The Social Web has to be paid for – yes – sorry – it really has
Your community has to be paid for – yes – really it does.
The social web will only survive if it engages fully with the commercial world. It’s wonderful to be full of all the good intentions that living in a relatively free society brings. However, expecting everything to be free is plain silly and stealing things because you think they should be free is dafter still. Stealing someone’s work e.g. music, video, image or words is the same as stealing their wallet. You are taking the bread from their childrens mouths and forcing them to stop providing the very thing you want. Why do honest decent people who wouldn’t pinch £1 from your pocket believe it’s OK to have pirated software or CDs? Stop it please…theft is theft irrespective of what you are stealing and who you are stealing from.
We all want the social web to be just that, social, and for it to be based on real human values such as trust, participation, contribution, loyalty, belonging and philanthropy. But it has costs. Every community you belong to has costs. These costs have to be met and they have to be met by the user community or in another way that keeps it free to the community. So get real guys….either you pay or you accept paid promotions in your community (like the billboards along the high street in your town). Surely it’s better to accept this and influence how it happens than to destroy these wonderful communities through pure self-interest?
What’s the way forward guys? Any innovative ideas out there?
Steve
SHARE
2 Responses to “The Social Web has to be paid for – yes – sorry – it really has”
Leave a Reply
Steve Hi,
Yes it does – and there is evidence (ning.com , pirate file sharing site closures etc) that it’s going that way. Like any new entity – there is always an initial ‘gold rush’. The Wild West in the newly formed USA is a good analogy. Initially – there were more outlaws than laws, little or no infrastructure and gold in ‘them thar hills’. Eventually – the saloon shoot-outs subsided, sherriffs established a sort of legal framework, the railroads arrived, & the people who made the most money out of the ‘gold in them thar hills’ were the shovel & sieve salesmen and Levi Strauss workwear.
The internet is 5000 (or so) old and still in nappies. It’s all been very exciting – content for free (Napster etc), software for free, forums for free and seemingly a crop of weekly new (free) toys to play with. Because the industry is largely been driven by very young people – they’ve done a great deal out of interest and enthusiasm.
Sadly – as we all know – once the parent subsidies of university die away and you have to start paying your way (mortgages, kids, cars, holidays, bills etc) you sober up and start the grind of being a citizen proper.
The social web is now reflecting this. Try before you buy – sure – but sooner or later the meter starts running.
That’s infrastructure. On the point of copying (content theft) – we are seeing ever more sophistication in our search engines – and hence (as Kevin Kelly – editor of Wired) predicts ‘copies will have no value’. In time – everyone will be able to see who originally posted the content first – like dates for publishing a book in the front cover. You won’t stop some people stealing stuff – but so what? Already the ‘download my e-book – it’s worth £XXX’ brigade are starting to lose steam. ‘Worth £XXX’ to who? Why? And people know it’s like the old variety hall comedian’s jokes – someone, somewhere, a very long time ago – penned them. Just some people can deliver them and some can’t. It’ll be what you can lead with and make happen that will separate out the wheat from the chaff.
On the last point about self-interest. That goes back to pre-biblical times sadly. A selfish person will still be a selfish person even in inter-connected cyberspace. ‘Meet the new boss – same as the old boss’ has a great ring of truth (and I love ‘The Who’ and can never resist quoting it). These communities will survive – I’m quite sure of it. Just like associations of directors, managers, workers and those with a shared common interest have proliferated through other mediums for centuries.
Contribution is just now possible via a cornucopia of other means – it’ll take a while to settle – but it’ll get there.
Hi Richard
Good insights. Thanks for contributing. Have a great weekend.