Judging by the way Andrew Keen ended his article, you would have thought that someone forced him to read thousands of weblogs. Who cares if there are millions and millions of weblogs? No one is making Keen read these blogs and I find it hard to believe that the simple existence of a blog suddenly dilutes content everywhere. Blogs serve to please a select audience, and when that audience disappears the blog will disappear. But so long as one person (including the writer) cares about the blog, there’s no reason for it not to exist.

Keen is scared that having more democratized content will dilute our standards. But if anything, the abundance of content is only allowing for people to cater closer towards their tastes. To me, it seems as if Keen is arguing that people deserve less choices. He would argue that there shouldn’t be seven different styles of peanut butter, that there should be chunky and smooth. But I don’t see the issue in having extra choices. It doesn’t matter how diluted any pool of products, ideas, or people is—the best of each respective group will find a way to rise up and differentiate itself. If we have a million weblogs dedicated to origami, it is fair to assume the best ones will be referred to by their readers to their peers and circulate to the point where they are more well-known. Having extra blogs doesn’t hurt this process at all. Bad blogs remain un-followed and unread, while good blogs spread quickly. So the consumers of origami will still have access to the best blogs, but they will also have the ability to cater towards the blog that most aligns with their other interests. Perhaps one blog focuses more on animal figures, while another focuses on floral figures. This option of customization is not hurt by the addition of more blogs, only by the imposition of barriers to entry for authors of prospective blogs.

Furthermore, Keen’s prediction of a future where “everyone is an author, while there is no longer any audience” sounds borderline insane. Just because Tom made a Youtube video of himself singing Party in the USA doesn’t mean he would never watch any other videos but his own. There will never be a point where people only consume their own material. There will always be an audience, and the highest quality or most appealing material will find a way to percolate through the population.

The world thinks of America as the epitome of meritocracy. If Keen had his way, how many talented people would be squashed because they never had a chance to shine? Maybe even Justin Bieber.