It's bad, but it's not Armageddon...yet!

My friend Sam sent me this article http://adage.com/article?article_id=135440

He asked me what my response was to it and I ended up writing more than I thought I was going to!  Here's what I wrote to him:

Ok so of course right now everything seems dark and horrible, and yes, things are awful right now in this economy but I don't see it being AS bad as they say.  I think or I should say I hope that Obama has what it takes to turn this around!

Yes, the consumer can now be a producer.  We see it in Youtube, Facebook etc...but that doesn't mean that the only things people will watch from now on are youtube videos.  No way!  We will still want all of our professionally produced programming.  

Now in terms of Newspapers, in the old fashion sense is dying.  Reading a newspaper is as much about the content as it is about the ritual.  The people who grew up reading the morning paper with their coffee are no longer the main consumers.  Now, with digitalization and the increased speed at which we live our lives, waiting for a newspaper to be printed and sent to our front door seems ancient.  

I could touch on each type of medium but the story is pretty much the same across the board. Yes, it's bad but it's not Armageddon.  

We are all playing catch up to the "Digital Revolution".  The internet seems like it has been around forever but really the advancements in this technology have evolved in the last 20 years in overdrive.  And now, as a society we are playing catch up.  The people in charge of the business models did not take advantage (in an acceptable way) from the beginning so now when the general public is charged for something online they don't feel like they should have to pay because up until now they haven't had to.  If you're used to getting something for free there's little chance you'll now start paying for it. I think the bottom line is that the people in charge, the CEO's of all these major corporations dropped the ball about 20 years ago.  

The internet was developed on an open mentality, the people who really invented and revolutionized the Internet were not the CEO's, they were the geeks in the basements, all working on the same programs together, posting what they've found and building off of each other's works.  It's what we call today "Web 2.0"  If, now strictly from a business side, the CEO's had payed attention to what was going on from the beginning I don't think we'd be in such trouble as we are now.  If from the beginning we were charged for email accounts we wouldn't know any different today.  Of course I don't want to pay to use gmail or hotmail but imagine if we never knew we didn't have to pay for it?  We would pay.  Then the newspapers that are strictly online now maybe wouldn't feel such a tight pull on the purse strings if we just knew that to read a full article we had to pay for it or to access craigslist we had to pay for it, the same way you pay to place an ad in the paper.  

So, as an entire society we have to figure out a way to monetize the Internet.  I think it can be done, we just need the right person or group to figure out how to do it.  I agree with the article that we can't rely solely on advertising, people do not respond to online ads in the same way.  So how exactly will we come around on this? Not sure, but i'm not ready to bury my head in the sand yet.  I still think there are enough creative people out there to figure this out.  There are a lot of obstacles and a lot of people to convince but I think someone out there somewhere will figure this out.  And if they don't, well at least it was fun while it lasted and hopefully I won't have to pay back any school loans!