Prosumer

A prosumer is a person who consumes and produces a product. It is derived from 'prosumption', a dot-com era business term meaning 'production by consumers'. These terms were coined in 1980 by American futurist Alvin Toffler, and were widely used by many technology writers of the time. Today it generally refers to a person using commons-based peer production. A prosumer is a person who consumes and produces a product. It is derived from 'prosumption', a dot-com era business term meaning 'production by consumers'. These terms were coined in 1980 by American futurist Alvin Toffler, and were widely used by many technology writers of the time. Today it generally refers to a person using commons-based peer production. 'Prosumer' is also a trade term, used from a business perspective, for high-end electronic devices (such as digital cameras), meaning a price point between 'professional' and 'consumer' devices. This blurring of the roles of consumers and producers has its origins in the cooperative self-help movements that sprang up during various economic crises e.g. the Great Depression in the 1930s. Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt suggested in their 1972 book Take Today, (p. 4) that with electric technology, the consumer would become a producer. In the 1980 book, The Third Wave, futurologist Alvin Toffler coined the term 'prosumer' when he predicted that the role of producers and consumers would begin to blur and merge (even though he described it in his book Future Shock from 1970). Toffler envisioned a highly saturated marketplace as mass production of standardized products began to satisfy basic consumer demands. To continue growing profit, businesses would initiate a process of mass customization, that is the mass production of highly customized products. However, to reach a high degree of customization, consumers would have to take part in the production process especially in specifying design requirements. In a sense, this is merely an extension or broadening of the kind of relationship that many affluent clients have had with professionals like architects for many decades. However, in many cases architectural clients are not the only or even primary end-consumers, a distinction touched upon in the H+ Magazine essay 'Prosumption Architecture: The Decentralization of Architectural Agency as an Economic Imperative'. Toffler has extended these and many other ideas well into the 21st-century. Along with more recently published works such as Revolutionary Wealth (2006), we can recognize and assess both the concept and fact of the prosumer as it is seen and felt on a worldwide scale. That these concepts are having global impact and reach, however, can be measured in part by noting in particular, Toffler's popularity in China. Discussing some of these issues with Newt Gingrich on C-SPAN's After Words program in June 2006, Toffler mentioned that The Third Wave is the second ranked bestseller of all time in China, just behind a work by Mao Zedong. Don Tapscott reintroduced the concept in his 1995 book The Digital Economy. Despite several decades of usage, the term only recently began to receive full theoretical elaboration. George Ritzer and Nathan Jurgenson, in a widely cited article, claim that prosumption has become a salient characteristic of Web 2.0. Prosumers create value for companies without receiving wages. Mass customization has not taken place in most areas of the economy. Mass customization has ruled the food & beverage industry for years. Look at how many choices we are faced with in the grocery stores and supermarkets. Brand extension and dilution are ways companies have sold more under various names, giving us thousands of choices. Most consumption continues to be passive as critics of television, recorded music, and fast food would argue. Indeed, people are generally uninterested in going to the effort of customizing the myriad products that comprise modern consumer culture. In The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, Barry Schwartz argues that diminishing returns from a confusing abundance of consumer choice is producing stress and dissatisfaction.3 Still, one key area of high-customization is taking place: highly involved hobbyists.