Dutch journalist, writer and feminist Karin Spaink is not the first one to review Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur; how todays Internet is Killing our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy. But she sure has some interesting viewpoints. Let me quote two (emphasis in bold is mine):
"If the printed press [...] move to the internet, which many in the end will to do, they can cut on printing and distribution costs, thereby freeing a considerable part of their budget. Money that can be used to pay journalists and editors with. Yes, parts of the newspaper industry will suffer and people will lose their jobs – from paper producers and printers to newspaper delivery boys."
"we are witnessing the private going public. People increasingly use the internet to capture, comment upon and share their lives. And while I’m not always sure what to make of that, in itself there’s nothing new about the phenomenon, only about its scale. People have always kept diaries, wrote updates for their friends and family, made snapshots documenting their life. The manner in which they did so changed whenever technologies changed, but the urge to share has always been present."
For the record: I don't agree with either statement. First of all: there's a lot less advertising money to be made in online than in print media. And secondly: the urge to share is relatively new - simply because only now there's an audience that is large enough to have some effect. Only fifty years ago the biggest amount of people you would preach at would be sitting in a church building.
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