The Dying Hegemonies of Access

Here is an interesting pattern which we can use both to make sense of the past and predict what might be happening in the future. I call it the Dying Hegemonies of Access. For those of you who are not familiar with the word "Hegemony" it is defined by Merriam Webster as "the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group" It used to refer to the ruling families of Europe at the end of the 19th century. But, I am re-purposing the definition to describe a more modern phenomenon. I will begin, in this post, with a simple example. In future posts, I will elaborate on other examples. And I will use this pattern to make predictions beyond the more obvious ones of of today. 

The example I want to begin with is one that is very familiar to everyone - the local bookstore vs. the online bookstore. A couple decades ago, if you wanted to buy a book, you would have to go to your local bookstore. Granted there were some exceptions. There were some used book stores. And some books were available through catalogs. But, the majority of books bought by individuals were acquired through local bookstores. 

We can think of these local bookstores, along with their distributors, as a hegemony of access. That is, they were a social institution that controlled access to reading material. I don't mean this as a criticism. In fact, if it weren't for local bookstores, back then, most people would have almost no access to reading materials. 

But, over time this hegemony of access, like the ruling families or Europe, began to crumble. First, there were discount book sellers who provided less costly access to high volume bestsellers. Then there were large bookstores that provided much greater variety. I can remember when the first Border's Bookstore came to town. Suddenly, I had access to a variety of books that I would have had to live downtown in a major city to get access to previously. Then, of course, the web showed up and Amazon.com provided everyone with access to everything. Eventually, the hegemony of access that was the local bookstore crumbled.

This is a patten we have seen over and over again. I will lay out examples in future posts. It is also a pattern we can use to anticipate what might happen in the future as well. I will provide some examples there too. I would also point out that not every local bookseller is gone. Barnes and Nobel is still around and still very solid. They adapted to the shift in access and there is a lesson to be learned there as well.