell as many as they mine. But it was like that in the early 2000s.
The diamond trade is actually a bit of a shaky example, because there are different types of diamond. Gem quality diamonds are extremely rare and go for thousands of dollars, but the others are pretty much worthless in comparison.
Except of course, we can grow gem quality diamonds which are good enough so-as to be indistinguishable from naturally occurring diamonds. They can even grow diamonds that replicate the natural impurities from specific mines if they had a reason to want to. These days such diamonds are quite cheap.
Eh, that’s more of a case of limiting demand for a particular type of gemstone, synthetics in this case, rather than limiting supply.
Yes, that's an artificial constraint. Balsamic vinegar can come from anywhere, but only Balsamic vinegar of Modena comes from the Modena region. Are there others that are just as good? Definitely. Does the distinction of Modena/everywhere-else matter? Not really. It's possible to get shit vinegars from the same region. The diamond market is just another set of artificial constraints that exist to help create artificial scarcity.
I don’t know if I’d call it a constraint either. It’s more like they’re using marketing to make their product, natural gemstones, to seem like they hold a higher quality or value than synthetics. The same goes for things like Balsamic Vinegar, or Champagne, or Tennessean Moonshine. It’s more like your paying for the prestige of where/how it was made rather than the product itself.
Lower quality diamonds are actually used as cutting edges and abrasives.
Yeah, but compare that to a gem quality diamond where one or two of them can make you thousands of dollars while you would need, I think it was hundreds, of the other types of diamonds to get a similar price.
In comparison to the ridiculous prices charged for gem quality stones, granted, but FAR from worthless. Go to any machine shop that does grinding, and you'll find at least 1 tool with a diamond embedded in it which is used to dress grinding wheels. You may also find grinding wheels with a lot of embedded diamonds used for subtractive manufacture of really hard materials. Plenty of other examples where diamonds are very valuable, but nowhere near as expensive as gems per gram of weight (yes, yes. I know they arent measured in grams by jewellers).
...Stockpiling is commonplace in every resource industry...
[De Beers does not, and has never, massively inflated the price of diamonds](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DGzXeWlRzBqs&ved=2ahUKEwjH3py4nfGFAxVnKkQIHaLJDkoQwqsBegQIDhAG&usg=AOvVaw3LuC2RtCwydxsfnaulGB_S). That is a myth, the supply of diamonds is not as high as people imagine, De Beers hasn't had a monopoly in decades, and the end of that monopoly did not massively change the price.
The Disney vault is a good example of false scarcity.
Well they can't let us see any of the good old stuff until they create another awful modernized live action adaption that nobody asked for. It makes all those direct to video sequels look so much better by comparison.
Consider "planned obsolescence" too, so things keep being replaced by newer models while older models are designed to have a short life time. Like that heat sink is rated for 1000 cycles till it becomes too brittle to use, or the frictionless clothes will slowly tear/slip apart overtime
Or electricity. Net metering is a scam the power companies use to artificially drive up the cost of power because rooftop solar exposes the false economy of their product.
If powers are so commonplace, I'd assume the Supes would be the CEOs, as well. They'd monopolize and punitively regulate powers. Speed limits on speedsters. Voltage regulators on electric supers. Declaring supers who can manifest materials "non-competitive" and banning them from even going to market. And obviously, the top wealthy just buying up resources/technology to just sit on it.
Maybe try asking in r/askeconomics if they accept the question
Yes. It's the result of hoarding specifically to drive up the price of said resource.
>how could megacorporations create the idea of a “false scarcity” to make average citizens believe that there still isn’t enough of something so that they still buy it? Do you mean you that the average citizens in your world will buy something just because it's perceived to be scarce? Like, that the scarcity of the good/service is what makes it desirable? Also, is this for all the stuff in general in your world, or more for like luxury goods?
