About the Book
In this lively, readable and thought-provoking book, Keen – no Luddite but a Silicon Valley insider who pioneered several Internet startups himself – urges us to challenge the mad Utopians of Web 2.0 Do we really understand the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions?
The Long Story
As a person who makes her income online, I could not resist reading a book that claimed – in the title no less – that the internet is assaulting our economy. Luckily, I made a good choice with this one and could hardly put it down until I finished reading it.
Andrew Keen starts off with a strong argument. You have heard of the Infinite Monkey Theorem? Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters can create Shakespeare? According to Keen, “Today’s technology hooks all those monkeys up with all those typewriters” and Keen doesn’t like what he’s reading.
With plenty of statistics to draw upon, Cult of the Amateur takes us through the world of Web 2.0 and its influence on today’s world – which isn’t as good as you might think. From the music industry to the media, the internet has emerged as a severe threat to the way things happen today.
Keen likes to point out how amateur journalists (if they can call themselves that) are poisoning the media. However, in a world where the media has legal permission to lie, I think Keen’s defense of the media is somewhat misplaced. While he doesn’t outright say it, he implies that all authority figures are honest when it’s obvious they’re not. It’s no wonder the amateur hour has taken off – people don’t trust authority anymore.
There is so much Keen touches on – from media, to the music industry to the economy – adding up to way more than I can talk about in this one review. But trust me, it’s all fascinating.
With all the build up about the problems, naturally I was looking to what kind of solutions Keen would propose to battle what he’d built up into an overwhelming tide of idiocy and mediocrity. Keen completely impressed me not only with his proposed solutions but with his criticisms of current systems.
In the conclusion, he even admits the faults of his beloved music industry, understanding that people will forgo a sixteen dollar CD in favour of cherry-picking songs for a dollar each on iTunes.
The Short Story
I highly recommend this book, regardless if you earn your income online or are a passive fan of the internet. Cult of the Amateur takes a fascinating look at what the internet has done to the world and possible future implications of an internet gone unchecked.
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Rating: 5 Stars
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The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy
Andrew Keen
http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/
ISBN: 978-0385520805
Length: 240 Pages
