Da B wrote:
See, I don't think it will last long, as I said here: We're all just being asked to bake our own damn bread and circuses. The government doesn't toss us the bread and fund extravagant entertainment. We make it ourselves.
<http://blog.pulpculture.org/2005/11/06/bake-your-own-bread-n-circuses/>
Additionally, Scobleizer gets into the nitty gritty of exactly how and why this is working:
<http://blog.pulpculture.org/2005/11/08/googlepark-panem-et-circenses/>
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I have to run to attend a conference that undoubtedly will put me in a deep, hypnotic state but before I enter dreamland (and go off the grid)...
Your "Bake Your Own..." essay and Scobleizer's analysis of Google's user content, moebius strip advertising universe are very, very interesting and take my thoughts about this in new directions.
Several years ago, William Gibson wrote an essay for Wired magazine in which he imagined a not-terribly-distant future of digitally manipulated films -- manipulated by 'consumers' -- re-released into the wild.
A film series like "Star Wars" (version whatever, pick your poison) can be used as raw material for endless reworkings done on the home computers and in the home-based virtual studios of fangirls and boys across the globe.
Since the essay was first published, we've seen many examples of this sort of thing so that's no longer considered remarkable.
More compelling was his prediction that film corps would strenuously resist at first (because of concern about the collapse of existing profit-generating methods), then embrace it as they realized the immense profit potential of becoming re-marketers for content that only creates production costs once but which can stay 'fresh' through the tireless efforts of people who, well, are "baking their own bread and circuses".
The ongoing production work can be re-distributed to thousands who do it for free. Instead of suing people, Lucasfilm would use them as unpaid sub contractors.
When I first read Gibson's essay, I wasn't entirely certain how that might look: what model companies might follow. But now, after reading your piece and Scobleizer's take on the Google maneuver it all comes into much sharper focus.
Those of us concerned with what we call "information freedom" and so on have imagined, not without justification, the battle lines as being drawn between capital which seeks to retain control and citizens who want to 'innovate' and play without excessive legal restraint.
I think you're arguing that even the 'victory' (so to speak) of 'digital freedom' (ued for lack of a less melodramatic phrase) will provide capital, after an adjustment period, yet another opportunity to morph and continue its work, only now in an even more diffuse and meshed fashion than the already hard-to-pin-down situation we face today.
If this happens (and the indications are strong), it would be a deepening of the trend Ursula Huws examines in her book, "The Making of a Cybertariat" --
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/cybertariat.htm>
.d.