Of Curmudgeons, Triumphalists and the Disappearing Middle Ground

Jeff Jarvis on "the myth of the creative class" taking the "Triumphalist" view and posing the opposition as "curmudgeons" Someone has to argue the view from the centre, and it may as well be me I suppose - ho hum, once more unto the breach....I shall have to write a proper "View from the Centre" later, but for now I hope that these thoughts will hold:

Internet curmudgeons argue that Google et al are bringing society to ruin precisely because they rob the creative class of its financial support and exclusivity: its pedestal. But internet triumphalists, like me, argue that the internet opens up creativity past one-size-fits-all mass measurements and priestly definitions and lets us not only find what we like but find people who like what we do. The internet kills the mass, once and for all. With it comes the death of mass economics and mass media, but I don’t lament that, not for a moment.

It seems harder and harder to stay in the middle ground - disagree with the Triumphalists and you are instantly a Curmudgeon, and vice versa. What also concerns me is the polemical nature the discussions move to - the Internet cannot kill mass economics, as much of real world economics is physical - and even the digiital world has limits to how free it can go - its cheaper, but it ain't free, and as bandwidth rises costs go up too,

The curmudgeons also argue that this level playing field is flooded with crap: a loss of taste and discrimination. I’ll argue just the opposite: Only the playing field is flat and to stand out one must now do so on merit - as defined by the public rather than the priests - which will be rewarded with links and attention. This is our link economy, our culture of links. It is a meritocracy, only now there are many definitions of merit and each must be earned.

This "meritocracy", in most digital playing fields I've examined anyway, from music to microblogging, is far from flat - it actually resolves into more of a "rich get richer" power law in structure in nearly every area you care to look at, a point which is always glossed over by the triumphalists. "Meritocracy" is in theory the equality of opportunity, and the equal reward for equal input/ability/etc. This clearly is not the case in a power law system, which resembles a Feudal structure more than anything else.

The culture of links, given very low transaction costs, is a culture of a small number making out like bandits while the majority sit in the long tail. As to being flooded with crap, it ain't only curmudgeons who are arguing that, its boring old economists who look at this as just another market - I've tried to summarise the arguments here.

We have believed - I have been taught - that there are two scarcities in society: talent and attention. There are only so many people with talent and we give their talent only so much attention - not enough of either.

But we are shifting, too, from a culture of scarcity to one of abundance.

No, we had a brief hiatus (probably fuelled by absurdly cheap credit) of abundant money. And the real economic limits underlying society - energy, water, food, disposable income - are starting to re-assert themselves again. In the West we have benefited from a 500 year Long Wave that started with India and China being knocked off their pedestals as global superpowers - that is over now.

We are actually moving into an age of relative scarcity on most vectors, except the ability to get digital goods far more cheaply. True, there has been a major step increase in digital comms productivity, and this will drive efficiencies across the economics space, but these other, greater, limits will eventually be reached again, despite the benefits of digital productivity gains - there is a real limit to datacentre size and those economics for example. There is comparative abundance in the digital field but it rests on, and is bounded by, the real economics of real things.

(I added the next two paragraphs later to better explain my thinking)

Where I do agree with Jeff is where he says the 'Net dosn't increase creativity, it increases access:

The internet doesn’t make us more creative, I don’t think. But it does enable what we create to be seen, heard, and used. It enables every creator to find a public, the public he or she merits. And that takes creation out of the proprietary hands of the supposed creative class.

But I'm not sure who this creative class here is though - the creatives by and large are the ones making stuff, its a different bunch of people trying to prop up the old aggregation industries. And one could argue the new aggregators like Google etc are just more of the same from the creative point of view - most of today's artistic creative class suffer from the same power law structures, ie a small number capture nearly all the value in any field. The 'Net, Google, etc do nothing to dissolve this structure though, which makes me think that it's the "meritocracy" argument in creative endeavours that is largely a myth.

Anyway, back to the original post:

I’ve long disagreed with those who say that copyright kills creativity, for I do believe that there is no scarcity of inspiration. But I now understand their position better. I also have learned that when creations are restricted it is the creator who suffers more because his creation won’t find its full and true public, its spark finds no kindling, and the fire dies.

I assume that the book Jeff is writing will therefore be under no copyright and of course available to all online, or has the Pauline conversion been brought about by a deeper understanding of cashflow - or lack of it - in a zero copyright world

The easiest way to turn the creative class into a disappearing myth is to remove its means of sustenance. Its not just the creative fire that dies, its the creator too if he or she don't make no money!. There may be free lunches in the digispehere, but they don't buy real food. Starving in garrets is tres romantique, but its not long term sustainable.

Lets all agree the Internet is the biggest shift in communication economics for at least 100 years (the Tripos of trains, cars & telegraphs were pretty high impact 100 years ago), but lets keep it all in perspective!

This revolution primarily impacts communications industries, especially those where physical goods are tarnsformed into digital (print media, CD's and DVD's) or where the signals over the ether go over the ethernet (Radio, TV). It increases the productivity of a part of the cost pie of other industries who have extensive comme elements, but does not re-make them and hardly touches industries where comms is a tiny part of what they do.

Afterthought - All comms revolutions shake up our social networking methods, which longer term changes our settlement patterns etc, and that is probably where the biggest economic shifts come from - but, as the author Richard Florida (of the original work on Creative Classes) notes, its not comms that drives that:

Why do some places become destinations for the creative while others don't? Economists speak of the importance of industries having "low entry barriers," so that new firms can easily enter and keep the industry vital. Similarly, I think it's important for a place to have low entry barriers for people---that is, to be a place where newcomers are accepted quickly into all sorts of social and economic arrangements. All else being equal, they are likely to attract greater numbers of talented and creative people---the sort of people who power innovation and growth. Places that thrive in today's world tend to be plug-and-play communities where anyone can fit in quickly.

I would argue that its the Creative Classes who have embraced the Net most, and thus they will be the ones who drive its future, and not vice versa.

(Next exciting installment - tilting at Andrew Keen and the Back to the Future gang. The centre is nothing if not Quixotic )