The “Long Tail” is the idea that our increased communication and broking capabilities (due to technological advancements) enables even the nichiests of interests to thrive. Comics, records, polaroid film, TRPGs, videos on niche subjects… all thriving and finding their audience.
The ways we interact with culture are diversifying (this also causes exceeding polarization of views and values, the “bubble effect”).
This diversification isn’t reflected in the infrastructure, though. We’re seeing a few very powerful corporations in control of all this, profiting from all of this. Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Etsy, eBay, Google (w/ YouTube), Kickstarter and a few others. Kickstarter eight percent (in addition to a flat “per pledge” rate) and Apple iTunes famously took thirty percent for their apps.
That’s not to mention banks, which are still very powerful and usually privately owned.
I’ve been blessed with growing up in a place where the road, the air, the water was controlled democratically. Even the telephone lines, for the first few years of my life.
But currently we’re building a society where ever-more pervasive infrastructure is “governed” by private entities.