I believe this tribe is, over time, growing farther away from the rest of the world. That’s happening for an interesting and important reason, which is that the tools we are building and using are accelerating our ability to build and use more of these tools.
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Bah, we weren't so close to the rest of the world before. They are catching up to us, we're moving away from them, same old game. There's no new elitism. I still think we're getting less elite over time; that there's masses of people who don't care to keep up (but *could* if they wanted to) is a testament to inclusive nature of what's happening, not a sign of exclusivity.
Ian Bicking - 18th April 2007 23:24 - #
Taking Twitter as an example (because Tim did), the fact that lots of non-geeks don't care about it suggests that it is of no use to them.
I don't think Jon or Tim mentioned elitism. I don't think the suggestion is that geeks are better, rather that we're passionately interested in our stuff, and everyone else is even less interested in it than they used to be.
Ooh: and about tools begating more tools: that sounds like a decent reason why the disconnect is happening faster now. Cos what we love to do is build tools. What everyone else loves is other stuff, and a tool will only be of interest if it really, significantly helps the other stuff happen. But they'll still only care about the stuff: their interest in and interaction with the tool will be the minimum required to make the stuff happen.
So, the iPod is huge with everyone because you can listen to all your music, everywhere, really easily. Compared to the situation before, that's huge.
I don't think Twitter is in the same league. Yet.
We're not a tribe.
Stephen Downes - 19th April 2007 23:59 - #