Very interesting, and it seems, recurring debate.<br><br>I think it helps if we also introduce a hierarchy of engagement concerning sharing.<br><br>In the Web 2.0 model, people swarm to participatory platforms, motivated by individual interests, by the need for attention and sharing one's expression, having weak links with each other. The owners of the participatory platforms have to finance the development of the platform, finance the immense server farms making it all possible, and they are in it for the profit, which they seek to obtain through attention aggregation and its reselling.
<br><br>A key question is: are contributors in it for the money, or for other forms of value which trump the monetary value? I believe the latter, which is why revenue sharing seems such a weal issue. It is only when your production is very successfull, that you start wondering, did I get my fair share, but before that treshold, you are mostly grateful for the platform of expression. Now, is revenue sharing really advisable, or does it create, a part from possible crowding out sharing behaviour, biases in the expression process, which would not occur without the money? This is not a trivial question. If people get paid for it, do I still trust the Amazon review, will it not lead to a different YouTube, more like television, and less like the freefest it is now?
<br><br>In the FLOSS movement though, and in pure peer production generally, we have a notch up in the sharing equation; here we have communities, building common resources, frequently using free infrastructure, and because of this process, stronger links. Here we have the emergence of a commons-oriented business model; we have autonomously governance (peer governance) communities, using for-benefit organisational support models, and acquiescing in corporate support ecologies, which make the projects more sustainable for the collective and the individuals involved. Here, because of the crowding out, commons-dependent companies also rarely directly pay out the volunteers, or if they do so, if I'm not mistaken, they also respect the autonomous goal setting of the volunteer communities.
<br><br>Therefore we see that, where communities are more in control themselves, they do not revert to revenue sharing in their commons-oriented production, for the reasons giving above.<br><br>This then helps us better judge the web
2.0 business models.<br><br>Individuals are freely participating, mostly feeling that they already fair value back, otherwise, in a capitalist economy based on self-interest, it would generate a huge backlash. When a backlash occurs, it's rarely about revenue sharing. And when a company like YouTube, under pressure from revenue-sharing competitors, finally introduce the practice and even start recognizing individual ownership of creation, is it really that huge a progress, or rathera further distortion of the free expression and sharing?
<br><br>The participatory platforms need to get funded, including the nonprofit ones, and unobstrusive advertising is the only solution for most of such companies. Given that reality, and the other reality that free communities are accepting corporate support anyway, as long as it respects the non-reciprocal peer dynamic of communal production, then perhaps the real ethical questions are not there?
<br><br>Rather, they lie with us, peer producers. But in all cases where we accept less than autonomous infrastructures, and accept the privately-funded private platforms, then we have to accept the dual nature of those platforms, who are both co-dependent on the expressive sharing dynamic, and the need to fund, and profit from, that same activity.
<br><br>So, if the concern about the web 2.0 ethic is false or misleading, where do the true ethical questions lay?<br><br>Perhaps the answer is the following:<br><br>1) to acquiesce that sharing practices are a huge advance in social practices
<br><br>2) that community-based open infrastructures are better but not always in every case more 'competitive'<br><br>3) that we should work, rather than complain about voluntary labour, in creating economic formats, that are equally commons-dependent and supportive, but operate along cooperative lines of equity in that very same market?
<br><br>Let's be watchful of abuses by Web 2.0 companies by all means (but not necessarily be obsessed by revenue sharing practices), but more importantly, let us construct the infrastructure of the peer to peer civilization of tomorrow.
<br><br>Michel<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/8/07, <b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="mailto:trebor@thing.net">trebor@thing.net</a></b> <<a href="mailto:trebor@thing.net">trebor@thing.net</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>One guide defines the standards for ethical action through the lens of 5<br>different approaches (thanks to Terry Perlin for the link).
<br><br>1) "The utilitarian approach: follow the action that does the least harm and<br>provides the most good."<br><br>YouTube's payment will in many cases not be equivalent to the value of the<br>uploaded content given its viewership of some 10 million people in cases like
<br>the infamous treadmill video. Harm, here, is the loss of time, donation of free<br>creative labor, and a harassment of our attention.<br><br>2) "The rights approach: humans have dignity and have thus the right to be
<br>treated as ends and not as means to other ends. This includes the right to be<br>told the truth, the right to make life choices freely, the right to privacy."<br><br>It'd be interesting to get a clear sense of YouTube's or Amazon's profits,
<br>directly gained from the free immaterial labor of the likes of <a href="http://Amazon.com">Amazon.com</a><br>top-ranked reviewer Harriet Klausner who wrote 13050 reviews. Unpaid. That, to<br>me, makes the underpaid McDonald's worker look privileged. But, yes, I know:
<br>the common good; I'll comment on that in a moment.<br><br>3) "The fairness approach: equals should be treated as equals."<br><br>That's a tricky one. Who measures equality?<br><br>4) The common good approach: sees life as being conducted as part of a group and
<br>asks us to contribute to that group.<br><br>Amazon reviewers and all the 65.000 contributors to YouTube every day arguably<br>contribute to the common good. Also Hanah Arendt describes the common good as a<br>key motivation for participation. Sure. The problem in this case, however, is
<br>that the common good is helped while at the same time a corporate entity gets<br>rich, rich, and richer: and that is... making a fortune of YOU.<br><br>5) "Virtues approach- the idea that ethical action has to be consistent with
<br>certain virtues such as honesty, courage, compassion, tolerance, love,<br>integrity, fidelity, fairness, self-control. The question that should be asked<br>is: 'Is this action consistent with my acting at my best?'"
