Introduction

Abstract

The early years of the twenty-first century saw the emergence of the idea of a 'collaborative' web, a Web 2.0 where Internet users would actively participate in producing content and creating value from it. Following the financial crises and especially the dotcom crash, the term 'Web 2.0' was coined in 2005 by the American entrepreneur and expert Tim O'Reilly, with a view to rebuilding confidence among investors in the Internet (Fuchs 2008). O'Reilly was one of the first to popularize the idea that the Internet would now be based on a participative model in which the user would go from being a mere consumer to a 'content generator' (Le Deuff 2007). An identical vision was implicit in the notion of 'social media' , which became common currency in the same period, despite its vagueness. In line with these different discursive propositions, specialized technical and economic apparatuses or dispositifs 1 for extracting value from communication flows on the web began to emerge: search engines, blogging platforms, content aggregators, virtual worlds, platforms for broadcasting video, social networks, and so on. Distinctive to these platforms is their heavy dependence on the contributions of their own user communities. The discourses underpinning the participative and/or collaborative aspect of the Internet, along with their 'implementations' , all seem to come back to the idea that pooling together the efforts of individuals can open up a better future, How to cite this book chapter:

Beyond the realm of cash: street performers and payments in the online world

“…Internet crowdfunding over the past decade has been legitimised by Creative and Cultural industry (CCI) as a way and means to finance projects (Tosatto et al, 2019 ). Over the last several years, it has replaced the role of music intermediaries (Rouzé, 2019 ). With musicians file sharing and a move towards the digital format for music have caused an enormous decline in sound recording revenues (Liebowitz, 2016 ).…”