"Free Labour" Anderson and Terranova

When reading chapter 3, I was able to understand some points Terranova made. It was interesting for me to see her connection of the Internet to the Capitalist society we are a part of. I found these ideas of Capitalism very interesting considering the fact that in my other class with Jodi Dean we are talking about the idea of Capitalism as well. It was interesting to see the idea of Capitalism in our networking world. The chapter actually starts off with a quote from Marx ("the real not capital is labour")

Terranova: (Focus: Free labor)

I really liked Terranova's example when she talks about the American Online volunteers investigating whether AOL owed them wages after hours  of hard work promoting AOL chat rooms. Yes, the Internet world was expanding! However, the digital media is a form of individual consumption. Leaving those who labor online  them with no income. Terranova talks about those that work for the production of the Internet as "netslaves." The Internet requires upgrades and loads of work in which people are not paid for and given the compensation they deserve. Terranova analyzes this idea of "free labor" and tells us that "free labour is the moment where this knowledgeable consumption of culture is translated into excess productive activities that are pleasurably embraced and at the same time often shamelessly exploited." I think this was an excellent point made by Terranova because it really emphasized and focused on her idea of the Internet as a labor being taken for granted. The work you put on creating websites like Facebook, Myspace and etc is  networking labor that gets no compensation. No one likes to do work for free. What defines work is labor. People are willing to be "slaves" almost.  That's what I got from what she was saying.

Anderson: (Focus: Free Products)

Anderson's point stood out to me because of his argument about the era we are a part of. Anderson informs us that  "we are entering an era when free will be seen as the norm, not an anomaly." He talks about the Internet as something that should be free. Its content is meant to be free because that's what the people want. He doesn't really analyze "free labour" like Terranova does but rather elaborates on why the future of the net should be free and will become more free. The Internets progress tends to steer towards what people want which is a free net. He is more concerned with the actual products "content" of the Internet other than the labor behind it.  I think his argument is interesting. I really thought about Prof Dean's point in her comparison of Anderson and Terranova. I thought about the rates of unemployment in the U.S. If everything is free. There would be no money. No one to pay people for labor. This would just increase unemployment.

I think Anderson and Terranova make some interesting points that our worth thinking about in the arguments on "free labour." I'm interested to see in what direction Terranova takes us next.