Hey Keen - Is Being Rich and Famous the Point?
I once heard a leftie say Che Guevara turned his back on the man by leaving medicine. The leftie said “Che really wanted to help people instead.” Right. So being a doctor isn’t helping people? This hippie couldn’t see beyond his own bias.
Andrew Keen is similarly lost in the weeds of his own biases. He is quoted in the Bookseller as saying “When you take away the gatekeepers everything becomes crap. Writers don’t get rich and famous on their own.”
Right. So the point of being a writer is to become rich and famous? Is that really self-evident?
And who is taking the gatekeepers away? Gatekeepers are here to stay. In fact they are multiplying. Why do gatekeepers need to be attached to large warehousing operations? What is important in Keen’s world, seemingly, is not how smart you are, it is the size of the company you work for.
I do agree with him that there is a tyranny of free. That pendulum will swing back in time, but the idea that books should remain the same price forever is ridiculous. I will pay for your good taste, but I won’t pay to keep the lights on in your dusty, inefficent, forgotten supply chain. Digital copies will make you less revenue. Publishers better start coming to terms with that.
Incidentally, who wants to be rich and famous anymore? Everyone is famous. Money, vexingly, remains unevenly distributed.
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