[...] the most substantial rewards are allocated, on an industrial
basis, to those who build and maintain the technologies of
extraction, who hold the system’s intellectual property, and who
can trade the aggregate output of personal expression as if it were some bulk commodity like grain or beets. The real spoils,
in other words, do not go to the aspiring stars, ranked and rated
by the battery of metrics that measure Internet sentiment and
opinion, but to behind-the-scenes content hosts and data miners,
who utilize these and other metrics to guarantee their profits. The
outcome, for this latter group, is a virtually wage-free proposition.
When all is said and done, the informal contract that underpins
this kind of economy is a profoundly asymmetrical deal.