Correct. The monopoly of information has been broken. It had always been broken, to a lesser or greater extent. What does that prove?
Three examples.
1) There are builders outside, replacing my roof right now. I have the same access as them to all the tools required to finish the job - the scaffolding, the tin, etc. Could I? What do you bloody think?
2) All a tightrope walker requires to complete their craft is a rope strung between two poles. That's all I need as well, in theory.
3) School textbooks. We all have equal access to those, correct? So why do some learn faster and some slower? The Internet hasn't levelled off hierarchies (of power, of information), not at all. It's simply destroyed some and created others. HOW DOES THE NEW JACK KID DISCOVER WHAT MUSIC SHE WANTS TO LISTEN TO? WHEN? WHERE? Oh, by trawling through thousands upon thousands of sites themselves...thereby becoming (to all intents and purposes) "an expert". DOES EVERYONE DO THIS? Really?
Alternately, they turn to trusted platforms (P4k, DiS etc) who point them in appropriate directions.... which is what has always happened! There has always been hundreds of thousands of music fans, expert in their own fields. The Internet didn't suddenly change that fact: it just confused the field by flooding it with too much information.
Everett_True | 16 Jul '09, 00:30 | Reply
Do they have exactly the same access to information as I do? Really? How so? Are they me?
Everett_True | 16 Jul '09, 00:33 | Reply
With regard to this point (again), marcusian123, "The information asymmetry is shattered, I can check out American bands the same as the next person."
There's a reason for that. You're motivated. You have a vested interest in doing so. Most users surfing the Internet do not. (Goes back to the classroom: why do some learn fast, and some slow.) Sure, it means that folk like you no longer need to lean so heavily on folk like me. And that's fine. Doesn't mean the same applies everywhere.
Everett_True | 16 Jul '09, 00:37 | Reply
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