the internet era of culture is a contest between the old model of top-down elite tastemakers telling you what's good and the new numbers-driven viral creator ecosystem in which algorithmic feeds tell you what you like
I see two divergent media futures emerging—each based on networks that serve very different groups.
In the first future, our networks serve the technologists who build them, the advertisers that pay for them, and the governments that control them. These networks compete for users in a war for attention by making systems that spit out superficially... See more
We can always opt out of this arrangement, of course, and live happily in meatspace, but that is precisely the point: Offline we exist by default; online we have to post our way into selfhood.