Information isn't static, it needs constant refreshing. Earlier in this thread, someone said something like "Hey, FB should be paying us!" - and that's a key aspect of the idea. Everyone who posts on FB is giving away valuable information to Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg ought to be paying you a bit. Of course we (I guess), want FB to stay in business, so FB still has to make a profit. But Zuckerberg is a multi-billionaire, there's some room in FB's budget to make some small payments back to it's contributors. And make no mistake, when you post on FB you are a contributor of value. Maybe not the value you think you're providing, but value none the less.
From a cursory glance, I would argue that very few people tend to host original research on their FB feeds. It's much more likely for people to post articles or footage from a popular media site, therefore 'boosting' a message, often with the goal of creating a runaway viral effect. So the primary value of an article on FB lies in how many times it has already been shared by other FB users. However, the article originated with the labor of the journalists who created it, not in the person who shares it on FB.
What The Zuck really ought to do - and what a few countries have finally started to pressure him on - is to fairly compensate journalists for the value they provide to both his product (i..e. FB members and their feed activity) and his customers in advertisement.
Of course, if you were to ask for an ideal outcome in my eyes, it would be to dispossess Zuckerberg and turn Facebook into an internationally-governed worker-and-consumer-owned co-operative that would live off of voluntary contributions and ad dollars both.
Access to un-manipulated information as a start.
Access that he would control, and which he would grant in exchange for a fee.
In other words, it's not me who has power or control over my access to information.
Also,if you have ever had to conduct serious research in your professional or academic life, then you will know that sieving presentable information that would make sense to an outsider out of available data is an excruciating process that can take hours or days of a professional's life.
One of the primary ways in which media attracts audiences is in its ability to curate information and present it in a digestible package to specific audiences, so very little information of any media platform wouldn't have been processed and refined with an audience in mind.
Actual raw footage or data is pretty rare and not all that attractive for the most part (with some notable exceptions).
I don't think Lanier is taking capitalism as an irrevocable assumption. But providing a steady stream of new information has a cost associated with it. Someone has to pay for that. Currently, consumers are paying by accepting advertising and data manipulation into our lives. We - the consumers - are at the mercy of advertisers and manipulators. Lanier is proposing that we change that.
Why shouldn't information be traded openly and honestly. Why not let true supply and demand work?
- Because a well-governed market is itself reliant on customers with access to accurate and reliable information.
- Because information of the world is a necessity to partake in a modern democracy, and therefore a public utility, and we know that markets are a poor mechanism for distributing necessities and public utilities
- Because control of vital and necessary information is the first step in control over people's lives and livelihoods.
I could perhaps think of a couple more reasons if I put my mund to it, but those jump at me as the most glaring issues at hand - and please note that I am not singling out Lanier's model here, this applies to any capitalistic information curator devices, be it private press or Facebook.
