Digital Wage

What a difference a year makes, to the country, and to the New Economy

A A A Comments By Matt Smith Wednesday, Oct 3 2001

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"Government could fund the top 1,000 most popular articles. There could be micropatrons, which is different than micropayments. Rather than single patrons, funding Michelangelo, you could have thousands of patrons paying $100 to fund an artist," Anderson said. "A third way could be nonprofit foundations, such as the American Rhythm and Blues Society. People could sell T-shirts. It would be a way of saying, "Hey, this is my way of supporting X.'"

Which, given the San Francisco Bay Area's coming economic apocalypse, isn't a terribly bad idea. Thousands of newly unemployed might be kept busy in makeshift T-shirt stands. They could conduct a side business hawking silk-screened coffee mugs -- until the tech renaissance returns.

One of the much thinner crowds at this year's Seybold conference.

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Then, venture capitalists will begin pouring money into start-up companies offering laser modems and holo-pets. San Francisco will be in the pink again. Topics such as technology and money and cybersnooping and pseudo-theft will tempt us as themes for earnest theological debate. But we'll know better by then. We'll still remember the wages of sin.

The pastures of the shepherds will languish, and the summit of Carmel wither. I will send fire upon the house of Hazael, to devour the castles of Ben-hadad. ... And the sceptered ruler of Beth-eden; the people of Aram shall be exiled to Kir.

-- Amos 1:1-5

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