Economic Crisis Will Eliminate Open Source

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An anonymous reader writes "The economic crisis will ultimately eliminate open source projects and the "Web 2.0 free economy," says Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur. Along with the economic downturn and record job loss, he says, we will see the elimination of projects including Wikipedia, CNN's iReport, and much of the blogosphere. Instead of users offering their services "for free," he says, we're about to see a "sharp cultural shift in our attitude toward the economic value of our labor" and a rise of online media businesses that reward their contributors with cash. Companies that will survive, he says, include Hulu, iTunes, and Mahalo. "The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren't going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some 'back end' revenue," says Keen."

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