<br><br>Are Amazon, YouTube, or MySpace, or.....(fill in other less often targeted<br>companies) on their best behavior?<br><br>To most content creators who are socialized into capitalism, this exploitation<br>of labor may appear to be natural. We receive a service -- think "free" (?)...
<br>"gift" (?) -- and in return our attention gets harassed.<br><br>The most perverted version of this naturalized exploitation is Yaadz<br>(<a href="http://www.yaadz.com/">http://www.yaadz.com/</a>). This site offers video ads created and uploaded by the
<br>people who watch them. Somebody who loves Nike shoes can now create their own<br>video ad and upload it too. And it's free. They don't even have to pay for<br>giving their immaterial labor away for free. In East Germany where people gave
<br>socialism a shot for some forty years, many things stank. But surely people<br>would have rolled on the floor laughing if you'd have suggested to them to<br>create advertisement aimed at themselves for free.<br><br>
But this dynamic is not more unethical than mostly everything else in<br>capitalism. In stores, more and more services are moved to the 'guest' (oh, no-<br>it's not a "customer" anymore). We dutifully empty our tray in the trash can-
<br>full of compassion for the poor service person who'd have to clean up after us<br>otherwise. We forget that this is a deliberate setup with the people who shape<br>these situations being out of our reach. We fill our own cups with coffee, etc.
<br>While Bertram Gross' term "friendly fascism" is too strong, what happens here is<br>gruesome.<br><br>But why complain, like Nicholas Carr, about this exploitative nature of the<br>sociable web? It should not surprise us that behind the hip mask (of music on
<br>MySpace or Chinese karaoke on YouTube) hides the grim face of big capital (i.e.<br>Rupert Murdoch). First, it's your time that is targeted, and second, it's about<br>harnessing our distributed creativity. The all-out goal is not immediately our
<br>money. Our attention is what pays the bills.<br><br>The capitalist mother milk makes people look at society through the rosy glasses<br>of corporate interest (instead of their own). Who cares if we 'outsource' our
<br>life memories to Flickr, which requires all its members to sign on to Yahoo<br>spam now? Well, we should care. And sure, there is always enough room for the<br>exploited to navigate within certain parameters affording them the impression
<br>of freedom.<br><br><a href="http://Amazon.com">Amazon.com</a> is a curious example. Here, the common good is the sales pitch. Yeah,<br>yeah, in the community bookstore you do not find twelve people offering you<br>advise on a book.
<a href="http://Amazon.com">Amazon.com</a> is hard to beat as a research tool (and who does<br>go through the pain of researching there but then buying elsewhere). The<br>perverted logic of some people in their early twenties is articulated in the
<br>question: Why would not I help <a href="http://Amazon.com">Amazon.com</a>? They offer such an awesome service.<br>And because you paid for the book you are now grateful and leave a review? ...<br>What did I miss here?
<br><br>In the end, what alternatives are there, really? Corporate platforms for<br>socializing are of course also spaces where activism and much interesting<br>artistic practice are situated today. Politicians realize that Youtube and
<br>Myspace and also SecondLife are spaces where they have large audiences that may<br>even listen. Will they go out and vote after sitting in a Secondlife lecture by<br>a politician-- the verdict is out on that one. And for those among you who
<br>think this is all frying small potatoes, and that the issues are much larger<br>and that the world revolution will start in 20 years-- well, I certainly don't<br>see that happening in the US, Europe or Switzerland any time soon. It behooves
<br>us to look at the specifics of the current changes and the claims for<br>democratization of society, through "massification" of voice in the sociable<br>web, for example.<br><br>We should just give up looking to the web for autonomous spaces, perhaps. The
<br>best you can get today is hybrid capitalism. This hybridity of the sociable web<br>is about the interests that are represented. Today's little web service that<br>represents the true interests of those who populate it, in a Habermasian way,
<br>is bought up by Yahoo tomorrow. The hunt for our attention begins.<br><br>-ts<br><br>The author makes a living through his contract at a State Research University<br>and through public lectures, which in some way may influence his views. He is
<br>not on any corporate advisory board and would reject such offers.<br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (<a href="http://distributedcreativity.org">
distributedcreativity.org</a>)<br><a href="mailto:iDC@mailman.thing.net">iDC@mailman.thing.net</a><br><a href="http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc">http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc</a>
<br><br>List Archive:<br><a href="http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/">http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer alternatives.
<br><br>Wiki and Encyclopedia, at <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>; Blog, at <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a>; Newsletter, at <a href="http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p">
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p</a><br><br>Basic essay at <a href="http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499">http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499</a>; interview at <a href="http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html">
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html</a>; video interview, at <a href="http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm">http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm
</a><br><br>The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by <a href="http://www.ws-network.com/04_team.htm">http://www.ws-network.com/04_team.htm</a>