WEEK 5. Bruns C.

As a trend, do you think produsage will last? Do you think commercial forces will find ways of exploiting it, or perhaps the ways people are involved will end up being short-term? Conflicts in the communities? Flagging energy/interest? Successful sites get bought out? Just a trend? Or the future of the Net? – What does your crystal ball say? (we must bear in mind this is speculation!)

As certain produser led sites become increasingly popular (Wikipedia, youtube etc) increasing work is required in their upkeep. While Youtube has been sold to Google and is funded through advertising, Wikipedia does not use advertising for profit, but instead relies on donations. I have used Wikipedia hundreds of times and have never considered paying for the information i am receiving; to me, one of the benefits of the internet is the freedom (£wise) of information. Ultimately I imagine people’s greed and desire for freebies overrides their gratitude for the information being given and donation is rare. Mine certainly does; I would rather go without than pay for such information....would you? How much do you use free sites for information? And do you consider those who work on them? In such cases the biggest produser sites may struggle for profit or even money to keep up and running and be forced to sell to companies like Google. Ultimately this may mean a return to Chomskys view of traditional media, erasing the positives of ‘free speech’ in new media.

I disagree with Bruns’ point that ‘As produsers become aware of attempts
to exploit their work without reward, their attitudes towards the produsage environmentwill rapidly deteriorate’ (Bruns p5). He talks about this in terms of games like The Sims where users create the world which they play in, but I would argue that much of the reward is in the enjoyment of the game itself. In terms of gaming the options are; to spend money on a pre-made game, or to spend money on a produser based game like The Sims, neither with any reward other than enjoyment of playing. From experience, much of the enjoyment of games like The Sims etc IS the active role of the player. I have only played a few times but enjoyed the empowerment of the control/interactivity....is this why everyone enjoys such games?