Kevin Kelly responds to Douglas Rushkoff

Doug,

I know that you are trying to link economics into the discussion, but in this particular case, I find it more useful to delink economics. Rathter than talking about devaluation of professionals, I find it more intriguing to consider the devaluation of expertise -- regardless of whether it is paid or unpaid. In the conventional dichotomy I see folks on one side and experts (whether or not they are professional) on the other. Set aside the issue of whether professionals can make a living on their expertise. I am more interested in whether their expertise is needed.

What is the role of individual experts? Will real world-class experts gravitate to Wikipedia and join in the hive? Have any so far? Will their expertise even be tolerated? Can experts find a way to sustain their expertise? (For example right now Roger Ebert is trying to find a direct subscription model for his expertise in movie reviews.)

I can see expertise going the way of oil painters. Portrait painters can mix colors and render a person in amazing detail -- it is an artistic performance. But oil painting is a rarified art form, supported by a few. Unexpert photography is good enough for most of us. Maybe expertise in most subjects becomes an artistic performance -- valued not so much for its service but more because it is so rare and beautiful.

More important, in this fast moving culture is there even time enough to become expert in anything? And why bother if the crowd has a "good enough" expertise? Maybe expertise in most subjects is simply not needed as much any more. Obviously expertise in say html5 programming will be in demand, but maybe the good enough folk-crowd expertise on Roman plumbing is all our society needs.

And in the fast moving technical fields, who is even crazy enough to claim expertise? Are there any artists that have "mastered" Photoshop? Or CGI? Or Maya? You can probably only claim expertise in domains that are dead -- that have stop changing. Maybe even in Ruby and Ajax, the expertise of the crowd is all you can hope for.

Proposition: expertise is dead and folk wisdom is all that we have.