We usually think abundance is simple: if there is more of something, its price falls and more people can enjoy it. But abundance does something else. It changes how we perceive the thing itself.
1. The Rice Test
Imagine that the world’s best-quality rice becomes available for ₹10 per kilogram. The government also provides every person 10 kilograms free every month.
Rice has not become less nutritious. It has not become less necessary. It may even be better than the rice available to previous generations. Yet something subtle may happen to our relationship with it.
We may stop treating rice as precious.
We would still eat it. We would still care about its quality and taste. But the psychological weight attached to each kilogram could disappear. If there is always more available, wasting a little no longer feels like the same kind of loss.
This reveals something about abundance that economics alone does not capture.
Abundance can preserve utility while reducing perceived value.
2. When Flying Became Ordinary
Flying provides another example.
There was a time when getting onto an aircraft was an extraordinary experience. Air travel represented technology, wealth, distance and possibility. For many people, simply being able to fly was an event worth remembering.
Then aviation became mass transportation.
The aircraft became faster, safer and more accessible. Yet flying itself gradually became ordinary. Today, many passengers board an aircraft, put on their headphones, watch a movie and wait to arrive.
The technology became more remarkable. The experience became less remarkable.
The same pattern appears repeatedly when technological progress converts scarcity into availability.
3. The Television and Mobile Phone Effect
Think about the first colour television in a household. Or the first computer. Or the first mobile phone.
These objects once carried enormous psychological value because they were unusual. Owning one could signal technological progress, prosperity or social status.
Now consider the modern smartphone.
It contains computing power, cameras, communication systems, navigation, entertainment, banking, photography and access to almost the entire world’s information. By historical standards, it is astonishing.
Yet most people do not look at their phone and feel astonished.
It has become an ordinary object.
Mass availability can turn a miracle into an appliance.
That does not mean technology has lost its usefulness. It means our minds have adjusted to its presence.
4. My AI Image Experiment
I noticed the same thing happening to me with AI-generated images.
When I first started using ChatGPT to create images, I was genuinely amazed. A few words could produce something that previously would have required a professional designer, illustrator or photographer.
A good image felt worth examining. I might download several versions because each one seemed valuable.
But gradually something changed.
I began seeing impressive AI images everywhere. X is filled with them. Every few posts can contain another visually striking image.
And my reaction changed.
I no longer feel the need to download every good variation. If an image is good but not perfect, I know I can probably reproduce something similar later. I can give a few clues, change the prompt and generate another version—perhaps an even better one.
The technology has not necessarily become less impressive. My perception of it has changed because I know it is reproducible.
That may be one of the most important psychological effects of abundance.
5. Scarcity Creates Psychological Value
Scarcity does more than determine price.
It changes how we look at things.
When something is difficult to obtain, we pay more attention to it. We preserve it. We hesitate before wasting it. We remember acquiring it. Scarcity can give an ordinary object a psychological significance far beyond its functional usefulness.
Abundance reverses some of that process.
When something is always available, we become familiar with it. Familiarity reduces novelty. Reproducibility reduces attachment.
So the relationship can be expressed simply:
Scarcity → attention → appreciation → perceived value
Abundance → familiarity → indifference → reduced perceived value
This does not mean abundance makes things objectively worthless. It means that the psychological premium created by scarcity can disappear.
Scarcity creates perceived psychological value. Abundance can rip it away.
6. The Perception Distortion of Abundance
This produces a strange paradox.
Something can become objectively better while becoming subjectively less remarkable.
The modern smartphone is vastly more capable than the first mobile phone. Modern air travel is safer and more accessible than early commercial aviation. AI can produce images of extraordinary quality.
Yet none of these improvements guarantee greater psychological appreciation.
Why?
Because our reference point moves.
Yesterday’s extraordinary becomes today’s normal. Today’s normal eventually becomes invisible.
This is a kind of perception distortion created by abundance. The mind does not evaluate an object in isolation. It evaluates it against what has become routinely available.
A person surrounded by abundance may therefore experience less wonder from things that would have astonished someone living in scarcity.
Technology can increase the objective quality of a good while reducing the subjective value of each individual instance.
7. What Happens When Intelligence Becomes Abundant?
This is where the idea becomes much more consequential.
So far, abundance has transformed things such as food, transportation, communication and consumer electronics.
AI could take the same process into the domain of human cognitive output.
What happens if writing becomes abundant? What happens if software becomes abundant? What happens if graphic design, tutoring, analysis, research and expertise become available almost instantly?
And what happens if eventually the quality of that output becomes extraordinary?
The conventional economic question is: How much does it cost to produce this?
But an abundance economy may force us toward another question: Why should this particular piece of output be valuable when millions of alternatives can be produced on demand?
That could change the economics of knowledge itself. It also connects to the broader question explored in The Rise of the Permanent Underclass: The Post-AGI Collapse of the Economic Ladder: if productive output becomes abundant, what happens to the economic value of the people who once produced it?
8. When Almost Everything Becomes Reproducible
But abundance does not necessarily eliminate value.
It can move scarcity.
If everyone can generate beautiful images, the image itself may become less scarce. What becomes scarce could be attention—the willingness of someone to look at one particular image.
If everyone can generate music, a particular song may become less special. A live performance, a personal connection or the identity of the performer may become more important.
If everyone can generate competent writing, authenticity and reputation may matter more.
The same could happen with intelligence.
If everyone has access to extraordinary cognitive assistance, intelligence itself may become less of a status marker. What distinguishes people may increasingly be what they choose to do with that intelligence, whom they trust, what they own, what they experience and what relationships they build.
Abundance therefore does not necessarily produce a world without value. It may produce a world where the location of value keeps moving toward whatever remains difficult to reproduce.
9. The Real Abundance Paradox
Perhaps this is the deeper transformation technology brings.
We usually think abundance means that goods become cheaper and more accessible.
But abundance can also change our perception of the goods themselves.
The rice remains nutritious. The aircraft still crosses continents. The smartphone still contains extraordinary technology. The AI image can still be beautiful.
What changes is us.
We stop seeing the extraordinary because the extraordinary has become ordinary.
And perhaps that is what AGI will eventually do to intelligence itself.
Today, access to exceptional intelligence feels extraordinary. Tomorrow, if intelligence becomes available on demand to everyone, it may feel as ordinary as electricity, mobile connectivity or a television.
The question then becomes not whether we can produce something extraordinary. It becomes: What remains meaningful when extraordinary production becomes ordinary?
When almost everything can be produced, the rarest thing may no longer be the product—it may be the feeling that the product matters.
Related Reading
For a related exploration of abundance, ownership and the future economic ladder: