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# Clay Shirky

Writings About The Internet: Economics and Culture, Media and Community, Open Source

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](http://shirky.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Archive](http://shirky.com/archive/)
- [The Times’ Paywall and Newsletter Economics](http://shirky.com/weblog/the-times-paywall-and-newsletter-economics/) - It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. In early July, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation placed its two London-based “quality” dailies, the Times and Sunday Times, behind a paywall, charging £1 for 24 hours access, or £2 a week (after an introductory £1 for the first month.*) At the same time, News Corp also forbad
- [Wikileaks and the Long Haul](http://shirky.com/weblog/wikileaks-and-the-long-haul/) - Like a lot of people, I am conflicted about Wikileaks. Citizens of a functioning democracy must be able to know what the state is saying and doing in our name, to engage in what Pierre Rosanvallon calls “counter-democracy”*, the democracy of citizens distrusting rather than legitimizing the actions of the state. Wikileaks plainly improves those
- [Healthcare.gov and the Gulf Between Planning and Reality](http://shirky.com/weblog/healthcare-gov-and-the-gulf-between-planning-and-reality/) - Back in the mid-1990s, I did a lot of web work for traditional media. That often meant figuring out what the client was already doing on the web, and how it was going, so I’d find the techies in the company, and ask them what they were doing, and how it was going. Then I’d
- [Napster, Udacity, and the Academy](http://shirky.com/weblog/napster-udacity-and-the-academy/) - Fifteen years ago, a research group called The Fraunhofer Institute announced a new digital format for compressing movie files. This wasn’t a terribly momentous invention, but it did have one interesting side effect: Fraunhofer also had to figure out how to compress the soundtrack. The result was the Motion Picture Experts Group Format 1, Audio Layer
- [The Collapse of Complex Business Models](http://shirky.com/weblog/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/) - I gave a talk last year to a group of TV executives gathered for an annual conference. From the Q&A after, it was clear that for them, the question wasn’t whether the internet was going to alter their business, but about the mode and tempo of that alteration. Against that background, though, they were worried
- [Why Small Payments Won’t Save Publishers](http://shirky.com/weblog/why-small-payments-wont-save-publishers/) - With continued turmoil in the advertising market, people who work at newspapers and magazines are wondering if micropayments will save them, with recent speculation in this direction by David Sarno of the LA Times, David Carr of the NY Times, and Walter Isaacson in Time magazine. Unfortunately for the optimists, micropayments — small payments made by readers for
- [Internet World ’00: A View From the Floor](http://shirky.com/essays/internet-world-00-a-view-from-the-floor/) - What the ’00 Internet World says about the state of the industry.
- [Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable](http://shirky.com/weblog/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/) - Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating piracy of Dave Barry’s popular column, which was published by the Miami Herald and syndicated widely. In the course of tracking down the sources of unlicensed distribution, they found many things, including the copying of his column to alt.fan.dave_barry on usenet; a 2000-person strong mailing list
- [Short Takes on Linux](http://shirky.com/essays/short-takes-on-linux/) - Brief theses about Linux and Open Source development.
- [The Interest Horizons and the Limits of Software Love](http://shirky.com/essays/the-interest-horizons-and-the-limits-of-software-love/) - The economic limits of Open Source.
- [The Icarus Effect](http://shirky.com/essays/the-icarus-effect/) - Network traffic is growing faster than chip speed.
- [Playfulness in 3-D Spaces](http://shirky.com/essays/playfulness-in-3-d-spaces/) - Why Quake is better than VRML, and what it means for software design.
- [Sun's Quasi-Open Source Model](http://shirky.com/essays/suns-quasi-open-source-model/) - Sun Microsystems's misunderstanding of Open Source.
- [Why Stricter Software Patents End Up Benefitting Open Source](http://shirky.com/essays/why-stricter-software-patents-end-up-benefitting-open-source/) - Why commercial software controls will backfire.
- [Open Source and Quake](http://shirky.com/essays/open-source-and-quake/) - Games and the possibility of going Open Source after the fact.
- [The RIAA Succeeds Where the Cypherpunks Failed](http://shirky.com/essays/the-riaa-succeeds-where-the-cyperpunks-failed/) - The RIAA's current legal strategy is driving broad public adoption of encryption, 10 years after it was first predicted.
- [XML: No Magic Problem Solver](http://shirky.com/essays/xml-no-magic-problem-solver/) - XML can solve technological problems, but not business problems.
- [Cyberporn!!! (So What???)](http://shirky.com/essays/cyberporn-so-what/) - First Amendment issues and the regulation of pornography on the net.
- [Don't Believe the Hype](http://shirky.com/essays/dont-believe-the-hype/) - User preference and product design.
- [Social Computing in Student Populations](http://shirky.com/essays/social-computing-in-student-populations/) - What college students can tell us about Internet use.
- [The Internet and Hit-driven Industries](http://shirky.com/essays/the-internet-and-hit-driven-industries/) - Why Hollywood is really going to hate the Web.
- [Web Traffic and TV Ratings](http://shirky.com/weblog/web-traffic-and-tv-ratings/) - Big web sites are now as widely seen as any TV series.
- [How Television Ratings Portend the Death of Mass Media](http://shirky.com/essays/how-television-ratings-portend-the-death-of-mass-media/) - Television is becoming more like the Web.
- [Notes from October's "Internet World" Conference.](http://shirky.com/essays/notes-from-octobers-internet-world-conference/) - What the ’99 Internet World says about the state of the industry.
- [An Open Letter to Microsoft](http://shirky.com/essays/an-open-letter-to-microsoft/) - Software usability and what it means to be a media company.
- [An Open Letter to Jakob Nielsen](http://shirky.com/essays/an-open-letter-to-jakob-nielsen/) - An argument against design standards on the web.
- [We (Still) Have a Long Way to Go](http://shirky.com/essays/we-still-have-a-long-way-to-go/) - The Library of Congress Underestimates the Internet
- [Time-Warner and ILOVEYOU](http://shirky.com/essays/time-warner-and-iloveyou/) - Corporate and individual control of media outlets
- [The Toughest Virus of All](http://shirky.com/essays/the-toughest-virus-of-all/) - Why viral marketing can never be a general purpose tool.
- [Communities, Audiences, and Scale](http://shirky.com/essays/communities-audiences-and-scale/) - Audiences scale. Communities don't.
- [Domain Names: Memorable, Global, Non-political?](http://shirky.com/essays/domain-names-memorable-global-non-political/) - Semantics, and therefore legal issues, are an inevitable part of naming
- [Who Are You Paying When You're Paying Attention?](http://shirky.com/essays/who-are-you-paying-when-youre-paying-attention/) - Converting attention to cash.
- [Help, The Price of Information Has Fallen And It Can't Get Up](http://shirky.com/essays/help-the-price-of-information-has-fallen-and-it-cant-get-up/) - Why content is free on the Web.
- [The Divide by Zero Era: The Arrival of the Free Computer](http://shirky.com/essays/the-divide-by-zero-era-the-arrival-of-the-free-computer/) - The Economics of the "Free PC" movement.
- [Pretend vs. Real Economy](http://shirky.com/essays/pretend-vs-real-economy/) - The difference between the stock market and the economy.
- [The Abuse of Intellectual Property Law](http://shirky.com/essays/the-abuse-of-intellectual-property-law/) - How lawsuits are stifling innovation.
- [The Wal-Mart Future](http://shirky.com/essays/the-wal-mart-future/) - You can't pursue an inflationary path to a deflationary ideal.
- [Internet Use and National Identity](http://shirky.com/essays/internet-use-and-national-identity/) - The effects of Internet adoption on national culture.
- [The Internet and the Size of Government](http://shirky.com/essays/the-internet-and-the-size-of-government/) - Challenges to governmental control.
