Who’s king? Content, curation, search? Try none of them

There’s an uprising taking place in the kingdom. Whoever the monarch may be, there are insurgents who would topple the throne and assume power. The ruler has it all wrong, and if only the insurgent could take charge and assert his view, peace and prosperity would reign throughout the kingdom.

It’s good to be king, we keep hearing, so everybody wants to be king:

The power struggle is enormous. It consumes blog posts, panel discussions, journal articles, hallway conversations. One blogger even devised a poll in an effort to gauge sentiment among his peers.

The debate is completely misguided.

Think about it: How many true monarchies exist in the world today. I’m not talking about countries with monarchs. (There are 47 among the world’s 195 nations.) I’m talking about nations ruled by a monarch. If you’re looking to wield power in England, for example, would you want to be in line for the throne or a member of Parliament?

I frequently rail against those who proclaim this or that is dead. But trust me on this: Monarchies are dead. The Web is no monarchy with one king to rule all. The Web is an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, remove any one element and everything else suffers.