Who Owns the Future?
There are many articles and books addressing the vanishing middle class, but this was the first book I’ve read that examines the vanishing creative class. Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier (a dreadful dude) writes not about the economics of the situation but about cyber future. This blog has commented in the past on compensation and how most of what I write ends up as simply a byline or publishing cred=FREE CONTENT. If I absolutely needed to support myself on my art then I would have to retrain and NOT write. Blame the Internet. Lanier as well as anybody understands. Even as he criticizes the digitization of information/entertainment/all that is holy—he is getting paid by what he calls Super Sirens—or is it Siren Servers? That which giveth, taketh away. The publishing industry will ultimately go the road of the music industry, the same road that flushed away the local bookstore and the superstore Borders that lays empty down the street from me. The blame just kee...