Moving towards a boss-less and ad free workscape

Crowd funding and micro donation services* are rapidly paving the foundations of a new socio-economic landscape. As internet access becomes more widespread, if I remember correctly not even half the world´s population is connected at present, and taking into account the rise in automation for many production activities (see FedericoPistono for more on that subject) coupled with the advent of human scale manufacturing technologies that are becoming increasingly accessible, we are rapidly approaching the point at which companies will no longer be our main source of employment.

The days of working for any single individual are numbered, and that number will only dwindle in the years to come, barring any “public policy” changes or interference from corporations about copyright infringement for example. Although many of us won't be able to continue to rely on companies to provide us with jobs, crowdfunding and micro donation services will make, or rather, are making it possible to maintain a lifestyle that permits each of us as Creative Beings to continue developing our unique talents, explore our personal interests even further than ever before and nurture our need/desire to contribute in some way to the ongoing welfare and progress of our community/culture and society at large.

I also think/feel/intuit that this shift will have extremely positive impacts on our collective/global footprint as well, eliminating many of the current inefficiencies in our economic systems especially as they relate to transportation for example.  It is possible, at present, to download a file, created by someone living in another country, that contains all the necessary information for you, as the “consumer” to use to have the product printed locally at a Fablab or Makerspace rather than having to ship the actual object halfway around the world just because the combination of personal preference and creative/production capability do not coincide geographically.

As an added bonus, I imagine that advertising will no longer be the main vehicle (if it ever was) for staying up to date with the most current product releases from suppliers and producers we've come to depend on for quality products. Although it may be some way off in the future still, I expect that increased refinement of search algorithms, better and smarter tagging of content and more importantly, our continued use of social networking for sharing information we deem relevant from sources we can actually place our trust in more readily, will continue to contribute to the shrinking return on investment that brands had come to expect from ad campaigning.

* Below are a couple of links to lists of services that can help you get started.

For larger projects here´s a list of 10 crowdfunding sites.

For financing individual content like photos, blog posts, single music tracks, videos etc. here is a list of 5 7 micro donation solutions for your site:

- Subbable
- Patreon
- Flattr
- Centup.org
- Mucash
- Tiptheweb
- Noca
- Dwolla-payment-button
- Gittip