I wouldn't pay for the information I receive on a blog. I'll consume if it is free. I guess I get what I pay for.

I see it the other way around, that in 50 years time we will look back and wonder why it took us so long to find this potential. Why anyone approached the internet with the sole idea of a for profit venue, how odd it was that some people actually tried to 'pop-up' advertisements instead of making programs to better human kind.

I don't see a future where money drives everything mankind does, I don't buy it.

Sounds like a strong element of wishful thinking is at work here on Keen's part.

Also, the initial web bubble of the 90's more closely resembles the Dutch Tulip mania because it involved money. Giving things away for free is not a speculative bubble.

I doesn't work like that... the same way newspapers and magazines don't make their money from people purchasing them... they make it from ad content. Although some suckers will, most rational people won't pay money to subscribe to a blog. Blogs might have to rework their ad revenue structure but don't expect a generation that has grown up creating and using free content to suddenly start paying for it.

When they charged for porn we started instant messaging naked pictures of ourselves to each other, when they raised prices for cable tv we made our own youtube videos, and when someone starts charging for their shitty blog, I'll start writing my own shitty blog.

Super, does this mean you'll be paying us now?

What stupid analysis...people LIKE blogging and contributing to the web; more unemployed people means MORE people will have MORE time to do it. And why the fuck would anyone think, "oh, my writing is so brilliant and I deserve to be paid for it, so I won't write if I don't get paid..."

Lame.

Do we have to stop commenting now because we have realized what fools we've been for posting free slog comments?

(Well, I guess technically, most of us are getting paid by someone else to post slog comments all day...)

You can't charge a price for something that other people give away for free, and people are going to give away blogging for free so long as there isn't a profit model that exists in both good and bad times.

That theory is all well and good from the supply side. But, what about the demand side? In a “brutal economic climate”, when I have less money to spend, you can damn well bet that I’m going to pick the free sites (Wikipedia, Youtube, etc.) over the pay sites

I'm sorry but the phrase "the success of TechCrunch over the blogosphere" makes absolutely no sense. TechCrunch is just another blog making their money from ads. Just because they are huge and can pay their contributors doesn't mean any other blog can't acheive the same thing. I can think of one off the top of my head that already did: Talking Points Memo's transformation from a small blog into TPM Media.

@9, you can also bet that pay sites aren't going to have paid contributor as net rev dives due to advert budget crunches.

@4: That is brilliant.

I remember when my upper management brother-in-law said in teh 90's that P2P networking was a flash in the pan. Itried to explain to him that the cat was already out of the bag.

A million RIAA lawsuits later and we have the democratization of music. No longer does radio payola control what is popular and what isn't.

What's happenning is that everyday day more & more blogs and free websites are starting up - slicing the niches thinner each day. Playbow.com is losing out because there are a million other options geared specifically to whatever oddity really turns your crank.

What web 2.0 really means is no one is #1. I use Google less & less everyday because I know I've already found what I wanted or I know that an alternative like Wikipedia is a better place to begin.

Didn't Line Out spin off from Slog? That's the it will grow...

the last 8 years of the 21st century and how information technologies have evolved, in comparison to the history of media, are so stark that this analysis from Andrew Keen is completely wrong and irrelevant.

the hustle of corporate media to catch up to viewer submitted (youtube), viewer payed-for (public media), and viewer reviews/info (rotten tomatoes, digg, delicious), has progressed with mixed results. what has been the prevailing model of online economics, is the customer is always right. meaning if we want to consume music, tv, movies instantly, we'll get them illegally or you can make them available to us via itunes, rhapsody, netflix.

the democratizing effect of the internet makes the power of the people long lasting and hopefully permanent, as long as we keep net neutrality alive which Bush-puppet FCC Chairman Kevin Martin totally wants to bone in the butt.

Can't agree with Sullivan on this one, either. Shouldn't comment on Sullivan's blog, because the few times I've tried to read it there's been too much hot air. Seems I prefer accessing Sullivan through the Slog filter.

Didn't South Park pretty much cover this when the boys' band, Moop went on strike?

Not to mention, I contribute (very irregularly) to open knowledge projects like Wikipedia because I can add information about an obscure topic I'm passionate about. I'm more than happy to tell you about the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915 in San Francisco, because the Tower of Jewels and NovaGems are some of the coolest things, ever. The other people who care are probably a fairly small number, but why shouldn't they benefit from the years of tracking down primary source materials I've done? It's my hobby, and like any hobbiest, I enjoy telling people about it.