Convenience is King
posted by Frank Pasquale
A recent article in the Boston Review by Evgeny Morozov laments the influence of Wikipedia. I found this passage a particularly interesting take on the epistemology (and ecology) of the web:
Wikipedians . . . are obsessed with popular culture and less equipped to document the high-brow. The 711-word entry on nouvelle vague filmmaker Claude Chabrol, for example, is much less impressive than the 1867-word article on Transformers-director Michael Bay. . . . [T]he real tragedy of the Wikipedia method is that it reduces intellectual contributions to such granular units that writing a 2000-word entry on Chabrol in one sitting feels like painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And if you do go to such lengths to improve the site, you do not want the bureaucrats—who may know nothing about Chabrol—to judge your contribution. There is something unappealing about the value system of a project that prizes, say, movie reviews quoted from college newspapers over elaborate entries in the authoritative Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, simply because the latter does not have an easy-to-link Web site.
The Google fetish, it should be noted, is not ideological, but practical. Since Wikipedia’s editors are bombarded with editing tasks—one study estimates three new edits every second—they cannot investigate every entry thoroughly. They are constrained by what can be discovered readily—by Google. But most human knowledge, probably, still lies outside of Google’s reach.
The passage reminds me of an exchange between Sergey Brin and Ken Auletta recalled by the latter on the Leonard Lopate show. Brin asked Auletta why he didn’t just self-publish his book on the web, doing an end-run around publishers. “Who would pay my advance?,” Auletta asked. “How could I support myself for the 18 months it takes to write the book?”
While Brin saw the world of publishing as too-confining, Auletta was in effect opting out of another form of discipline—information location tools that highlight the most accessible content. One key question now is whether the free-cology of Google, Wikipedia, and unpaywalled sources will become its own world of knowledge, creating its own reality unmoored to traditional journalism or books. Auletta might worry that such a dynamic could unleash a Gresham’s Law scenario for knowledge, where the cheapest-to-produce drives out quality content like his. But hard-pressed netizens may well respond: “How am I going to pay for books like yours? How can I support myself when I need to pay $27.95 for every book I want to read?”
X-Posted: Madisonian.
November 12, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Posted in: Media Law, Technology
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Responses (3)
A.J. Sutter - November 12, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Your use of the word “discipline” in this context is fascinating. It’s symptomatic of how financial capitalism dons a moralistic mantle to conceal its own defects. The same term was very popular during the greed-driven LBO and hostile M&A boom of the mid-1980s (as in LBOs “discipline” boards and management), and no doubt in many other self-serving contexts since.
There’s an old Chasidic story about a rabbi who stayed with some of his students at an inn. The rabbi pointed out how the innkeeper was attentive and generous to his guests, saying “Look at how well he fulfills the mitzvah [commandment] to be charitable.” One of the students said, “What do you mean? He’s just being that way because he gets paid.” The rabbi said, “You’ve got it backwards. He needs to earn a living so he can go on fulfilling the mitzvah.”
For there to be professional writers who can spend some time thinking deeply about important matters, the writers need to have some means of support. I don’t know about superstars like Auletta, but most writers don’t have any input about the price of the book. Brin is speaking in the role of publisher or aggregator, and as a billionaire to (sc., of) boot. I think your criticism is misplaced.
James Grimmelmann - November 12, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Eppur si muove.
A.J. Sutter - November 13, 2009 at 7:03 am
James: There are lots of possible Inquisitors in this context — which one do you have in mind?
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