Associative decline?

Via the TED blog today.

Economic troubles will trigger the decline of the free economy, collaboration, and open-source - including communities such as Wikipedia - and even, perhaps the blogosphere itself. People will be less likely to give away 'their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some 'back end' revenue.

C'mon. Seriously? The idea that a burst bubble causes people to abandon collaborative efforts is pretty baseless. It is always in the best interest of efficient and curious people to work together and the internet has certainly revolutionized the amount of ways this is possible. Unless this crisis spells the death of homo rationalis, this will continue to be the case. The main point of 'intellectual labor' on the internet is not to get 'back end' revenue, it's to prove the viability of those who write psuedo-intellectual blogs (your authors included) and increase future utility.

Collaboration comes out best when times require sharing of information. At a time when everything else is falling apart, nothing should stop the openness of information on the internets.