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Andrew Keen works in Silicon Valley and founded a couple of start-ups, but he’s not sold on the Internet.
In his latest book “The Internet Is Not The Answer,” Keen makes the case that the Internet as it exists now hurts the middle class.
“The economics of the Internet lend themselves of a winner-take all economy,” Keen tells Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson, “The hollowing out of the middle class, the emergence of a tiny plutocratic elite of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and technologists.”
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Last edited by yellowbelle; 12-28-2015 at 09:10 PM..
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Of course thw intwrnet [sic] is not the answer, it is one piece of the puzzle, among many others. It is certainly a centerpiece of modern life in the Western world, though.
For sure Internet didn't bring in more jobs, like the old manifacture did when it replaced agriculture
old industry created more and professional jobs than agricolture or puttin'-out system, created mass market, mass literacy and everyone, more or less, benefited from it
today Internet seem to destroy jobs, especially those connected to music, art and cinema
and differently from the old mass media it even doeasn't pay who produce contents (i.e. the people who write and make video via social media)
For sure Internet didn't bring in more jobs, like the old manifacture did when it replaced agriculture
old industry created more and professional jobs than agricolture or puttin'-out system, created mass market, mass literacy and everyone, more or less, benefited from it
today Internet seem to destroy jobs, especially those connected to music, art and cinema
and differently from the old mass media it even doeasn't pay who produce contents (i.e. the people who write and make video via social media)
Actually, it does. There's a relatively small number of people that do make quite a bit of money from YouTube videos and the like. There's also authors who publish exclusively through Amazon, mostly Kindle Unlimited, who make a very good living that way. The arts seldom have really made money. Before mass media it was mostly done through patronage. Mass media was what really allowed commercial art as we know it today to exist, and the Internet is just a continuation of that.
I'd agree with the author that the Internet was never some great equalizer the way some people envisioned it would be, though. I guess that isn't a surprise to me since I never thought it would solve poverty, world hunger, or any great societal problems just as things like the printing press or radio or television did not before it. It basically has similar problems that all those other forms of media had before. They're not any different, really. You have the same issues with old media like television, radio, or magazines that you have today. Everyone benefits, but the benefits were the furthest thing from egalitarian. You had your publisher/advertising elect mostly in NYC, your Hollywood elite, your Silicon Valley elite. Everyone benefited, but a few benefited much more greatly than did everyone.
IMO the Internet is one BIG answer. Because it can save middle class people much money and time.
I shop and save on the internet most any day. And avoid having to drive and travel to do so. Saving time and gas and most of the time sales tax. Typically there are substantial savings even if shipping is an added cost. Especially if a used item is good enough.
The internet made it so some Asian sitting in a grass hut has the same access to information I do. Before the internet, the information was inaccessible to them. That leveled the playing field and allowed Asia to compete in high IPR economic sectors that were previously concentrated in first world countries. Take telecom for instance. In 1985, to do telecom in the United States, you needed to have a hard copy of the Bellcore LSSGR. Printed, that was about 10 linear feet of paper and cost more than $10,000. My corporate library had a copy. Someone in China had no access at all. Today, all the IETF standards are online and free. Ditto the ETSI European telecom standards. Most of the US ones are online. If they're not free, the downloads are inexpensive. AT&T Bell Labs is long gone. Ditto the Bell Northern Research arm of Nortel. Lucent crashed and is part of struggling Alcatel. Nortel is long gone. Other than Cisco, pretty much nobody is left in the United States and Cisco is having big problems these days.
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