Take Down
I do like it when people intelligently pick apart an argument that gets passed around the echo chamber. Over at his blog Whimsley, Tom Slee was kind enough to do just that to Clay Shirkey’s “Collapse of Complex Business Models” essay. The money quote comes towards the end, “Complexity is not going away. It’s just moving to a different spot in the production chain, and as it moves so does the balance of power.”
Also, interestingly, the essay kills an argument I’ve made myself: Pointing out that the “Charlie bit me” video no longer tops the YouTube all-time most watched list. That spot is now held by none other than Lady Gaga. “The most watched video made in the last five years shows Lady Gaga and a group of hired models dancing on an elaborate set in a video that embodies complex production methods, that is part of the Vevo channel (a joint venture between Google and major record labels) and that features product placements by Nemiroff Vodka, Parrot by Starck, Carerra sunglasses, and HP Envy.” So there’s that.
The Lady Gaga example isn’t meaningful unless it’s part of a larger trend. The larger trend at the moment is towards simplicity, as Shirky points out. But nothing is ever as clear cut as pundits would have us believe. Articles that acknowledge the complexity of the real world are uninteresting, droll and unconvincing. So Shirky’s article on simplicity must make it all seem so simple. Which it is not. But overall I think he’s generally correct.
trying to figure out where i fall on this.
