March 28, 2005

prod & ponder -- flickr's future:

http://www.prodandponder.com/?p=13

Hmm. I hadn't given this too much thought before these comments, but now that you mention it, there does seem to be something very different going on with things like Flickr and del.icio.us and Orkut and Friendster (although I don't hear much about those anymore). They're already coops in a way, since they require the cooperative participation of thousands of users to be useful or worthwhile, yet they are coops beneath corporate structures -- coops in the service of corporations. That's really really icky, and I think many people sense that, which is why you get such activist/sensitive user communities. People seem to recognize their own participation in making these things cool, and some of them want to demand something in return for that besides just making the site cool. I wonder if something like this could be something of a model for a new sort of activism or a new way of “waking people up” to the way corporations are taking advantage of them every day and giving so little in return. For example, imagine if the AFLCIO had started flickr for its members, but opened it to the world. Suddenly every flickr user would have some stake in the success of the union movement. It would be easier for people to recognize and value the role they could play in that movement and in its larger goals of improving society. Sort of. Maybe. There's at least a utopian impulse there....

Posted by mowabb at 07:31 AM