• by Ryan , February 26, 2009

I came to a realization recently. Now, I’ve always known that illegal file sharing is bad. I remember the early days of Napster and the MTV specials about Metallica and the RIAA. Despite how slow Napster was with a 56k connection, it still greatly expanded my musical repertoire.

Then Napster was shut down – oh the fun that ensued!! Other file sharers creating simple codes for popular bands that had to be deciphered; jumping from one p2p network to the next: WinMX, LimeWire, Kazaa, SoulSeek… the list could go on. Ultimately, I gave up on file sharing and just started buying my music again like the good ol’ days.

And herein lies the problem: I remember what “the good ol’ days” were. Days when one had to go all the way to the record store to get new music – and you had to pay for it.

Now I don’t want to sound like the crotchety, old man whittling in his rocking chair, but this generation of children is doomed. That might be a tad melodramatic, but it will be very interesting to see how the New Silent generation will view traditional commerce (“New Silent generation” being the term given by Strauss & Howe for the generation following the Millennials).

The New Silent generation will be a generation that has grown up with BitTorrent as the default, go-to source for any and all media needs. Everything from music to movies to software to comic books can be found on the myriad of torrent sites. In essence, an entire generation is going to grow up with the expectation that all electronic data/media should be free.

I’m guilty of this already. I’ll be the first to admit that I engage in file sharing – although many of the bands that I download have a DIY ethos and even encourage the bootlegging of their music. But it goes beyond legal or illegal file sharing: why should I buy a newspaper when NewYorkTimes.com is free? Or even further, why should I pay my cable bill when I can watch CNN.com and Hulu to get all of my news and entertainment?

And while I question why I should pay to go to see a movie in the theatres or why I pay my cable bill each month, the bottom line is that I still do it. The next generation – the New Silent generation – will be a generation of Internet users that have never had to pay for music, movies, or TV if they don’t want to. I’m curious to see what will happen to production values of entertainment, journalistic values of news, and the overall idea of the simple exchange of goods for money.

And of course, three days after I had this realization, I heard a story on NPR that addressed these very issues.