Clay Shirky
American writer on the social and economic effects of the internet, author of Here Comes Everybody (2008) and Cognitive Surplus (2010); has taught at New York University.
Clay Shirky did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Our reading
The large lecture exists to cut the cost of introductory classes, not to produce intellectual joy.
Their wordsThe large lecture isn’t a tool for producing intellectual joy; it’s a tool for reducing the expense of introductory classes.
↗Napster, Udacity, and the Academyshirky.com 1st of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsHigher education has a bad case of cost disease (sometimes called Baumol’s cost disease, after one of its theorizers.)
↗Napster, Udacity, and the Academyshirky.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsThe possibility MOOCs hold out is that the educational parts of education can be unbundled.
↗Napster, Udacity, and the Academyshirky.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
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Our reading
A US undergraduate degree has become a requirement for not falling out of the middle class.
Their wordsIn the US, an undergraduate education used to be an option, one way to get into the middle class. Now it’s a hostage situation, required to avoid falling out of it.
↗Napster, Udacity, and the Academyshirky.com 4th of 5 in this piece
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Our reading
Open courses will raise quality faster than traditional colleges can cut cost or grow enrollment.
Their wordsAnd once you imagine educating a thousand people in a single class, it becomes clear that open courses, even in their nascent state, will be able to raise quality and improve certification faster than traditional institutions can lower cost or increase enrollment.
↗Napster, Udacity, and the Academyshirky.com 5th of 5 in this piece
- 3 years earlier
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Their wordsIn a bureaucracy, it’s easier to make a process more complex than to make it simpler, and easier to create a new burden than kill an old one.
↗The Collapse of Complex Business Modelsshirky.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsSome video still has to be complex to be valuable, but the logic of the old media ecoystem, where video had to be complex simply to be video, is broken.
↗The Collapse of Complex Business Modelsshirky.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
When an ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, the people who work simply decide the future.
Their wordswhen the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.
↗The Collapse of Complex Business Modelsshirky.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 13 months earlier
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Their wordsThere is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.
↗Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkableshirky.com 1st of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsNow is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments, each of which will seem as minor at launch as craigslist did, as Wikipedia did, as octavo volumes did.
↗Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkableshirky.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
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Our reading
Their wordsJournalism has always been subsidized.
↗Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkableshirky.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
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Our reading
Their wordsSociety doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.
↗Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkableshirky.com 4th of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsFor the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases. Many of these models will rely on amateurs as researchers and writers.
↗Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkableshirky.com 5th of 5 in this piece
- 6 years earlier
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Their wordsThe normal experience of social software is failure.
↗A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemyshirky.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsthe first is that you cannot completely separate technical and social issues.
↗A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemyshirky.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsThe core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations.
↗A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemyshirky.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsThe user of social software is the group, not the individual.
↗A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemyshirky.com 4th of 4 in this piece