Media, Media, Media!

Nick, I love you, but this sounds a tad disingenuous.

Yes, you supply all the content, but you get the social situation that the network enables. Sure, it’d be nice to get more. Heck, I’d love an extra $50 (and presumably a yearly payment based on however much the company makes in ads), but that’s unrealistic to ask. Just as it would be unrealistic to ask for the cafe you mention in your article to give me a percent of their profit. Yeah, the food was good, but if a tech company is expected to give a customer more, why shouldn’t one in the food industry?

Also, about that cafe, it actually does benefit from the “information” that its customers “provide.” I put those words in quotes because the information isn’t processed and provided in the same way as it is on social networks, but it is certainly part of the business. When I stroll past that cafe and see it filled with upper-middle class patrons, I identify the business, however unconsciously (and problematically), as one worthy of my expendable income. By frequenting that cafe, those patrons aren’t just helping it by paying for food; they’re also endowing it with their social capital. The only thing different with social networks is that people (mostly consciously) give those networks that same capital (usually through a much more explicit way), and the networks are intelligently designed to best take advantage of said capital.

Speaking of capital, let’s pull this in a more Marxist direction, as I am worried about this ancillary point that Bilton raises: “Those without the skills needed in this new economy — other than to tweet and post pictures — can fall further behind economically.” My gut says this is a more structural economic issue than one that can be solved with a simple attack on a singular company (or even type of company). But in spite of that, I’m not sure what a solution would be. Other than socialism, which as a capitalist, I’m not a big fan of.

Although I kind of agree with the conclusion (Tumblr is far cooler at this point), and I kind of like the now-that-it’s-gone-public-it’s-lame rationale, I completely disagree with some of its premises.

1. “The generation which en masse hasn’t created anything worth noting except for debts on their parents credits cards. Anything, but Facebook.” This statement is two-fold ignorant. On the one hand, it pretends that Facebook isn’t a bit of a revolutionary creation that helped alter the way we use the Internet—pushing it from the searchable web to the social web. And on the other, could you please tell me what generation actually achieved anything substantial en masse when its prime constituents were in their twenties? (And, ya know, Facebook itself is somewhat substantial, see above, which means the millennials are kinda kicking Gen X to the curb on this point.) By the author’s own globalizing-based-solely-on-pop-culture-references logic, all Gen X ever did in their twenties was smoke pot and sing about conjunction junction.
2. The article is riddled with instances of out-of-touch-ness (e.g., thinking that the only appropriate thing to wear to work is a suit and tie, referring to the “like” button as the “‘I like’ button,” and if I want to really be nitpicky, calling millennials “Gen Y’ers”). I dunno, it’s just weird to have someone so obviously not “with it,” so not “cool” trying to weigh in on a topic on which he is clearly not an expert. (Editorial Note: I openly own up to my not-cool-ness, which is why I normally don’t try to make statements on what is and isn’t cool and why I find it so odd when people who are more or less in my position cool-wise for some reason do.)