We’re delighted to curate this insightful essay by Tom Beck, who points out (rightfully, we think) that much of the untapped economic value of writing resides not in individual writers, but in whole scenes or networks.

Tom makes a compelling case for the idea that skillful human curation that recognizes four contributing roles — writers, critics, readers, and librarians — is the missing piece to unlock this value.

Tom’s work inspires us to ask: how could we build overall network value in non-extractive ways and share it with all contributors, big and small?