Participants in the free labor debate often come close to
assuming that digital technology is its causal agent—responsible
in and of itself for punching a colossal hole through the universe
of employment norms. Yet blaming new media is a sorry instance
of the fallacy of technological determinism at work. Among other
things, it ignores the proliferation of unpaid labor in old media
and other parts of the employment landscape over the last decade
and a half.