Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

The hottest story on the web today is Nicholas Carr's post, The amorality of Web 2.0:

Like it or not, Web 2.0, like Web 1.0, is amoral. It's a set of technologies - a machine, not a Machine - that alters the forms and economics of production and consumption. It doesn't care whether its consequences are good or bad. It doesn't care whether it brings us to a higher consciousness or a lower one. It doesn't care whether it burnishes our culture or dulls it. It doesn't care whether it leads us into a golden age or a dark one. So let's can the millenialist rhetoric and see the thing for what it is, not what we wish it would be.

There is only one time in the history of each planet when its inhabitants first wire up its innumerable parts to make one large Machine. Later that Machine may run faster, but there is only one time when it is born.

You and I are alive at this moment.

We should marvel, but people alive at such times usually don't. Every few centuries, the steady march of change meets a discontinuity, and history hinges on that moment. We look back on those pivotal eras and wonder what it would have been like to be alive then. Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, and the latter Jewish patriarchs lived in the same historical era, an inflection point known as the axial age of religion. Few world religions were born after this time. Similarly, the great personalities converging upon the American Revolution and the geniuses who commingled during the invention of modern science in the 17th century mark additional axial phases in the short history of our civilization.

Mr. Carr also notes "the cult of the amateur". Projects like Wikipedia are often pointed to as a triumph of social collaboration and it is an excellent example of what a committed group can do. But it is not the same as Encyclopedia Britannica, where editors are paid to do the job of ensuring that the articles are complete and correct. Yes the encyclopedia staff will make mistakes, and they will take much longer to correct, but on the whole it will be a more professional publication. For subjects outside the realm of technology or recent history, it will be quite acceptable. And it doesn't suffer from attacks that Wikipedia has suffered, such as the removal of the Holocaust topic.

This is similar to the blogger versus journalist debate. It is really the level of professionalism - attention to detail, fact checking, avoidance of reporting opinions - that matters.

As Om Malik notes, the people and companies promoting Web 2.0 are not there for purely altruistic reasons; they are looking to build businesses:

I wondered out loud, if this culture of participation was seemingly help build businesses on our collective backs. So if we tag, bookmark or share, and help del.icio.us or Technorati or Yahoo become better commercial entities, aren't we seemingly commoditizing our most valuable asset - time. We become the outsourced workforce, the collective, though it is still unclear what is the pay-off. While we may (or may not) gain something from the collective efforts, the odds are whatever "the collective efforts" are, they are going to boost the economic value of those entities. Will they share in their upside? Not likely!

Though there may indeed be a few VCs worshipping at the Web 2.0 altar, looking for a sign.