In 1930, at a time of tremendous economic pessimism, the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay filled with optimism. It was titled ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’, and in this essay, Keynes envisioned what 2030 would be like. The main thrust of this essay was that any sort of economic recessions are temporary, and in the long term, such economic problems will be solved for good. To quote him exactly, “I draw the conclusion that, assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not, if we look into the future, the permanent problem of the human race.” But there have been a few important wars, as well as great increases in population, which is probably why we will miss the 2030 deadline that Keynes set, but his basic assertion still holds. Sooner or later, we will all be living in a society where people will have more time for leisure than time that is needed for various definitions of “work”. A lot of great science fiction, such as one of my all-time favourites, The Culture series by Iain M Banks, gives us insight into what such a future may look like. There is also a famous Richard M Stallman quote on how the idea of such a future is what motivated him to start the GNU Project. He said, “In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counselling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.” But I see a set of startups, even from a purely Indian perspective, that gives us glimpses into parts of such futures, both in terms of what kind of work there might be, as well as what people might do for leisure.
When you have a lot of time to spare, you will travel a lot. The sort of travel that is different from ‘a Cook’s tour’ (a British idiom that refers to a brief and cursory look at a place, having its origins in the 19th Century packaged tours organised by Thomas Cook, the likes of which are still popular today) but is instead something that is more immersive and centred around fairly specific interests of the traveller. These interests may have to do with sports, music, art, or just about anything else. Pickyourtrail, Sportytrip, Eventraveler, are all startups that are doing this.
When you have a lot of time to spare, things that you had previously consigned to the category of ‘hobbies’ (such a quaint word already, no?) become all-consuming passions. These could range from playing certain sports, to playing musical instruments, heck, even something like quizzing. And when markets for what were earlier niche interests grow exponentially, you will see startups very quickly catering to those needs. In India today, I can see around half-a-dozen startups catering to any pastime of note. And it is only a matter of time before they become far more formidable than they are now.
Also, as we inch closer to a world of plenty, the value of curation increases many-fold. And that is probably a topic for a future column.
