Is there a valid comparison with content publishing? If readers refuse to pay for (subscribe) for content directly, is there a danger that those volume producers of content which remain will have their content increasingly determined by the agendas of their owner/advertisers/corporate partners to the detriment of good disinterested public discourse?
Of course advertisers/owners have always had a strong influence, but with the decline of the subscription model, will this influence become all consuming? Or is there a fundamental dis-functionality in relying on commercial entities to do the job of public information dissemination that can only be addressed through state broadcasters such as the BBC and more "official" publications, gazettes, websites etc. and of course through civil society foundations?
How can the dominating influences of "special interests": commercial, political, the MIC ETC. be reduced? Or is that what the internet is all about - the democratisation of information through direct peer to peer communications and with intermediary organisations increasingly being cut out of the loop? Index of Frank's Diaries
It is likely to be new organizations who will discover the answer to those questions. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
