The only thing worth buying is a real product that you can touch
I was having this discussion the other day about virtual online products and the topic came up that unless something is real it has no value.
While I understand the premise of this statement, it is utterly incorrect. We were talking about books basically and that a virtual book isn’t as valuable as a real book you can hold in your hand.
In fact, it is not true at all.
I can go to the store and buy a book of paper, notebooks or journals, and they cost money. Now, there is nothing written in the books, it is just blank pages. It is up to me to fill those pages with whatever I want to.
So, the value of a journal, is not the paper it is written on, but what it is I write in it. So it is with all books. The information is actually virtual, it only becomes ”real” when it is printed so you can read it. But, you don’t have to read it in a book, you can read it online, you can listen to it on your mp3 player, you can print it out at home from a PDF.
Information in itself is a virtual product. The delivery method is totally secondary in determing the value of it.
In school I went to class, the teacher talked and I took notes. Well, the teacher talking isn’t ”real”, is it? You can’t touch speech in thin air. The ears pick up the vibrations and your mind reinterprets those sound waves into information and you record it on paper or into you computer or recording device. Then it is ”real”: But the information is NOT REAL, it is VIRTUAL:
Music is possibly the best example of this. Music is NOT the notes written on paper. A 16th note is not really one sixteenth of a beat. Listen to any computer generated music from a score and it immediately becomes clear that music in the ”ether” as Napoleon Hill would call it, is not the audio equivalent of the notes on the page. The notes on the page is simply a way of recording ideas, it isn’t the idea itself. So, musicians who harp on an exactness that creates a digital musicality are without a doubt the most boring musicians that exist.
When the interpreter lifts the notes off of the page and sets them to sound, then and only then does it have any value at all. Notes on paper have no value. It is the music which is transformed out of it that gives it value, life.
Now, when considering the products that are offered in the virtual realm of the internet, the value of them has absolutely nothing to do with the platform it is on, no, the value lies solely in the content. In fact it is purer than a real product, because it can easily be updated and improved on, without spending thousands of dollars reprinting the next edition.
Besides, there is enough ”real” stuff litering the world isn’t there? Do we really need to have millions of printed books every year? Cheap paperback novels or out of date text books are a waste of material if you ask me. Plus, if all you did was construct virtual textbooks, then students could save a lot of money as opposed to paying for a text book they use for one semester and then try to sell at the end of it. I usually kept my text books, because I always saw them as a great way to catalogue what I was learning.
In the products of the Empower Network, it is all virtual. There are pdf files that you can download as well as the mp3 recordings of the inner circle so you can listen anywhere at anytime. But the idea that these products aren’t ”real” is silly. Because as mentioned above, it isn’t whether something is on paper or not that makes information valuable but that the information itself has value, and obviously this information is very valuable, especially when you consider you have access to it forever and it doesn’t take up room in your home.
I love ”real” books as much as the next guy, and yes, some books are better if you have them available at your fingertips. But, still, it isn’t the physical book that makes it valuable, it is the information in it.
Besides, I decided long ago that I would only deal in virtual online products, because you can use them or not, but they are still there ready for your use, they don’t take up any room in your house, there is nothing to ship, nothing to store, nothing to package and nothing to order and keep track of. It is all done automatically. As the internet technologies progress, so will the effectiveness of online products and the future is bright for it.
It is impossible to see the future and I was around during the birth of the computer age, and fell behind in understanding and the ability to use it. Now we are in the information age, the age of technology where virtual is the ”new real.” These technologies are crucial for the development of the world economy and gives people living in remote areas a chance to take part in the vast marketplace as well.
The internet is still in it’s infancy. Mobile communications technologies are in their infancy. We have no idea what is to come, in 10 or 20 much less 50 years.
From 1900 to 2000 the human race went from walking and riding horses, using steam engines and sails to power ships, telegraph and newspapers to radio, television, the internet, space travel, nuclear power, solar and wind power technologies and methods of transportation that the folks in 1890 would have never dreamed of.
So, everything that has any real value IS virtual, because ideas are virtual, as is the spirit and the most treasured things in life, love, hope and caring.
I constantly see and hear the discussions about the proof of God and how it coincides with scientific proof and logic. The real truth is, you will not find the answer for the proof of God in logic, in science, math or the word. Why? Because God is virtual. It is not real but it exists all the same. Logic, science, math and the word are real and proove that we can’t answer all of the questions, the number one question, is there a God, because they are transfered in the world of ”reality”. But like information products, God isn’t a book, or a physical being at all. So, trying to find God in the realm of reality is not going to do any good at all. You see evidence of it, but God isn’t in the evidence, evidence is simply an indication that something more exists.
So, when someone says ”I don’t believe in God because it isn’t logical” they are actually closer to God than someone claiming that God is there due to some conjured up logic. It can’t be found in logic, nor is information or ideas written in books the whole of their concepts, they simply are an indication that these concepts exist.
The most valuable thing about a person is not their flesh, but their spirit, their soul, their heart and ability to love. The body, is simply the pages on which these things are written. When someone dies, the book gets buried or burned, but the person still exists. We are not who we think we are, we are who we are and that is more than a library of books or a skyscraper of servers.
Virtual is the new ”real”. Grasp that concept because it is here to stay, and that is a good thing.