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Inequality

One of the things I decided when I started this blog is that I wasn't going to blog about blogging. Too many blogs I otherwise enjoy do this. The stuff is boring and I skip right over it.

But I couldn't resist linking to this (via Paul at the Fundy Post). Here's the main highlight:

Inequality on the Web

There are about 1.1 billion Internet users, yet only 55 million users (5%) have weblogs according to Technorati. Worse, there are only 1.6 million postings per day; because some people post multiple times per day, only 0.1% of users post daily.

Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities.

The web is, in fact, almost a perfect meritocracy. Nobody needs to know your race, religion, gender, age or hair colour unless you choose to reveal it. There is no cost, qualification or other barriers to entry and (cross fingers) government regulation has so far been light.

Yet there is always someone who will cry about inequality and is just blind to the fact that inequality can arise from people being less capable than others, or making different choices.

Obviously those who can't afford a computer and internet connection are excluded, but the article is about active participants as a percentage of all internet users, not as a percentage of the population.

Paul's response is spot on:

Of course, this sort of thing is not a new problem. Participation in the High Renaissance was a constant worry for contemporary advocates of an inclusive and diverse society: research found that, in all Italian city states surveyed, less than one per cent of the population had completed a fresco in the previous twelve months; rates for the playing of the viola da gamba and the invention of flying machines also were disappointingly low; only such activities as kicking a pig's bladder around the streets, jew-baiting and fornication proved to have widespread popular appeal.

Nothing much has changed then.