And However Will We Cope With So Much Leisure Time?

Interesting conversation from Sam Seder with Robert McChesney: "Internet vs. democracy."

McChesney views popular journalism's decline from the historical context of its having been supported by advertising (and postal subsidy). Targeted "smart advertising" has eliminated conventional ads as a funding mechanism, and broadcast ad revenue is going to networks, not reporting.

Ironies abound in McChesney's look at the early promise of the Internet—to democratize, by equalizing access to information—in contrast to the real outcome: the vast reach of the Internet has, through economies of scale, proved best suited for monopolies like Amazon and Google to emerge and triumph.

Strikes me as a bit reminiscent of how Progress would create so much free time, we just wouldn't know how to handle it.