Week Five - Topic 1c: Will produsage last?

As a trend, do you think produsage will last? Do you think commercial forces will find ways of exploiting it, or perhaps the ways people are involved will end up being short-term? Conflicts in the communities? Flagging energy/interest? Successful sites get bought out? Just a trend? Or the future of the Net?

Bruns reading: page 5


I think that produsage will last, people being able to create their own ideas, news or any product that produsers create is very appealing compared to being constantly on the receiving end of information.
I do agree that more commercial forces will find ways of exploiting produsage as it has already been done. The Sims game is 90% produsage even though the game is sold to produsers for a profit which goes to the games publishers, not the people who have created 90£ of the game!
I’m sure other ways of exploitation will be found, maybe a possibility that in the future produsage sites could incur a fee to ‘join’, or sites will become overloaded with advertisements.

I don’t think that there will ever be a flagging interest or energy of produsage as there are always going to be people who want to get their voice across; therefore it is not just a trend. I think that produsage will continue to grow, however this does depend on how or if the commercial industry takes advantage.

Successful sites could quite possibly get brought out, creating even bigger profits for the legal owners, despite the fact they are using produsers creativity for their own profit whilst the people actually doing the work are left empty handed. Although this may put people off providing their work for free, I don’t think produsage will completely disappear. As Bruns states: “Sites of produsage flourish if they can attract a large number of engaged and experienced participants who adhere to the ideals of the site”. I personally think that produsage sites will continue to attract people to help generate the content and therefore keep the site up and successfully running.