The other day I linked to Kevin Kelly’s We Are the Web (WIRED August 2005):
These user-created channels make no sense economically. Where are the time, energy, and resources coming from?
The audience.
I run a blog about cool tools. I write it for my own delight and for the benefit of friends. The Web extends my passion to a far wider group for no extra cost or effort. In this way, my site is part of a vast and growing gift economy, a visible underground of valuable creations – text, music, film, software, tools, and services – all given away for free. This gift economy fuels an abundance of choices. It spurs the grateful to reciprocate. It permits easy modification and reuse, and thus promotes consumers into producers.
The open source software movement is another example. Key ingredients of collaborative programming – swapping code, updating instantly, recruiting globally – didn’t work on a large scale until the Web was woven. Then software became something you could join, either as a beta tester or as a coder on an open source project. The clever “view source” browser option let the average Web surfer in on the act. And anyone could rustle up a link – which, it turns out, is the most powerful invention of the decade.
