I was in the bar after Primeconf with Chris Dymond and Hwayoung. Discussing something and somehow me and Chris mentioned Andrew Keen. If you don’t know Andrew Keen, he’s basically the man who’s been shouting about how the professional sector is going to be swallowed alive by the amateur sector. From Wikipedia…
He is particularly known for his view that the current Internet culture and the Web 2.0 trend may be debasing culture
Well 8 years later, his book The cult of the amateur seems as silly as it then. In actual fact we were discussing how the amateurs have moved across to pro-amateurs. An example is blogging! The number of blogs like mine has certainly dropped and most are now “professional.”
Not kept up with what Andrew’s point is now but frankly he was wrong then and I called him out at multiple events for this view. I have also called out a few people for a similar and embarrassing point of view (no names, but they know who and should know better!)