I hereby decree

DISCLAIMER: The following is just an idea. I make no claim to be an expert in the fields of finance or new media. That said, I do have some experience with new media and the Internet. I put my ideas here in public view not as fact, but more as a question. I welcome any and all feedback.

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New Media and Old Media are starting to converge. As New Media matures it increasingly resembles Old Media. As Old Media struggles to adapt, it turns more and more toward New Media. (Maybe, soon, we will have just Media or "Mid-life Crisis Media") Everyone is trying to figure out how to grow, adapt, and make money in their craft.

Unfortunately, it would seem that while much is happening in both realms, each has come to a limit. Old Media won't let go of their tried and true money making schemes. This stubbornness leads to things like DRM and consumer "licensing." New Media, on the other hand, continues to give its hard work away, hoping that a business model will emerge. Something needs to happen to shake things up and an economic recession could be just what we need.

Think of it (coincidentally, "Think of Me" from The Phantom of the Opera is playing), economic hardship will force Old Media to change or fail. Given their track record and their current trajectory, failure is almost certain. Maybe not in the "completely destroyed" sense of the term, but they will definitely have an unbearably hard time. On the flip side, past economic hardship has actually proven productive for up and coming media. Walt Disney continued to make cartoons and hire workers all through the depression. Hard times will mean that new media companies will be able to find hard-working workers who will be willing to adapt and change. The workers might also work for cheaper, but I don't want to focus on that. Suffice it to say that in extreme circumstances people are humbled and more willing to except change in their lives.

Now the argument could be made that, since New Media is so tied to the Internet that hard financial times will hurt because fewer people will pay for Internet access. In this day and age, however, I think that it will be the cable and newspaper subscriptions that will go first. The Internet can be both entertainment and news. Why pay double for those things when they are all available in one place? People will increasingly turn to the internet to provide them with information.

So, if the Internet is not going away, and Old Media companies will collapse under their own weight, who is left to entertain and inform the masses? New Media. With a newly charged workforce that is willing to work hard, adapt, and learn and with a low barrier to entry, New Media will rise in an economic recession and will, to an extent, help us through the hard times. Just as "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" became a rally cry against the Great Depression, the success of New Media may, in fact, give us hope and rekindle the American Imagination.