- [Culture is Just Another Word for "Arbitrage Opportunity"](http://shirky.com/essays/culture-is-just-another-word-for-arbitrage-opportunity/) - The threat cross-border ecommerce presents to national culture.
- [The Future of Europe Lies In Email](http://shirky.com/essays/the-future-of-europe-lies-in-email/) - What a cyber-cafe on steroids says about European Internet adoption.
- [The WTO and the Seattle Protests](http://shirky.com/essays/the-wto-and-the-seattle-protests/) - How the Seattle protests may end up strengthening the WTO.
- [Language, The Internet, and the Next Century](http://shirky.com/essays/language-the-internet-and-the-next-century/) - Human language is the next great challenge for the world's networks.
- [AOL's Brilliant Climbdown](http://shirky.com/essays/aols-brilliant-climbdown/) - What the AOL Time-Warner Merger Says about the Media Business.
- [ATT and Cable Internet Access](http://shirky.com/essays/att-and-cable-internet-access/) - ATT's attempt to buy itself a new monopoly.
- [Why Smart Agents Are A Dumb Idea](http://shirky.com/essays/why-smart-agents-are-a-dumb-idea/) - “Smart Agents” are the wrong solution to the problem of info-liquidity.
- [Citizens and Customers](http://shirky.com/essays/citizens-and-customers/) - National Identity vs. Economic Identity.
- [In Praise of Evolvable Systems](http://shirky.com/essays/in-praise-of-evolvable-systems/) - Central Planning vs. Evolution.
- [Ford, Subsidized Computers, and Free Speech](http://shirky.com/essays/ford-subsidized-computers-and-free-speech/) - The 1st Amendment protects public space. What happens on the commercial internet?
- [Free PC Business Models](http://shirky.com/essays/free-pc-business-models/) - The Economics of the "Free PC" movement.
- [The Fusing of Desktops And Servers](http://shirky.com/essays/the-fusing-of-desktops-and-servers/) - Windows2000 vs. Linux in a "Content at the Edges" Internet.
- [1999, the Year the World Wide Web Went World Wide](http://shirky.com/essays/1999-the-year-the-world-wide-web-went-world-wide/) - As of 1999, American internet users are in the minority. What now?
- [Kasparov vs. The World](http://shirky.com/essays/kasparov-vs-the-world/) - What the Kasparov community chess match tells us about community.
- [Language Networks](http://shirky.com/essays/language-networks/) - On the net, two countries border each other only if they share a language.
- [The Power of Lutefisk](http://shirky.com/essays/the-power-of-lutefisk/) - "Oh, you can't eat lutefisk more than once a year."
- [View Source… Lessons from the Web's Massively Parallel Development](http://shirky.com/essays/view-source-lessons-from-the-websmassively-parallel-development/) - The Web considered as a massive Open Source project.
- [Time to Open Source the Human Genome](http://shirky.com/essays/time-to-open-source-the-human-genome/) - Patent law and human genetics.
- [In Praise Of Freeloaders](http://shirky.com/essays/in-praise-of-freeloaders/) - Why freeloading in P2P systems is not the problem people think it is.
- [WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) and Intellectual Property](http://shirky.com/essays/wap-wireless-access-protocol-and-intellectual-property/) - WAP is on a collision course with the Web as it exists today.
- [Wireless Auction Follies](http://shirky.com/essays/wireless-auction-follies/) - The likely effect of massive overpaying at wireless auctions.
- [It's Communication, Stupid](http://shirky.com/essays/its-communication-stupid/) - How the wireless world missed the boat on e-mail.
- [RIP THE CONSUMER, 1900-1999](http://shirky.com/essays/rip-the-consumer-1900-1999/) - Mass media is a historical anomaly.
- [Content Shifts to the Edges](http://shirky.com/essays/content-shifts-to-the-edges/) - Napster is turning the internet inside out.
- [Darwin, Linux, and Radiation](http://shirky.com/essays/darwin-linux-and-radiation/) - The spread of Linux to multiple devices.