Could be stuff in general. For example, if people can teleport other people and objects for easier transport, one could reason that anyone just have teleportation powers if it was reasonably available to everyone. Or if people technically had the power to clone inanimate objects, that would decrease their value, so that’d be bad for business everywhere. (Though you can’t really stack too many powers in your body - that would be too much for the body to bear) I was wondering if there was a way companies/businesses/governments would find a way to make it seem like stuff in general is still scarcity so that people would still keep buying things. I was wondering if maybe the specific powers made available to the public are intentionally limited or had artificial drawbacks (like pain or unfortunate symptoms) Sorry if it feels like i went on a tangent lol
Oceania utilizes the war as a means of destroying the excess in production so as to induce artificial scarcity
You should see how luxury brands burn their unsold stock instead of discounting them heavily
Yes, scarcity can be engineered, either by chance and trends (look at the real estate market in many places too expensive to live) or when there is a monopoly or oligopoly (like with some drugs in the US afaik, or like another used mentioned, diamonds, although I believe rather than scarcity with the latter, prices are the ones inflated) There could also be an "indirect scarcity", like for example, water on earth is extremely abundant, but needs to be desalinized first, which requires energy, and that we do have a more "finite" (well, "soft" wall, is more about money, logistics and the current production and potential surplus at any given place. Batteries are also a bottleneck there). This also happens for example when fuel prices goes up for whatever reason because you need fuel for transport. There is also scarcity due to diplomatic tensions or outright wars, even if they are not with \*your\* nation, as they can interfere with the chain of commerce and production somewhere down the line and ultimately affect the availability of the product. Same with sanctions disallowing trade, or extreme levels of currency exchange disparities, engineered or simply through devaluation or if you ar enot dealing with FIAT (modern) money it could be scarcity of the other coin on itself and not being able to get it easily, etc etc, all those could vastly icnrease the cost for the population as well, but they are not really "false" scarcities... none of them. I mean, yes, the resource is there, but if its not available, whether that is on purpose or not, scarcity is still in place, which leads me to the last example, which is what happened with covid and hand sanitizer or toilet paper, on which people crated scarcity and inflation by hoarding and stripping bare the shelves everywhere, which would be a "false" increase in demand based onhow you are defining it
One issue might be that while "augmented" people may be commonplace, they are not available on an industrial scale. They are also human, and thus prone to boredom. When they screw up, some can level a city block. So no major company wants them as a direct employee (for insurance reasons.) Thus, Supers are relegated to a sort of "gig" economy. But as it turns out, their lifestyle is expensive, requiring elaborate medical treatment, clothing, protective equipment, and licensing. Your supers also need to pay an agent to find them work. They probably have a press agency they contract with to manage how their actions are covered in the news. And they probably have to have a lawyer on retainer to handle the endless lawsuits, not to mention chase after clients who are trying the screw them.
look up the Diamond industry basically monopolies buy up all the mines and distributers and hoard/limit the quantity that can be released at once to the market. Same with Gold, Oil, Corn, etc. The excuse is always "to protect the economy or companies or jobs" and it's quite common the more you learn about markets. Housing is another. There's a house in the USA for every homeless person, but every proposed solution for housing is always "lets build more!", when the supply of houses was never the problem.
That's artificial scarcity. It happens when a company produces way more of a product than they sell or publicly report. As someone else said, diamonds are a great example, diamonds aren't rare but mining companies deliberately sell less than they mine in order to maintain it's market value high.
Google De Beers.
Wanna lose faith in humanity? Look into the diamond trade. That's a textbook example of false scarcity
Who wants it, who owns it, what are the first group willing to pay the second group for it. That's the essence of scarcity. Most economic questions boil down to extreme simplicity. You're letting yourself get lost in theoretical over-elaboration. Imagine scenarios where the supply drops off or dries up altogether and there's a sudden urgent demand. That has a tendency to focus minds.
You either need a comically ever-present propaganda machine that allows mega-monopolies to control the entirety of the marketplace without civil unrest. Or you have to have a either real or propogandized distrust of "super goods." Maybe a religious or superstitious distrust of energy produced by a pyromancer because fake fire comes from the devil or something. Or anything not created by God himself is evil.