Andrew Keen Predicts The End Of Gardening And Pickup Basketball

from the if-it's-not-paid,-it's-not-worth-doing dept

Fri, Oct 31st 2008 7:33am — Mike Masnick

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."

Oh, wait. Hold on. He only predicts an end to unpaid-but-pleasurable labor on the Internet

No one ever does anything that doesn't result in immediately getting paid, apparently.

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Filed Under: amateurs, andrew keen, business models, financial crisis, free, open source

23 Comments

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some old guy, 31 Oct 2008 @ 7:57am

And Blog commenting too!
Now that the economy sucks, I would never consider donating my (subjectively) insightful comments to my favorite blogs.

No sirree... Never. Oh wait. I just did. huh...
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ehrichweiss, 31 Oct 2008 @ 8:16am

I guess that he missed...
He missed the fact that backyard gardening actually saves money. I regularly spend about $10-20 on gardening every year but get back around $200+ in veggies.

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.
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Siburmax, 31 Oct 2008 @ 8:17am

Andrew Keen is a tool
Andrew Keen is a tool. That's it. Nothing more to say. I said it all when I said, Andrew Keen is a tool.
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Ima Fish, 31 Oct 2008 @ 8:30am

Does this mean I can stop mowing the lawn? I haven't been paid to mow a lawn since I was 17.
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some old guy, 31 Oct 2008 @ 8:42am

Re: Ima Fish
I hereby give you my permission.
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Lonnie E. Holder, 31 Oct 2008 @ 8:43am

Re: Re: Ima Fish
In fact, if you are finding mowing the lawn that pleasurable, come do mine too.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Oct 2008 @ 8:56am

Re: Re: Re: Ima Fish
mmmm MMmmmm MMMMMMMM the vibrations in my hand, the power I control, the smell of freshly cut grass!! I'm going to mow my lawn TWICE today!
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jonnyq, 31 Oct 2008 @ 9:09am

Re: I guess that he missed...
Umm.. the way I read the quoted text is that Keen never actually said anything about gardening or basketball, but that the author was illustrating the absurdity of Keen's statement by COMPARING internet activity to gardening and basketball.

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"
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Steve S, 31 Oct 2008 @ 9:25am

Not enough money
I was going to write up a decent response to this story but i realized in these tumultuous financial times it wouldn't be worth my time and energy as you are not paying me enough to dedicate myself to the cause

sorry...
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Mike (profile), 31 Oct 2008 @ 9:28am

Re: 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"

The headline is a joke, to play up the absurdity.
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BoilerBob, 31 Oct 2008 @ 9:43am

Re:
I'm sure there's an ex-blogger living in their mom's basement that can do it for a few bucks.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Oct 2008 @ 9:57am

I asked you to put your money where you mouth is on starting a music company since you have it all figured out and you told me you have bigger fish to fry. Maybe you should give Keen a break because he might have bigger fish to fry.
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bobert, 31 Oct 2008 @ 9:58am

You would think one would turn to gardening more so in an economic downturn.. victory garden anyone?
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mobiGeek, 31 Oct 2008 @ 10:14am

Re:
I'm going to argue that there is a somewhat different amount of focus necessary to start a business than to casually contribute to an open source project.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Oct 2008 @ 10:50am

Re: Andrew Keen is a tool
A garden tool, even.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Oct 2008 @ 11:21am

Re: And Blog commenting too!
Me either... that'll be $5.00...
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Oct 2008 @ 12:03pm

I still fix people's computers for free.
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jonnyq, 31 Oct 2008 @ 12:28pm

Re: Re: Re: I guess that he missed...
Which is obvious when you read the post, but not in mah iGoogle RSS =)
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jonnyq, 31 Oct 2008 @ 12:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess that he missed...
While I'm writing useless comments...

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.
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jonnyq, 31 Oct 2008 @ 1:52pm

Re:
There's the type of comment that leaves you dumber and hungry for fish.
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Frank, 1 Nov 2008 @ 12:50am

update
The recent interesting report saying how the "low-income" customers are buying up the iphone would seem to prove mr keen wrong also. People rarely respond to need with work anymore they just get a credit card.
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Jake, 1 Nov 2008 @ 7:38am

It's arguable that a lot of people will be devoting time normally occupied by leisure pursuits to things like attending interviews, filling out forms etc. However, I can personally testify that in the current economic climate, finding and applying for every single job you are qualified to do within reasonable commuting distance will still leave you with a lot of spare time.
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nasch, 3 Nov 2008 @ 8:52am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I guess that he missed...
Dvorak as much as admitted he's a troll. He said something to the effect that he can say something inflammatory about Apple and all the Apple fans come rushing to his web site to post rebuttals (and maybe view ads), and then a couple of weeks later he can post something good about Apple to spark positive comments from Apple supporters and bashing from Apple haters. Or something to that effect, there's a video of it somewhere. It was an impromptu comment to someone at CES or some show like that.
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