Quality and working for free

This week's articles about tapping the massive creative and productive potential of crowds provoked my Luddite tendencies. That's not to say I don't accept the immense power of crowdsourcing, it is almost certainly the future of menial productivity, I simply have my reservations.

The first was laid out in the Assignment Zero article.

"The editor's job is part traditional. She has to commission work, set deadlines, keep track of all the parts and bring the whole thing in on time. In an open newsroom, none of that happens without quality participation."

I feel that despite the democratic notions of participation espoused in the article and on AZ's website, some form of professional moderation will be required. Moderation that, as I understand it, cant be crowdsourced back to the producers of content but must remain under the editorial control of one or a few people.

This then creates a similar situation to what is currently found in news room generated information, editorial power remains concentrated. Little changes except that there are now more people willing to report and for less compensation. The growth of the potential talent pool only serves to make the editorship of a given publication less accountable to its contributors. Keep in mind they're the only ones profiting off of this whole venture.

Then what of the rank? The only thing defining a "pro" will be the opinion of the editor using his or her content. Content that regardless of quality will be produced for the price of amateurs.Eventually this situation could leave the editorship of a news space accountable only to its few top contributors.
Though its possible that a constant push from the bottom will keep editorializing in check and prevent a "guard " of any sort from forming. A limitless talent pool could breed dictatorial editorship.

Still the only way for a living to be made off of crowd-sourcing will be to be the "man at the top" collecting advertising revenue. Few of which there can be, and when the bubble bursts we'll be left with a few monster crowd-souring agents ripe for a Time-Warner buyout and they'll expect everyone to work for free.