Reply #3: I guess my warning is against internet utopian thinking.

[beachmom]

I feel what happened to the music industry is Exhibit A of how taking out the "bad guys" has not helped at all. It's a "be careful what you wish for" scenario. There was a lot of utopian thinking when downloading songs happened, that we wouldn't need record labels anymore, that ANYONE could make it, that musicians could making a living without help, the DIY culture, and so forth. None of that, or very little, has happened. Meanwhile, other corporate structure remains in place: FM radio, which is providing narrower playlists and less new music. Every year sales go down, with 2010 the worst sale year on record. The Great Utopian Dream never materialized. This is what is happening with newspapers. The Huffington Post is really a bad website, and I haven't been impressed with their investigative reporting so far.

For me, it's about supporting what is still good: my local paper (on the Kindle), the New Yorker, the Atlantic, NPR/PBS and voting with my feet against what is bad (I do not watch cable news EVER). I do not "take a look" at right wing websites or gossipy ones.