Andrew Keen Predicts The End Of Gardening And Pickup Basketball
from the if-it's-not-paid,-it's-not-worth-doing dept
So I already wrote about Andrew Keen's ridiculously laughable assertion that the economic downturn would spell the end of all unpaid activity online -- such as blogging, contributing to Wikipedia and developing open source software. The whole thing was so laughable, I asked Keen to put some money behind some of his predictions, though to date I have not heard from him. I'm guessing this means he really does not believe what he writes.However, I have to bring this up again, because Jesse Walker over at Reason Magazine does such an amazing job demonstrating the basic logic fallacy in Keen's thinking that it's too good not to repeat:
Andrew Keen predicts an end to backyard gardens, playground basketball, basement jam sessions, amateur painting, and open mic nights for the duration of the economic hard times, because "the idea of free labor will suddenly become profoundly unpalatable to someone faced with their house being repossessed or their kids going hungry."No one ever does anything that doesn't result in immediately getting paid, apparently.
Oh, wait. Hold on. He only predicts an end to unpaid-but-pleasurable labor on the Internet
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: amateurs, andrew keen, business models, financial crisis, free, open source
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
And Blog commenting too!
No sirree... Never. Oh wait. I just did. huh...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: And Blog commenting too!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I guess that he missed...
He also missed that people who have jam sessions in their homes aren't doing it because they want to get paid, they're doing it because it's free(mostly) and fun.
I won't even go into the rest.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I guess that he missed...
I think Mike got the point based on the text of this post, but Mike's headline here is just flat wrong. Of course, I might not have clicked on the headline that was correct: "Andrew Keen Predictions Likened Unto The End Of Gardening And Pickup Basketball"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I guess that he missed...
The headline is a joke, to play up the absurdity.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: I guess that he missed...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess that he missed...
On lunch, I discussed with my work buddy (sparked by the post) how lucrative a web site can be if you just just blog troll. You may a blog making the most absurd claims possible (with a little lent credibility) and get other, more reasonable people to link to your blog and bash you. After all, controversy gets more attention.
With that in mind, it's hard for me to tell when an idiot blogger is a troll or not. I mean, some of these idiot bloggers work for respectable web sites (Dvorak for example), but they MUST be trolling for attention based on their posts. I went to Keen's web site and read the comments. Every single one I saw was noting how big an idiot he was. No rebuttal from him, and he obviously didn't delete the unfavorable comments. Smells like a troll to me. He knows he's getting the attention with those absurd viewpoints.
Now that's a business I need into.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess that he missed...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Andrew Keen is a tool
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Andrew Keen is a tool
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Ima Fish
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Ima Fish
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Ima Fish
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not enough money
sorry...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
update
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]