Perhaps the dark horse of this year’s SXSW Interactive conference: Andrew Keen stands apart among the droves of techies who, truth be told, are jockeying to consumerize their online wares. Entrepreneur, broadcaster, and writer of the 2007 tome Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is killing our culture, Keen is not as stoked about the potential of online consumerism as everyone else here is.
Are online consumers killing online creativity? Long story short: yes. Why? Keen calls it the “fetishization of free content.” Keen is careful to say that the online business model is the platform of the future. His concern involves how, exactly, people will make money from it.
“We’re in the midst of a profound change. We’re seeing a shift from the producer to the consumer,” Keen says. “Decentralized social networks that are springing up are defining the Internet age.”
Keen points to Groupon as the purest manifestation of consumer power. If enough consumers can flex their muscle, that will result in massive benefits to consumers. He further calls out free content as a cancer to the potential livelihood of the online professional creative class.
“Free online content doesn’t have much value,” Keen says. “The technology that was creating this content was simultaneously undermining professional content.”
As a result, crises have popped up in the music, movie, and newspaper businesses, to name just a few. The answers, of course, are not as easily uncovered as one might hope. But Keen’s illuminating take on the topic is worth further discussion.
So do you think online consumers are killing online creativity?