Against the Commodification of Community

We've come to accept that we will be commoditised. That our own actions are other peoples' incomes.

This was a clever corporate thing until recently. Now we're monetising each other.

And that's a bad thing.

Digital creator culture is flourishing. And with it, a gold rush. The playbooks point to creating an email list and creating communities. Then milking both.

This is a bad thing.

We are at a point where internet culture needs space to breathe new life into its corners. Where people can come together in ways that they no longer are doing in person. These communities, these as-yet-to-be-invented communities are valuable and important. The act of commoditising them is crude and counter-productive.

Interrogating a little my own thoughts here. Is it how blatant it is? Is it that there is no clear value-add; instead it's just an entry fee to filter? Is it that my perception of value delivered is lower than the asking price? Perhaps it's the transactional nature? In ways it's all of these things. And more.

It strikes me as a real step backwards in internet culture.

It feels like individuals mimicking the worst aspects of social media platforms. It feels like a step backward in time to the era of men's clubs and its manufactured scarcity.

It sounds like a low-pitched whimper of wanted exclusivity.

But even the X club has substantial running costs, and those costs are shared by the members. They typically have expensive properties in wealthy environs. They have staff and subsidised costs for food and drink.

Online communities don't have these. So why are they so expensive.

Why not instead, organise around the principle of helping each other. Sure, there may be a fee. But let that fee go towards strengthening the community, and that alone. Find interesting ways to spend it on the group. Invite speakers, get access to tools, put it toward shared assets.

Or more inspiring still, re-invent the old Irish meitheal culture. A community of helping each other out. Today we will build your thing - tomorrow mine - the day after somebody else's. Some days we'll just pitch in to strangers who need a hand. Or to a cause that craves it.

Rather than this scanty schematic.

Get people together. Then charge them for the privilege.

Our would-be creator communities are too valuable to commoditise.