- [The Domain Name System is Coming Apart at the Seams](http://shirky.com/essays/dns/) - Peer-to-peer bypasses the DNS system.
- [The Java Renaissance](http://shirky.com/essays/the-java-renaissance/) - Java is returning to the desktop, whether Microsoft likes it or not.
- [Napster and the Death of the Album Format](http://shirky.com/essays/napster-and-the-death-of-the-album-format/) - Napster made the song, not the album, the unit of musical selection.
- [The Napster-BMG Merger](http://shirky.com/essays/the-napster-bmg-merger/) - The Era of Subscription Music Begins.
- [Hailstorm: Open Web Services Controlled by Microsoft](http://shirky.com/essays/hailstorm-open-web-services-controlled-by-microsoft/) - Microsoft's Hailstorm Strategy.
- [Enter the Decentralized Zone](http://shirky.com/essays/enter-the-decentralized-zone-2/) - Network Security will be a joke until IT departments recognize users' power.
- [P2P Backlash!](http://shirky.com/essays/p2p-backlash/) - The P2P meme hits a rough patch.
- [Interoperability, Not  Standards](http://shirky.com/essays/interoperability-not-standards/) - Standardization of P2P is Premature.
- [Peak Performance Pricing](http://shirky.com/essays/peak-performance-pricing/) - Standardization of P2P is Premature.
- [P2P Smuggled In Under Cover of Darkness](http://shirky.com/essays/p2p-smuggled-in-under-cover-of-darkness/) - Workers smuggle P2P in today like they smuggled in PCs 20 years ago.
- [The Parable of Umbrellas and Taxicabs](http://shirky.com/essays/the-parable-of-umbrellas-and-taxicabs/) - Different kinds of resources in P2P systems.
- [The Case Against Micropayments](http://shirky.com/essays/the-case-against-micropayments/) - Why Micropayments Won't Work, Ever.
- [Peers not Pareto](http://shirky.com/essays/peers-not-pareto/) - An economic argument about P2P systems and Pareto optimality.
- [PCs Are The Dark Matter Of The Internet](http://shirky.com/essays/pcs-are-the-dark-matter-of-the-internet/) - Peer-to-peer relies on the PC's latent power.
- [The Music Industry Will Miss Napster](http://shirky.com/essays/the-music-industry-will-miss-napster/) - If the industry kills Napster, it will lose its best potential partner.
- [Content Shifts to the Edges, Redux](http://shirky.com/essays/content-shifts-to-the-edges-redux/) - Napster turns the user from a media consumer into a media provider.
- [Napster and Music Distribution](http://shirky.com/essays/napster-and-music-distribution/) - Napster and the 55 mph speed limit.
- [The Real Wireless Innovators](http://shirky.com/essays/the-real-wireless-innovators/) - The wireless business is futile if you know technology but don't know what your customers want.
- [WAP's Closed Door Approach](http://shirky.com/essays/waps-closed-door-approach/) - WAP's Philosophical Characteristics.
- [Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content](http://shirky.com/essays/fame-vs-fortune-micropayments-and-free-content/) - Why micropayments don't work, and free content is an epochal change.
- [The FCC, Weblogs, and Inequality](http://shirky.com/essays/the-fcc-weblogs-and-inequality/) - The FCC's vote on media concentration draws out a lesson about a media landscape: Diverse. Free. Equal. Pick two.
- [File-sharing Goes Social](http://shirky.com/essays/file-sharing-goes-social/) - The RIAA is creating the environment for a generation of socially-bounded file sharing tools.
- [The Music Business and the Big Flip](http://shirky.com/essays/the-music-business-and-the-big-flip/) - Using collaborative filtering in place of the A&R department.
- [A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy](http://shirky.com/essays/a-group-is-its-own-worst-enemy/) - Persistent patterns in long-lived online groups.
