E Ellis Allen (girlonstilts.com)

Last week, I talked to a friend who helps high-powered career women find romantic relationships. These women are well put together in all areas of their life except for when it comes to love (sounds very RomCom, right)?

Often, the female finds two potential mates, one they are physically attracted to, and the other’s attraction lies in the mate’s security (financially, emotionally, and in life). The woman will then settle for one of these mates, which doesn’t work out in the long run.

This sounds like a Hallmark movie, except swap out one of the potential suitors for a job, and viola—Missteps and Mistletoe is created.

When I asked my friend why these women do this, she says it has to do with scarcity. When people think there are limited choices, they settle on the one that benefits them the most (immediately or long-term). This turns into a scarcity mentality, where worry becomes an obsession with the lack of something (in this case, a perfect love match). Then all decisions are made to avoid another scarcity later. Unfortunately, these women do not recognize the possibility of a third option: a mate who is both physically attractive and secure.

Hallmark movies are dripping in The Scarcity Principle. Think about it!

A big-time, city career gal must return to her loathsome hometown to help revive a defunct corporation (family farm or winery).

Interestingly, the main obstacle isn’t the doomed factory but her romantic love connection. She falls for the last guy she ever wanted to fall in love with. The woman settles, and always for the hot cowboy without a future on his own (he needed her once, he’ll always need her—these stories aren’t a ‘feed a man a fish versus teach a man to fish,’ but that’s not why we like them).

Hallmark is good at their brand of happily ever after in that the gal ropes off her successful career in the city and hogties herself to the super-hot shirtless guy. The End… (until the kids are born—she has an existential identity crisis and starts up another business as a kingpin for a meth lab—but that’s a story for another network).

The Scarcity Principle concerns a limited supply of a product/good and its demand. Value is determined by how much of a supply is available and how many people want it. It’s called equilibrium when there is enough supply and enough people who want it.

However, when the product outnumbers the people who want it, that’s called disequilibrium. Each drives the product’s price, and each is constantly manipulated.

It occurs to me that the strike happening in Hollywood, particularly the writer’s part, is a scarcity issue or lack thereof.

With the number of people wanting new content as fast as possible and the invention of AI and LLMs (Large Language Models), the traditional writer has become disequilibrium or a surplus. There are too many writers for the production company’s needs.

This leads to production companies conducting a cost-benefit analysis: The writer is expensive, has lots of needs, and they are easily replaceable by either less experienced writers who don’t recognize their value or else a robot who mimics them and doesn’t need healthcare, time off, or a lunch break. The production company decides if the benefits they get without a human writer are greater than the cost of an LLM program.

In Hallmark terms, if the big city gal wasn’t the only one in the small town with the know-how and wasn’t all that new and exciting for the people living there, her value would be less. Just like if the big city gal was surrounded by shirtless guys wearing Dockers who didn’t need her, she wouldn’t be the least attracted to them. See? Supply and demand. This is a large part of what the strike is all about.

The writers withhold their skills and content to create scarcity and raise value. Of course, they are! So why aren’t production companies realizing this? It comes down to social proof and commitment.

The social proof part is what the writers are doing, limiting the product to prove its worth. However, production companies are stubborn. They are committed to getting what they want (an entity that doesn’t want more pay or equality). The more the writer fights them, the more they want something else. How did it get like this? I have a theory.

Once upon a time (not so long ago), there were two main options in storytelling entertainment: Traditional TV and the Movie Theater. They relied on each other—TV would promote movies, which were then allowed to be shown on TV after a particular time. This was The Scarcity Principle, and almost everyone accepted it.

Then came Streaming Services, the third option no one was ready for—like some white knight or evil villain (depending on point of view) swooping in and taking over.

This left production companies scrambling to get a piece of that pie (of course, traditional TV wanted some too, but they already had their foot in the door with cable).

The demand for new content faster from Streaming Services means plenty of work for all abled writers, right? Wrong!

Because along with the breakneck speed of Streaming’s popularity came the learning robot, or AI, not the visual part like CGI we were used to, but now it can write the whole story!

Executives developed a severe case of scarcity mentality (which is always determined by either time or money), and Writers (who need both) suddenly became surplus—we became the big city gal in a town full of them. So, what are some possible consequences?

AI is a mimic of creativity, not an engineer of it. It cannot create something unique that reflects the human experience by itself. And, if AI is nothing but an echo of a person’s knowledge, the audience will eventually get tired of the same old story—remember Star Wars fatigue? Enter the Avengers…

Also, we have already seen some economic shifts due to technology. Because of Google and almost instantaneous information at our fingertips, 24/7, writers are required to do more, like research, for less pay. The only thing a writer can do is become more tech-savvy and learn how to use AI to our advantage (but that’s another post).

Not just writers have to worry about the consequences of technological advances. What about big businesses cutting into traditional production company profits?

Non-production companies like Mattel, with many cash resources, can hire expert writers and make killer movies, such as Barbie. What’s stopping others from doing the same thing (NBA? or NFL? Where are your sports movies?), and will the writer come under threat from them as well? Sigh—hopefully not!

My point is that The Scarcity Principle is everywhere, both in the fictional world and in reality, and our rapid technological evolution has opportunities and threats. It’s a stark reminder that while technology might change, our human needs, like love, validation, and value, are the same, and no amount of AI can replace those.