The downside of fame : being unable to reciprocate in the way our friends and colleagues would like us to.

The music industry is still reeling from the discovery that the reproduction and distribution of music, previously a valuable service, is now something their customers can do for themselves.

Collective action is the hardest kind of group effort, requiring a group of people to commit themselves to undertaking a particular effort together, and to do so in a way that makes the decision of the group binding on the individual members.

Sharing creates the fewest demands on the participants. Many sharing platforms like Flikr operate in a take-it-or-leave-it fashion, allowing for the maximum freedom of the individual to participate while creating the fewest complications of group life.

Revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new technologies - it happens when society adopts new behaviors.

(1) scale: an audience in the thousands or more

* - cooperation

Most professions exist because there is a scarce resource that requires ongoing management : librarians are responsible for organizing books on the shelves, newspaper execs are responsible for deciding what goes on the front page. The scarcity of the resource itself creates the need for a professional class.

When a profession has been created as a result of some scarcity, as with librarians or TV programmers, the professionals are often the last ones to see it when that scarcity goes away. It's easier to understand that you face competition than obsolescence.