Here’s a worthwhile read from yesterday’s New York Times that looks at one digital culture/internet pioneer who’s reconsidering his beliefs about the impacts of free and open sharing of information and, moreover, of creative works. As it turns out, opening up free access to music, written work and other forms of expression hasn’t produced a digitally driven renaissance but, in many cases, has stifled creativity.

The internet’s ability to rob creative people of the ability to make a living from their work combined with its encouragement of anonymity-fueled mob mentality, which always results in mediocrity, has led to a culture freeze, the effects of which are only beginning to be felt.

Who’da thunk it? Seriously.

Since the internet never threatened to make food, clothing, housing, heat – any the things we actually need to sustain ourselves – available for free, didn’t it always stand to reason that people who couldn’t earn money writing, making music and creating visual art, would invariably give up and turn to other pursuits? What choice do they have?

You get the culture you make. And until we start to value creative over cheap, we’re going to continue to make our culture ever less interesting.