Orit Gat has an essay on art criticism written from a parallel universe to the one blog readers inhabit.
In the Gat universe (simplifying the argument greatly) you have two main types of opinion-dispensers: print critics, who may or may not have special, professionalized wisdom and perception but who do, probably, deserve to be paid, and the great unwashed of tweeters and YouTube commenters out there typing first, thinking later, and likely not deserving to be paid. What's missing is the middle ground of nerdy amateurs writing in depth, mostly out of love, without being beholden to editorial guidance from for-profit gatekeepers. This nerd group flourished in the blogosphere (2000 - 2007) and still exists in force on the internet, with sites that are "visited," found via search, or aggregated in RSS readers. Gat doesn't mention them, in fact doesn't use the word "blog" once in her essay. Again, the simplified version of her argument is "you paid for criticism in the print era and you better be prepared to pay again in the app era, and we'll all be better for it." Am not sure why Rhizome keeps publishing these anti-democratic articles. Perhaps it's all the VC sponsorship.
