Web 2.0: Ignorance Meets Egoism Meets Bad Taste Meets Mob Rule

Signals vs. Noise recently posted an article: Is the web killing our culture?. In this article, the guys from 37 Signals discuss a new book from Andrew Keen titled The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture.
Keen sees the web, and “Web 2.0” in particular, as technology that enables mass narcissism, and perpetuates the problem of the “dumbing down” of our culture and society.

Mr. Keen argues that “what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment.” In his view Web 2.0 is changing the cultural landscape and not for the better. By undermining mainstream media and intellectual property rights, he says, it is creating a world in which we will “live to see the bulk of our music coming from amateur garage bands, our movies and television from glorified YouTubes, and our news made up of hyperactive celebrity gossip, served up as mere dressing for advertising.” This is what happens, he suggests, “when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.”