Sam Blumenthal

Creative works are social objects in the fullest sense — they exist in a nexus of social, cultural, and legal links to other people and things, and they are only valuable to the extent they can fully participate in their whole context. Rights regimes restrict known rights, but also create rights if they are well designed, driving generativity.

When it comes to buying, more buyers can be validating. Unlike the rise of social vertical communities—a promising trend in its own right—the success of a shopatainment platform isn’t about fostering community and intimacy among a small group of fellow shoppers. Shopatainment is a numbers game, where seeing more shoppers purchase a product helps... See more

A few weeks later, a designer brand that was moving its headquarters reached out to the couple to help sell excess inventory. The brand had about 700 pairs of shoes it wanted to unload. Within three hours, during a livestream on Taobao, Yuan and Zhang sold all the merchandise.