What is unbelievable about this conversation is that the question about how content creators will get paid for the content is never raised. In fact this is biggest mistake. There are questions about how app developers get their exits but not how people who create content get paid. This is the heart of the problem with the internet today, not how someone can build the next bottleneck aggregator that rides on the wave of users creativity but pays them nothing in return. Social or not.
You are assuming they must be paid. But that's a questionable assumption. Content producer can have other means of living. Content creation could be a hobby, something you do because you have to, but not necessarily because you have to fill the fridge.
Just one example: China has most likely produced more poems than any other countries. Probably the same with paintings. And even more obvious with calligraphy. But, except for some few public writers, poetry or painting was never considered a professional activity. It was a skill, a way to spend time with friends, or alone, a way to cultivate oneself, a way to become fully human.
I think it was similar in ancient Greece and some parts of Europe in the Renaissance. Is it a coincidence that these periods are the most flourishing of human history?
Some might say that people of those times had leisure because they had slaves, or were aristocrats. That cannot be the difference: With all the machines we have now we could have as much leisure time. And I would trust much more a blogger writing for the sake of it than writing for money.
In fact micro payments might be the solution but Google have chosen to monetize with ads, this meant nothing flows for the content creators and everything for the sponsors and the toll collectors at Google. In other words the next television. This is what is out of balance now.
