27 Apr 09 Pre-internet media was like communism.

Tags: Adam Smith, Fred, media, YouTube

After seeing Andrew Keen’’s book about the “cult of the amateur” and how it is destroying society, it made me realise a few things. Firstly, I don’t agree with him at all.

To me, pre-internet media was like communism. There were these “high” up individuals who had all the say in what we viewed. They somehow had to measure the “supply and demand” of the viewing public. Most big channels still do it this way. They still have shows based on assumptions of what would work. It’s like communism. You can’t effectively measure the supply and demand of goods. You have let the individuals and Adam Smith’s invisble hand do the work.

After the internet came along, allowing everyone to become a journalist (through blogging) and their own media creators via sites like YouTube, media became capitalistic.

No pre-internet media could’ve gauged the success of Fred Figglehorn. This was created through individual supply and demand.

It got me thinking. Isn’t it possible to extend this to a governmental system? Sort of like an open-source government. Yes, with democracy, we choose who leads us, but these leaders still have to guage what they should provide to us based on assumptions and calculations.