Pois é, a rede se coisificou. As conversas foram absorvidas pelas necessidades do marketing. A preocupação não está mais na emergência de uma nova ética. E sim, na reapropriação desta ética pelo capital. Os twitters dos famosos se enchem de seguidores. Não precisamos disso! Verdadeiras campanhas são colocadas na rede para desorientar cada vez mais a atenção dos mortais. A eleição vem aí com discursos cooptados, fakes e que não mais dizem por si. A voz humana some na camada do marketing. Nessa casa de pau a pique não há construção, nem transformação. A revolução se escondeu nas brechas.

(...) uma análise profunda desta nova sociedade fica evidente a necessidade de fomentar políticas de compartilhamento e colaboração. O software livre é a experiência mais tangível da catalisação das inteligências nas comunidades. Utilizar essa experiência e incentivar financeiramente esses grupos de trabalhadores digitais, via de regra, acarretará no crescimento das comunidades online como um todo.

As pessoas já entenderam para que serve a Internet. Blogs foram abduzidos pela imprensa. Twitters são parte dos programas de rádio e televisão. O Youtube replica não apenas os programas de TV como remixa os conteúdos estabelecendo novas linguagens de comunicação. A cultura de rede vem tomando os espaços deixados pela terra arrasada da mídia de massa.

Websites, intranets, message boards, email blasts, blogs, developer conferences, sales presentations, and CEO keynotes — it's about communicating. It all matters. Whether it's a blog, an e-news letter, or a presentation, what audiences and customers yearn for from organizations is authenticity and transparency, simplicity, and a real human, emotion-without-the-BS approach to communicating. A real conversation...for a change. The Cluetrain tenets — the "95 Theses" at the beginning of the book — speak largely to wired communications. But it's all communication.

We don't believe what we're saying at work. We know no one else believes it either. But we keep saying it because because because because the needle's stuck... Because who would we be if we didn't talk like that? (p. 178)‏

The point is what this latest technological wonder brings back into the world: the human story... And next time you wonder what you're allowed to say at work, online, downtown at the public library, just say whatever the hell you feel like saying. Anyone asks you, tell 'em it's OK. Tell 'em you read about it in a book (p. 179).

As established markets broke up into a “zillion micromarkets,” “new knowledge was desperately needed to fuel this expansion, and this is when companies discovered what workers had long suspected but never talked about except in the washroom: management didn't know its ass from a hole in the ground (p. 160).

Command and control is widely perceived as dysfunctional, but it's a hard-to-break habit. Many business leaders are well aware that bureaucratic hierarchy works against needed knowledge and communication, yet inertia is a powerful force (p. 162).

What can business do?

Some along the line, we confused going to work with building a fort” (p.116), where we have everything we need within our walls, the outside is dangerous, the king rules, we each have a defined role, and the goal is to beat the enemy.

The Web, in the form of a corporate intranet, puts everyone in touch with every piece of information and with everyone else inside the organization and beyond... Conversations subvert hierarchy. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy. Being a human being among others subverts hierarchy (p. 121).

The first markets were filled with people, not abstractions or statistical aggregates; they were the places where supply met demand with a firm handshake. Buyers and sellers looked each other in the eye, met and connected (p. 74).