Being paid to work is intuitive to the human condition; it represents our most elemental sense of justice.

Division of labor exists to exchange goods and services for money. Which we exchange for other goods and services. Econ 101. Unless robots are growing our food, building our homes and wiping our asses, our work will be a part of this economy. In some ways Wired was like the high-times of the 90s, and is still about as credible concerning a lot of things.

That said, the fact that some things are done for free supercede the current economic situation. Andrew Keen is basically claiming that free labor, hobbies and possibly even Linux will disappear because people aren’t actually earning cash in these endeavors. If this is true, then people will also simultaneously stop painting, gardening and having sex as well because of the tough economy.

Silly.

His logic (such as it is) is flawed: the idea that people with nothing to do (as in work) will stop doing something for nothing is ridiculous. That he cannot imagine that people may want to create as part of their reason for living shows contempt for all of the writers, artists and poets (and others) who are not shilling for five cents a word.

Typical greedhead.