The internet is saving culture, not killing it

People are paying for mainstream and offbeat content on a recurring basis

One secret to longevity as a pundit is to issue predictions that can’t be easily checked. So here’s one for the time capsule: Two hundred years from now, give or take, the robot-people of Earth will look back on the early years of the 21st century as the beginning of a remarkable renaissance in art and culture.

That may sound unlikely to many of us in the present. In the past few decades, we’ve seen how technology has threatened the old order in cultural businesses, including the decimation of the music industry, the death of the cable subscription, the annihilation of