What doesn't kill you makes you stronger I suppose.
Sometimes artists and writers need a challenge to motivate them to greatness; and so I’ll say that these last few years have been, highly motivational. However, I remain optimistic and await greatness. There's a new dot-com-bubble swelling... I've spent most of my teaching for a Microsoft Partner so I haven't had time to work on the site.
Usenet
Usenet is a very good gauge of our nation's talent and productivity. I know it's only a matter of time before the clever and entertaining Usenet legends reclaim Usenet from the spammers, the sporgers, netcops and want-a-be’s. What you see now are producers with little talent, virtually stealing content from the personal web pages of folks who can't find good jobs in their preferred field. Youtube is a good (recent) example of dozens or perhaps hundreds of talented people making money for those who seemingly choose to ignore copyrights and essentially contribute nothing on the creative side. Don't misunderstand, I like free, and I like instant access, and I like the concept of public licenses etc. What I don't like is the fact that so many talented people are unemployed or making pennies, while their content is not just being used, but being sold for, well, YouTube sold for over a billion dollars. What do the creators of the top 100 videos get from Youtube? Ok, how about the top 10? Ok, did anybody get paid for the use of their content on Youtube or do they have to sue? Just in case you haven't pieced it together, I see Usenet as a text based version of Youtube; it's format has been exploited by spammers, but it's content, well, that's been exploited too. But not on the same scale as personal web sites.
Jobs
More and more (tech) consulting firms are reconsidering off-shoring; which will allow programmers to quit their retail jobs and get back to doing what they do best (writing programs that don't need to be patched every week!).
The game industry
Best of all, at $50 per console game, it won’t be long before people run out of money and text games become the next billion dollar industry! Ok, probably not--not even if they’re written in Spanish.
There are more game companies here in the Midwest than there were back when we wanted to start our game company. But it's still hard to find talented people, with a work ethic, with time, who will collaborate to make a game (here in the Midwest).
[TODO:] [I need to find a Web 2.0 tool that will provide hyperlinks for all the terms etc.] Oct 16, 2006