Ten years ago we tried to tell you, but you didn't listen. So let's try this again.
Over the last decade you have slowly begun to accept that something is wrong with our relationship. Your golf buddies from the recording industry have fallen on hard times, and your newspaper tycoon pals are hanging on for dear life. It’s getting ugly – really ugly. Captains of industry and robber barons everywhere are united in their despair and outrage at the prospect of having to sell their private jets and roughing it in first class. Oh, the humanity!
So how did we get in this mess? We had a deal … didn’t we? You produce and get rich, we consume and feel happy. Everybody wins! It worked so well for so long, what changed?
We’re glad you asked. We’ve been trying to tell you. Are you ready to listen? Great! Kick off your shoes and pull up a chair, we have a lot of catching up to do.
In a nutshell: we don’t like the way you’ve been playing games with our minds, so we took our ball and went to a different playground; it’s called the Internet, maybe you’ve heard of it?
After the Great War you were worried about overproduction, so you used Freud’s ideas to link your products to our selfish inner desires. With the help of Freud’s daughter and nephew you created a conformist society of docile consumers whose happiness depended on your products. You figured out how to make sure there would always be plenty of demand for your products – by programming the demand into the psyche of society.
Over the years we occasionally caught wind of your tactics, but you always managed to stay a step ahead. Like when we started to rebel against conformity in the 60’s and 70’s and you used VALS to make your products an expression of our individualism. We got to hand it to you; that was slick. Evil, but slick.
As time went on you grew bigger, richer, and ever more bureaucratic. Your priorities changed.
You got so good at marketing to us, so proficient at pulling our puppet strings that it didn’t even matter if the thing you were selling was a piece of crap, because you knew how to mindfuck us into buying it. You became so focused on cutting costs and maximizing profits that you completely forgot about us. We knew we had become just faceless consumer units to you, and deep down we were mad as hell about it, but by this point we were so isolated, weak, and selfish that all we could do was continue to eat/drink/shop/watch more TV to soothe our anger and depression.
And then something amazing happened. The Internet awoke something powerful in us and we started to connect and create in ways unimaginable even a few years before. BTW, we’re not talking about YOUR Internet. That thing reeked of everything we don’t like about you and the world is a better place for the bubble having burst in 2001. We’re talking about OUR internet; the one you think has a decimal place in its name.
We made this Internet. We made it for people, not business. We made it to keep in touch with our friends, to share pictures with family, to collaborate with strangers, and to be entertained by sharing the experience of living with other human beings. And by the way, we can also get all the news, video and music we need without leaving the Net.
Did we mention the average cost of things on the internet is free? There are things we are willing to pay for on the Net, but not often and not much. That’s how we like it, that’s how we intend to keep it. If you manage to ruin it (and we know you want to), we’ll just take our ball and look for a different playground again.
What we love most about the Net is what you fear. The Net reconnected us to our humanity. We’re no longer as tame or predictable or polite as you would like, and we don’t understand why you think that’s a bad thing.
Buck up, it’s not all bad news for you. We still need the stuff you make, and you’re welcome to hang out on the Net with us anytime … you just have to learn some manners and show some respect if you want to sell to us.
We came up with a few tips to help you settle in.
You still don’t seem to understand what we mean when we say online markets are conversations. It’s simple: you can’t speak if you’re not willing to listen. When you do speak you will be held accountable for what you say.
You can’t psychoanalyze us to figure out which messages will make us buy your stuff anymore, because before we buy anything we can find out what thousands of your other customers are saying about you. If it’s bad we won’t buy your stuff and we’ll spread the word about how much your stuff sucks. If it’s good, same rule works to your advantage.
If your customer service is terrible, and despite all of our attempts to tell you that you need to fix it you still haven’t done anything about it, word will spread that your customer service sucks. If you put out advertising proclaiming your love for us and your dedication to customer service, word will spread that your customer service sucks and you lie. Online word of mouth spreads fast and it spreads far. Just ask Amazon or Dominos.
We’re offering you a second chance. Think of it as a return to the ancient markets. If you want to sell to us we want you to woo us. Listen to us and address our concerns. Act with integrity and stand behind your products. Build a solid reputation so we hear good things about you from other people. Even if you are big and rich, don’t act like a bully – act like a friend.
Welcome to the future. You're invited, but it's our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!
[LATER] Check out the other CluetrainPlus10 posts by visiting the CluetrainPlus10 Wiki or Twitter search #cluetrainplus10.
It took me a while to figure out that the little cube thing at the bottom was what 
