Production and Usage

I have never heard of the word “produsage” until I have read “From Production to Produsage” by Axel Bruns. This article dissected the transformation of the production line. In the passage of time, consumers have gradually grown from completely passive to somewhat active. They have grown to offer opinions to companies and make production companies bend toward customer desires. The internet added onto that. He argued in this article that, due to the existence of internet, consumers have become producers as well. The free environment that the internet provides for people allows consumers to do whatever they want, which leads to online community based productions — everyone is both a consumer and a producer at the same time. And because of the efficiency that the internet has, it is able to solve a lot of problems due to the expertise that it has access to. I, personally agree with this train of thought that people are using the products they produce among themselves, but take note that companies are still taking advantage of this by charging for information provided by others(eg. Chegg), and shoving advertisements in your face while you are watching other people’s contents(eg. youtube). Although there are huge amounts of information for us to access, it is not with no cost. To be completely free of charges and liabilities is impossible. Using the internet for information is great, but at the same time we need to look out for traps. The internet is not a wish granting genie after all.