Artificial Scarcity and 10 Cent Photos
Channel: Daily Insight
Date: 2017-06-03

Artificial scarcity is a term often associated with capitalism where goods or services are deliberately made scarce despite technology or production methods existing that could easily create an abundance. It’s basically a way for capitalists to make more money. I rarely have to print out photographs as I’m quite happy looking at pictures on my laptop or mobile phone. However, occasionally a situation arises where I have to print some out. The other day, my son’s kindergarten requested that we print out some pictures of the Easter holidays. I didn’t realise that I would be experiencing artificial scarcity first hand. I noticed that Kmart were advertising 10 cent prints, so I went there. I had seven photographs to print so was expecting to pay 70 cents. Makes sense, right? However, the lady at the counter told me that if I wanted the photographs now, I had to pay double that, $1.40. “Okay… How do I get the 10 cent prints?”, I asked. She said if I was happy to wait one hour, I could pay 15 cents each for a total of $1.05. Again I asked, “What about the 10 cent prints?”. She told me that I would have to wait 24 hours to get them for 10 cents each. I wouldn’t have been too concerned if the staff were super busy. However, there were almost no customers there (being late on a Saturday afternoon and all), and apart from myself, nobody was in the photo section. I saw on the girl’s face that she thought the whole situation was completely ridiculous. I loaded up my photos and could see that I was the only order on the computer next to the printer. I could also see a big “Print” button, ready to be pressed. She literally only had to push a single button and I would have had my photos. But in order to do that, Kmart dictated that I had to pay double the price.

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