本日佳句 – Digital Barons
Posted in Quote on Jul 5th, 2009
Andrew Keen: NOW and power
Andrew Keen wrote “The Cult of the Amateur,” the critique of user-created content.
The collapse of the industrial corporation is not leading to democratization or a reorganization of power. Instead, it is creating new centers of power, a class of digital elites who are more powerful than companies.
Everyone here talks about “the state of now” a profound historical moment that changes everything, including the nature of power (e.g. Twitter gives us tools to talk back to power).
I’m more skeptical. Rather than changing the nature of power, I see the “State of now” as creating new sources and centers of power
Societies are always dominated by one type of elite who dress up their lust for power in rhetoric State of now IS revolutionary, is redistribution of power, but it is just a shift from one group to another Power of the industrial organization / industrial institution à Power of the 21st century individual.
We’re living through a great restructuring of power – Shirky says same thing (“here comes everybody”) Now, Tim O’Reilly is more powerful than his company. He symbolizes the digital feudal order.
Rather than what Jeff Jarvis and Clay Shirky say, that a shift from industrial corporation à democratization, I say that the industrial corporation is being replaced by a new elite: digital barons. Not democratic at all.
Future: some super-empowered individuals. O’Reilly and Chris Sacca are nice, but challenge is to acknowledge that. Not fall into a trap of “we’re remaking history.”
在我心目中，台灣的確有一兩位部落客夠格稱為這個小島上的 digital baron。
(source: 140 Conference)
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