Increasingly, the new “clout” in media both mainstream and alternate is credibility. Lose it and you’re done for. From el gato malo at boriquagato.substack.com:
“bebinpurr”
the retail B2C aspect of the information economy is dying.
the reputation economy is rising to take its place.
this is going to be one of the pivotal meta-trends of the next several years and it is already well underway. it’s been taking root for years and like many such exponentially driven processes of social contagion, it’s “little by little then all at once” as that which seemed subtle suddenly comes to raucous and unmistakable bloom.
and we are about to see the full flower of this phenomenon.
but what does that mean?
the 90’s ushered in a radical change in information. that which was once hard to access and hard to share become so plentiful and cheap that it has now flipped over into “hard to avoid” and “hard to assess.”
in 1990, real time news and stock prices and commentary were the province of a very select few. now it’s baseline expectation for people on budget airline flights.
that which was once the currency of a small elite is now in ubiquitous circulation. this has dramatically changed the manner in which it is not only consumed, but provided.
the sheer volume of information has become overwhelming, and its stridence and pandering qualities have been accentuated as 10,000 memes fight for each eyeball that not so long ago had only 3 or 4 to choose from.
not only does this make keeping up with it near impossible, it also means that the power to control and slant it has become a sort of commanding heights in this new economy:
control what people see and you can control what they believe. shape the message, shape the society.
Oh hai, want to barter?