Michael Parekh writes:
The broader question for me is how users are eventually compensated for their “peer production” today and over time.
Payment for our peer participation and production to date on services like Wikipedia, Flickr, blogs and the like are primarily in non-cash terms.
Specifically they can be classified in the following categories:
1. Convenient functionality for all (e.g., Flickr, Del.icio.us, Wikipedia and of course, Google).
2. Reputation as in the case of bloggers, reviewers and commentators on the web (aka vanity).
3. Generosity, as highlighted by Tom Evslin in the discussion at the USV session. Good example here are the mostly anonymous contributions by countless folks to entries in Wikipedia.
4. Monetary compensation direct and indirect, as in the case of eBay sellers who get direct cash from sales and Google advertisers, who presumably get transactions from the leads they pay for through Adsense and Adwords on the service and affiliates.
