Dave already expressed his reaction, which I mostly agree with, to the ridiculous quote above. I'd just like to add that the notion that the web has ever been "a medium where regular joes can get their message out to the world" is complete B.S. itself. For most of the web's history, publishing to it has required a not-insignificant technical barrier -- figuring out such things web servers and hosts, HTML, FTP, and other arcane crap. This is not the stuff of so-called "regular joes"! And this is only beginning to change. Your regular joe web user, who may spend hours online everyday, is still pretty much clueless about how they would actually publish their own voice to the web. Fortunately, it is getting easier, not harder, as Mr. Snell suggests. And as more and more regular joes start publishing to the web, the big media companies diminish, not rise, in importance. Not that they'll go away. But ask anyone who, for example, has fallen into the still-under-the-radar-but-growing-quickly weblog scene what percentage of their time on the web and content they consume is produced by big media companies versus independent individuals. Compare that to what it was six months or a year ago and see if it seems the little guy's voice is being drowned out. Fortunately, some big media companies get it and are actually helping to give a voice to regular joe and even amplify it (more on this soon).
Jason Snell: "Been planning on mourning the day when the Web transforms from being a medium where regular joes can get their message out to the world to a medium totally dominated by big media companies with lots of expensive staff and technical experts? Break out the black frock, because the time is now."