Learning from the collective
In his recent book "You Are Not a Gadget" Jaron takes a contrary position and counter argument to the popularity of online collectivism, web 2.0, open source and user-generated content. He points out dangerous trends in Internet culture and argues that the rise of open culture is not only hurting content producers but degrading the quality of information available. He discusses the concept of technological lock-in where design decisions made early in the development of digital systems can have enormous and often unintended consequences at a later stage in the evolution of that system where designs, knowledge and even the way we think become "locked-in" as a permanent part of the web's very structure. In an emerging "Digital Society" this could have very serious repercussions indeed.
