Economic Crisis Will Eliminate Open Source

An anonymous reader writes "The economic crisis will ultimately eliminate open source projects and the 'Web 2.0 free economy,' says Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur. Along with the economic downturn and record job loss, he says, we will see the elimination of projects including Wikipedia, CNN's iReport, and much of the blogosphere. Instead of users offering their services 'for free,' he says, we're about to see a 'sharp cultural shift in our attitude toward the economic value of our labor' and a rise of online media businesses that reward their contributors with cash. Companies that will survive, he says, include Hulu, iTunes, and Mahalo. 'The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren't going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some "back end" revenue,' says Keen."

Yeah right.

Advertising + Blogs = continuance of our current model.

I think we should be able to

Can someone please mod this story as flame bait?

Re: I think we should be able to

Indeed, why are some people just completely unable to comprehend that not *everyone* is a greedy bastard?

Some people do things, like programming, you know, for fun! Contributing to OSS is not about "back-end revenue" for most people, it's about contributing to a community, about pride, and about intellectual challenges.

I feel sort of sad for him that *his* whole life seems to revolve around money.

Re: I think we should be able to

And why can't people comprehend that folks write this stuff to sell books and make money? And why can't folks comprehend that Slashdot posts it in order to get page views and make money?

Re: I think we should be able to

I agree. I just read some of this tripe and I'd like to punch this guy right in his arrogant face.

What, for free? That's valuable labor!

Re: I think we should be able to

What, for free? That's valuable labor!

I'll count it as 1 hour of community service off of my sentence!

Just like...

The end of the dot-com bubble killed linux, stifled production of php sites, and made people stop sending non-commercial email. Those things all went away, right?

Re:Just like...

You should have SEEN what Linux and PHP were planning for the next release, right before the bubble burst. Let me just say two words: Flying Cars.

Re:Just like...

BARMAN: Are you serious sir? I mean, do you really think the world's going to end this afternoon?
FORD PREFECT: Yes. In just over one minute-and-thirty-five seconds.
BARMAN: Well isn't there anything we can do?
FORD PREFECT: No, nothing.
BARMAN: Well I always thought we were meant to lie down and put a paper bag over our head or something.
FORD PREFECT: If you'd like, yes.
BARMAN: Well, will that help?
FORD PREFECT: No. Excuse me I've got to find my friend.
BARMAN: Very well then. Last orders please!

Re:Just like...

ARTHUR DENT: I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Shakeout more likely

All you may see is a shakeout of commercial Web 2.0 ventures that were going nowhere and were only being made a fuss of "because it's web 2.0". The same hype that drove the original dotcom bubble. A shakeout of dodgy commercial ventures, yes, Opensource on the other hand is likely to get stronger in this climate.

This is just wrong

hungry and cold unemployed masses

They aren't the people contributing. The guy is an 1d.10T

Money?

Since when is user delivered content driven by hopes of profit? These people are driven by wanting their voices heard and to some extent wanting to be known. If these sites fail, it will be because the site itself isn't profitable, not because their users, who they could care less about, aren't making money off it.

Red Hat begs to differ

Wait...I thought the Economic Crisis was GOOD for open source?

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/21/0116221 [slashdot.org]

Odd ...

Funny, I just passed by some article someplace saying the exact opposite. mmm where was that?

Re:Odd ...

It seems we're getting dupes from a parallel SlashDot.

*laughs*

This guy is under the assumption everyone who works on open source technology is after financial gain. Very short sighted

Same wrong assumptions, different century

Perhaps it could be said that all the money in FOSS development made developers used to a higher standard of living, but that assumes that getting paid necessarily negates non-monetary rewards. That's a flimsy argument and doesn't bear very close scrutiny. It also assumes traditional scarcity rules have taken over the software industry. If anything, artificial scarcity is even harder to maintain during harder financial times.

This is nothing but a re-hash of Bill Gates' screed against the Homebrew Computer Club about how good software will never be created without paid programmers. It was wrong in then, and it's still wrong.

Suerly the opposite is true

Surely with more people sitting at home, unemployed, with nothing to do other than look for a job, and desperate to make their cv stand out more than everyone else in there situation, the amount of speculative work produced may in fact rise?

yeah right

"The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren't going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some 'back end' revenue," says Keen."

No, the hungry and cold unemployed IT guys will invest their time into open source projects, because it 's a good way to keep their curriculum in shape. And the hungry and cold unemployed will keep using linkedin and facebook to extend their network inorde to find a job. And ofcourse, businesses in difficulties will stop throwing money away for overrated software when they can get a free and open equivalent.

I think a crisis will definately have a positive impact on open source and web 2.0

My approach to such idiots is...

LET THEM BE

Every time an idiot says something that is not going to affect you directly, let it be!

Trust me, do you really wanna do business with people who believe this?? Do you want to be an employee who believe these things?

But guess what, you're right and they're wrong!

If my employer has a stupid idea, I either recommend against (and they usually listen) or I quit or I shut up.

If my competitor has a stupid idea, I just say "GREAT!!! GO AHEAD!!"

Economic Down Turns always spawn innovation

Most economic down turns spawn innovation. People no longer have nice cushy jobs soaking up their days. These people no longer have anything to lose (their job) by trying that great idea to build a better mouse trap. Some of them invent things really cool and successful.

Linux exists because Linus couldn't afford a real unix server, for example.

If the downturn turns into a depression, then no one will have money to pay anyone for services anyway. So the huddled masses will probably be bartering their services and still contribute to open source, because its the cheapest way for them to get the tools they need.

Take some money and buy a clue.

End of the Internet Predicted: News at 11

His whole premise is deeply flawed. People don't post stuff on these sites because they are so fat and happy that they just can't find anything better to do with their time. They do it because they want to be known for something, or they want to show off, or because they just want to contribute to a large project. None of these things are really affected by the economy.

Okay, some people might contribute less because they have to take 2 jobs or something, but that's a temporary phenomenon. For most people, their jobs will still occupy about 8 hours a day, and that still leaves several hours every day for farting around on the Internet, which often includes submitting content to these so-called "Open Source" content sites.

User-generated content was there at the beginning of the Web, and it isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe CNN will toss the iReport thing, but not because of the economic downturn. Sure, they might decide that now is a good time to end it because they have a convenient excuse, but the real reason to end it is because it's a cesspool of mouth breathers posting pictures of their cats and saying the same kind of mindless garbage that gets posted to CNN's Political Ticker. The iReport site doesn't do much more than allow CNN to post stories that would be of no more than local interest otherwise (ooh, a car on fire! Alert the media!).

As for Wikipedia, it has deep and fundamental flaws that may or may not eventually lead to its downfall, but the economic condition isn't going to change that one way or the other.

A more likely target

It'll be harder to argue for expensive new Oracle, SAP and similar licenses. Oh sure, that database that's just a large bit bucket will cost your business a few hundred thousand dollars to implement! Just lay off a worker or two to fit it into your budget.

Bullshit.

If anything, it'll be easier now to justify using OSS because the ridiculous cost of most enterprise software will become more apparent to the customers. I predict that if this continues, you'll see more companies forced to use OSS out of necessity simply because they cannot justify buying the extremely expensive licenses for proprietary software.

On a related note, Keen is one of those guys who laments the loss of our "high culture." The dude is a day late and a dollar short in his whole analysis. Western high culture started taking a nose dive 100 years ago with the rise of political populism. If anything will help to bring it back, it'll be putting better, cheaper tools into the hands of content producers so that they can do more work with less effort.

Re:On the contrary...

Most large businesses are just as dumb as government organisations - you just don't get to hear about most of it.