What’s digital sharecropping, anyway? Digital sharecropping is a term coined by Nicholas Carr to describe a peculiar phenomenon of Web 2.0. One of the fundamental economic characteristics of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few. In other words, anyone can create content on sites like Facebook, but that content effectively belongs to Facebook. The more content we create for free, the more valuable Facebook becomes. We do the work, they reap the profit. The term sharecropping refers to the farming practices common after the U.S. Civil War, but it’s essentially the same thing as feudalism. A big landholder allows individual farmers to work their land and takes most of the profits generated from the crops. The landlord has all the control. If he decides to get rid of you, you lose your livelihood. If he decides to raise his fees, you go a little hungrier. You do all the work and the landlord gets most of the profit, leaving you a pittance to eke out a living on. Well, we’re professional content marketers — not subsistence farmers — and our work doesn’t involve 12-hour days in grueling conditions. So is sharecropping still dangerous?
