Lib-Dem Mark Reckons reports on a significant discussion about new media trends in blogging/commenting and so on.

Surely the point is that we are in a classic Long Tail scenario, where market conditions are driven by technological changes.

Once upon a time the sheer cost of spreading news and views to millions of people allowed a few major media outlets to build market predominance and so pay people to write columns.

Now the cost of market entry has dropped to close to zero (other than time/energy) so millions of people have entered the market. This means that the masses have far more to read, and most of it is free. Some of it is excellent.

Take for example the News Examiners. 

So why bother paying for S Jenkins and P Toynbee and D Aaronovitch when you can have so much more – for nothing?

We are reverting to something like the hubbub of three hundred years ago, when countless noisy pamphlets and broadsheets (‘news-papers’) and other forms of written material jostled for position. Gradually that led to consolidation as some people bought the expensive kit to let them distribute on a national scale.

But now the point is that mass distribution is mainly free. And competition as always is driving down prices, in this case towards zero.

The Commentariat’s days as an elite getting paid for what they do are numbered. For better or worse, and no doubt both.