Against Scarcity

Virtual worlds and NFT platforms largely replicate the scarcity economics of physical land, even though digital goods can be copied without limit. Decentraland's 90,000 land parcels go to the highest bidders, and Upland sells map squares of a simulated New York Stock Exchange for $23,000, so what is called decentralization mainly shifts power to wealthy buyers. Roblox, by contrast, gives users free land and building tools but leaves creators to impose artificial scarcity by charging for access. Drawing on Murray Bookchin's 1971 Post-Scarcity Anarchism, it asks what an online economy without artificial scarcity would look like while still rewarding contributors.