Are Web Factories Stealing Your Job?

November 18th, 2009 by Peter Sweeney (@petersweeney)

Industrialization is transforming our information economy, destroying old business models and creating new opportunities. The impact it will have on new media will make Web 2.0 seem tame in comparison. To understand this transformation and leverage it effectively, you need to parse the myths from reality.

Back in May 2009, I argued that industrialization is the most transformative force on the Internet. Human tasks are rapidly being displaced by machines. Factories of advanced technologies are being constructed to automate the manufacture of information and content. Predictably, there is much hand-wringing and righteous indignation expressed about this economic sea change.

Primal Fusion just returned from the Defrag conference where industrialization was a focus of the conversations. Andy Kessler’s keynote discussed how industrialization will destroy jobs. It was lambasted as dystopian and ridiculous. Stowe Boyd spoke of social media leading to a post-industrial world; my talk (slides, coverage) discussed the present reality of Internet industrialization.

A recent Wired article on Demand Media was another kick to the industrial hive. This “fiendishly clever” company is automating aspects of the editorial process and manufacturing workflow, creating prodigious amounts of content to fill the nooks and crannies of the online world. Predictably, the response has been overwhelmingly negative.

The concerns are real. Industrialism affects lives. Jobs are being lost and venerable institutions are being eradicated. Unfortunately, gauging by the reaction in the blogosphere, and through my own travels venturing in this area, people are awash in misconceptions and half-truths about this disruptive force.

Myth #1: Industrialism is about automating jobs

The criticisms of industrialism can largely be boiled down to one main indictment: factories destroy jobs. They marginalize skilled professionals and subjugate their roles.

While there is some truth in this criticism, it is also superficial and misleading. There is a naïve view of a “sweat shop” migration, where formerly highly paid professionals end up toiling away at a pauper’s wage creating the drivel that editorial machines assign to them.

The reality is far more nuanced. The technologists who enable this transformation are not automating whole jobs or professions, but rather discrete tasks.

For example, consider the process of manufacturing online content. It’s an extremely complicated process that involves a large number of highly specialized tasks: workflow management, technical infrastructure, editorial and creative direction, content aggregation, layout, information architecture, and many others. As these tasks are automated, fewer people need to be involved in the process. Costs decrease and new economies of scale are realized.

Productivity increases with automation

Forward-looking professionals adapt to technology opportunistically. They evolve new roles that incorporate these tools.

Myth #2: Internet industrialism is about the future

Some take comfort in automation as science fiction, far removed from our current economy.

In reality, the drive towards these productivity advantages is relentless and in full force, right now. Billions are flowing into industrialized Internet industries. (note 1) Giants like Google and Amazon have already emerged. A large number of well-financed and industrious start-ups are rushing in to fill needs for specialized machinery. All are leveraging the network of the open Internet to drive this industrial revolution forward.

Denying this present economic reality, or imagining that concurrent social revolutions will displace this economic drive towards productivity, would be a risky response.

Internet Industrial Revolution

Myth #3: Internet factories create spam

Content professionals take pride in the quality of their hand-crafted content. They imagine machines will only create spam, polluting the Internet with a glut of low-quality content that consumers will reject in droves.

It’s painful to watch critics of industrialism pulling out their quality knives in this quantity gun fight. While artisans decry the death of professional content, the factories quietly find markets where the quality of their content is valued as “good enough”.

There are no absolute measures of quality. It needs to be assessed in the context of our insatiable demand for information. People value content that makes their tasks simpler and more convenient; content that is evermore customized to their needs. Assessments of quality need to reconcile these fast-changing dynamics of supply and demand.

Is there room for abuse? Of course; we will struggle with content spam just as surely as we struggle with spam in all its existing forms. But quality, as an argument against industrial productivity, is a misdirection you’ll want to avoid. Just ask the publishing industry.