Bookmarked Digital sharecropping | ROUGH TYPE.
One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few. It’s a sharecropping system, but the sharecroppers are generally happy because their interest lies in self-expression or socializing, not in making money, and, besides, the economic value of each of their individual contributions is trivial.
Prescient piece of writing by Nicholas Carr, from 2006. The comments are a blast, too.