News flash: Apparently “Web 2.0″ has only existed in order to eventually foster “back end” moneymaking by its contributors. Who knew?! The ever-blind Andrew Keen, that’s who. The author of The Cult of the Amateur — which, frankly, I can’t get through, it’s so terrible — has recently chimed in on the implications of the recent economic meltdown, as well as the imminent downfall of his favorite punching bag, “Web 2.0.” Here’s a particularly hilarious prognostication:

So how will today’s brutal economic climate change the Web 2.0 “free” economy? It will result in the rise of online media businesses that reward their contributors with cash; it will mean the success of Knol over Wikipedia, Mahalo over Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), TheAtlantic.com over the HuffingtonPost.com, iTunes over MySpace, Hulu over YouTube Inc. , Playboy.com over Voyeurweb.com, TechCrunch over the blogosphere, CNN’s professional journalism over CNN’s iReporter citizen-journalism… The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren’t going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some “back end” revenue. “Free” doesn’t fill anyone’s belly; it doesn’t warm anyone up.

Where to begin, huh? Let’s look past the typical criticism that this guy appears to be singularly resentful of anything that isn’t clearly monetized on the Internet (while he has worked for a series of unspectactular dot-com busts). Apparently, for Keen, people are interested in participating on the Web — writing blog posts, posting videos to YouTube, making games for Kongregate — because they’re looking for cash. What utter horseshit.

If there’s anything that this year’s Obama campaign has successfully shown, it’s that these Web 2.0 strategies aren’t solely driven by monetary gain, and these tools have the capacity to provide more than just entertainment (though, I’d argue, most of what we consider “just entertainment” has valuable learning and literacy practices embedded within them). Twitter, text messaging, YouTube, blogging, Facebook, etc. — all of these have been successfully used by Obama to build political support, give everyday people a chance to participate in his Presidential campaign and, yes, send a ridiculous amount of money Obama’s way. The ultimate goal from Obama’s side was to develop an infrastructure to both develop public opinion as well as fill the campaign coffers, but would anyone seriously suggest that Obama supporters are motivated by personal financial gain?

I’m not saying that, if the crisis widens, people won’t be forced to look for gainful employment in whatever way they have to (which, I suppose, is a gracious read of Keen’s point). I’m saying that the Web has never simply been about money — the public’s use of it began as a hobbyist space for graduate students to play with (and develop such ubiquitous tools as, um, “email”). I see no reason to believe that this won’t continue… Keen’s argument is that there is a “speculative hope that they might get some ‘back end’ revenue” motivating everyday folks to use the Internet, and I see no evidence that this is the case. A 2007 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 28% of online teens were blogging by the end of 2006, and that 55% of online teens had profiles on social networking sites (Myspace, Facebook). My retired father and stepmother are now on Facebook — anecdotally speaking, it seems that these activities are only increasing, and increasing across age ranges.

Obama’s campaign is not exactly the most prosaic example, I know; it’s not like we’ve ever seen a campaign do anything remotely like this in the past (though, of course, Howard Dean set the stage in 2004 and behind the scenes with the DNC in the past several years). The Web is no longer just some pie-in-the-sky potential revolutionary technology, it’s a part of everyday life for millions — Keen’s mistake is in viewing the Web via the wrong metaphor, as publishing instead of personal networking. Online personal networking, surprise, can also lead to a job and aid productivity in jobs! Keen’s hopelessly dated view of the Internet as a publishing venue misses the point entirely of why “Web 2.0″ sites exist in the first place.

I usually don’t bother posting this kind of angry reaction to a crackpot’s stupid claims, but it seems like Keen appears to have missed the biggest Internet story of the year. What a shame.