- [Grid Supercomputing: The Next Push](http://shirky.com/essays/grid-supercomputing-the-next-push/) - Why supercomputing on tap is less important than it seems bargains.
- [Social Software and the Politics of Groups](http://shirky.com/essays/social-software-and-the-politics-of-groups/) - Software designed for groups encodes political bargains.
- [Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software](http://shirky.com/essays/group-as-user-flaming-and-the-design-of-social-software/) - Our social tools—the software the users actually use most often—remain badly misfit to their task.
- [Half the World](http://shirky.com/essays/half-the-world/) - An investigation of the phrase “Half the world has never made a phone call.”
- [Nomic World: By the players, for the players](http://shirky.com/essays/nomic-world-by-the-players-for-the-players/) - What would happen if we built a world where we maximized user control?
- [Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags](http://shirky.com/essays/ontology-is-overrated-categories-links-and-tags/) - Based on two talks I gave in the spring of 2005—one entitled "Ontology Is Overrated", and one entitled "Folksonomies & Tags: The rise of user-developed classification."
- [Situated Software](http://shirky.com/essays/situated-software/) - Watching my students build software form-fit to particular social situations.
- [The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview](http://shirky.com/essays/the-semantic-web-syllogism-and-worldview/) - The Semantic Web overestimates the value of deductive logic, and underestimates the difficulty of shared worldview.
- [Permanet, Nearlynet, and Wireless Data](http://shirky.com/essays/permanet-nearlynet-and-wireless-data/) - Why bottom-up (e.g. Wifi) works better than top-down (e.g. 3G).
- [Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality](http://shirky.com/essays/power-laws-weblogs-and-inequality/) - Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality.
- [LazyWeb and RSS: Given Enough Eyeballs, Are Features Shallow Too?](http://shirky.com/essays/lazyweb-and-rss-given-enough-eyeballs-are-features-shallow-too/) - Can distributed bug fixing methods be applied to creating features?
- [Customer-owned Networks: ZapMail and the Telecommunications Industry](http://shirky.com/essays/customer-owned-networkszapmail-and-the-telecommunications-industry/) - WiFi and VoIP mean that the telecos significant competitors are its customers.
- [In-Room Chat as a Social Tool](http://shirky.com/essays/in-room-chat-as-a-social-tool/) - An experiment running a meeting side-by-side with an in-room chat channel.
- [DNA, P2P, and Privacy](http://shirky.com/essays/dna-p2p-and-privacy/) - DNA as the ideal primary key for distributed databases.
- [Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing](http://shirky.com/essays/weblogs-and-the-mass-amateurization-of-publishing/) - Weblogs are so efficient that they destroy the financial value of publishing.
- [Broadcast Institutions, Community Values](http://shirky.com/essays/broadcast-institutions-community-values/) - The skills required to do online media well can actually damage online community.

## Pages

- [Themes](http://shirky.com/) - Since discovering the net in 1993, the things I’ve spent my time thinking through, working on, and writing about have varied widely. I have been a producer, programmer, professor, designer, author, consultant, sometimes working with people who wanted to create a purely intellectual or aesthetic experience online, sometimes working with people who wanted to use
- [Bio](http://shirky.com/bio/) - Mr. Shirky divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, web services, and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web. Current clients include Nokia, GBN,

## Categories

- [Weblog](http://shirky.com/category/weblog/)
- [Essays](http://shirky.com/category/essays/)

## Tags

- [Popular](http://shirky.com/tag/popular/)
- [Napster and Peer-to-Peer](http://shirky.com/tag/napster-and-peer-to-peer/)
- [WAP and the Wireless Internet](http://shirky.com/tag/wap-and-the-wireless-internet/)
- [Globalization and The Internet](http://shirky.com/tag/globalization-and-the-internet/)
- [Network Economics](http://shirky.com/tag/network-economics/)
- [Media and Community](http://shirky.com/tag/media-and-community/)
- [Open Source and Software Design](http://shirky.com/tag/open-source-and-software-design/)