Let us all be scared a little. Here goes:

(Emphasis and italics by me)

It is taken from the Facebook Terms of Use (as of today). Meaning they basically own whatever you ever published, and they can do whatever they want with it. I am no legal expert, so someone correct me if I am wrong. But this is what I gather from all the legalese.

Meaning I will host, publish, post, chat and generally hang around in my own personal nice little blog, and chose what I wish to share and what I don’t. Also meaning now I have to go read the TOU in Twitter, Flickr, Picasa et al. But better than freelancing for someone for free.

Read a fitting description of Media 2.0: “You create all the content, they make all the money.” Even though I am a marketer and am well versed with these business models, claiming rights of all content posted is pushing one’s luck a bit too far.

Update: Time to show Twitter some love :) I love the first sentence in their Copyright section: “What’s yours is yours.“

Granted that there is a lot more ‘content’ in other social media compared to Twitter, it is still an important distinction in the approach to user-generated content.

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One of my favorite pieces of Web Zen: “The decent man is no longer one who lives within his own means. Nowadays he is one who lives, thankfully, within others’ means.”

They call it ‘a high standard of living’. I call it excessiveness. Garish, unnecessary, stinking of obnoxious opulence. One man’s luxury is another man’s necessity, but now, when the pockets strings draw tighter, luxuries are suddenly being revisited, and necessities are being redefined. I wonder if there is any limit to which this recursive loop can run before we reach a simplistic, minimalistic, bare-to-the-bone existence. Will be mighty boring, but is an interesting thought experiment.

When it is time to cut the fat, the real shit comes to the fore. I am reminded of the story of the rocks, boulders and bumps under the mighty river. The fishermen wading the waters never knew what lay beneath; when the water was aplenty, the inefficiencies were well hidden. It took the drought to expose what the river-bed was actually made of.

Recession is a good thing; it is an economic war, albeit caused by prolific dumbness of a greedy generation; but a war nevertheless. And like all wars, it will, in a very tiny way, level the playing field. Wars consume economies, destroy savings, and over-write past history. It is a reset button. So is a major recession.

So what does it bring us to? it puts some sense into people with heavy pockets and ultra-light craniums. Earlier, we had luxury goods that come with no functionality but serve as brag-currency (we, of course, still do). Bags with gold zippers, undies for dogs, mineral water from the French Alps, weird tasting fish eggs. And holy moly pops of lolly, golf clubs. In fact, golf itself. Weirder and more counter-intuitive, the better.

Then, arrogance is replaced by prudence. Means, people not buying shit they don’t frigging need. Dumb-as-fuck adults realising credit cards are not magic wands (I mean, how difficult is it to calculate how much one would owe the bank if one bought the house that one absolutely doesn’t need and can’t afford). Oil prices dropping. Car-pooling. Smaller, more fuel effecient cars. Many more examples all over the world.

Don’t get me wrong. A higher standard of living has its advantages. With higher life expectancy. More money spent in technology, education, medical care. More awareness, more entertainment. With all this ‘more’ comes the topped-up, king-sized, jumbo-combo excessiveness that makes me want to slap many with a thick wad of Zimbabwean cash notes.

I think Indians in general and especially people in rural areas should take up consulting assignments on ‘How to cope with the recessionary environments’; with special modules on low cost housing (using mud, hay and cow-dung), eating with almost no cutlery, minimal furniture interior design, vegetarianism, beedi smoking, recycling clothes (there is an entire supply chain that runs from ‘Rani Readymade for baba and baby’ -> little Bunty -> his younger brother Babloo -> the bai’s son Raju -> Raju’s younger brother Kishore -> kitchen table wipe -> garbage bin -> waste scrap for making readymade clothing). Newspaper and dabba-batliwala. Dhaaro-tej karne wala for old knives. Idli upma from yesterday’s leftover breakfast. We have mastered the fine art of living within our means since a long while.

Anyhew. I think it is time to start worrying when George Carlin and Dilbert start sounding too real. And I think that time is now. But both are as funny as fuck, so, what the hell. I will try to laugh along and get off when my stop comes. Until then, we wait for a time when the developed world erodes its wealth slowly and become level with ours, and then get together over a cutting chai at the nukkad and discuss how the heck did we let it go so awry.