Rushkoff has been charging for stuff since before Eternal September. He has a track record of making things happen that dates back to a time before "startup" was a word with an online scene associated with it.
>never at all considers justifying why people should listen to him, simply that it costs him time to create this content.
I suspect he's done a lot more considering than many HN readers have.
It's true that Rushkoff is making - and has always made - the dissenting point that perhaps the Internet should be more than a machine for extracting cash and attention from the people who use it.
In fact he's suggesting that the most useful models are the ones that contribute to users instead of trying to battery farm their time - and also that "creating shareholder value" really isn't the most sophisticated or interesting of all possible social and economic goals.
I don't doubt some people find his views threatening. Personally, I don't see any reason to dismiss them out of hand without at least trying to understand them first.
I've actually met him and talked about his beliefs as well as read a lot of what he's written. I quite like him, but I think he frequently gets the broad strokes correct but misses on the details, and I don't think this is the first instance where he's done so.
> It's true that Rushkoff is making - and has always made - the dissenting point that perhaps the Internet should be more than a machine for extracting cash and attention from the people who use it.
And I'm disagreeing with the premise that it is just a cash extracting machine, because it is so only in the most simplistic and overly cynical of analyses. I get that it hasn't solved world hunger, and I get that there are many problems, but I think if Rushkoff understood how the web functioned at a deeper technical level he'd feel a lot less strongly about his beliefs. Similar to the Marxists that form the foundation of his beliefs, if he actually had to implement his ideas in real life he'd understand why they aren't a panacea.
Rushkoff has been charging for stuff since before Eternal September. He has a track record of making things happen that dates back to a time before "startup" was a word with an online scene associated with it.
>never at all considers justifying why people should listen to him, simply that it costs him time to create this content.
I suspect he's done a lot more considering than many HN readers have.
It's true that Rushkoff is making - and has always made - the dissenting point that perhaps the Internet should be more than a machine for extracting cash and attention from the people who use it.
In fact he's suggesting that the most useful models are the ones that contribute to users instead of trying to battery farm their time - and also that "creating shareholder value" really isn't the most sophisticated or interesting of all possible social and economic goals.
I don't doubt some people find his views threatening. Personally, I don't see any reason to dismiss them out of hand without at least trying to understand them first.