It's all Google and YouTube these days. And although it's interesting I'm sceptical. Fair enough, the excellence of Google I can only marvel at. The speed with which it accesses web pages and comes up with something close to what you're looking for is quite astonishing. How can one not be impressed by that?

The other types of site - the so called user-generated content sites - I am less impressed by. On the surface they seem valuable and to be genuinely good tools. They allow anybody to put stuff out and anybody to access it. This is the great democratic ideal where all have equal access to participation. It's free. It's easy.

Is it just a bit too easy? Things of high value are usually difficult in some degree. Even the problem of there being oceans of content to wade through is alleviated by the share and discovery tools (aggregators and filters) being very efficient. Previously you had to work a bit to seek out suitable music. Not now. Everything is only a click away.

And yet I’m really not complaining about that. For me personally, my music appreciation has been enormously enhanced by it. Music downloading, iTunes and the rest, has been a revelation. I have plenty praise for the people who have blazed this trail. I can find material I otherwise wouldn't have and can become acquainted with it.

The problem with user-created content however is that because it is largely unfiltered it has no legitimate curation process. The content comes from anybody, anywhere, who thinks they have something to say. Okay, so you don't really need to know who or what they are if you don't want to. You might just briefly engage with what they have put forward and forget it. What's the harm in that? Well I think the trouble is it completely swamps the forum. What is (was?) known as intellectual property becomes over-abundant. There is now so much freely available material that in time it will become harder to find one's way through the morass to discover something of value.

Also, we seem to be in the process of consigning the middle-men to the dustbin, the old fashioned flittering agencies, the deal-makers and exploiters, the ones who until recently were responsible for what was put out. This elite, together with the artists lucky enough to be chosen by them, set the tone. They were the taste-makers. They were usually held in contempt and many are happy to see their demise. I wonder if only once they are gone will their necessary function be appreciated.

With so much available material and no one to sift through it all, it will become increasingly difficult to discern the value of one thing against another. There will be no system left for elevating one thing above another. Historically, good art was that which had become elevated. Its value was in its exceptionalness.

This is one of these subtle truths that gets lost in the common mythology of value. The assumption is that value is in the content when much of it is in the context. Destroy the essential elements in the context that provide value and you virtually destroy the value of the art. It's not marauding hordes of barbarians that bring down the culture then but the ordinary ignorance of ordinary people. It may take a few decades for this to work its way through but it does seem to be the way things are going.

However, what is lost might simply provide another opportunity for others to come in and fill the void. That's pretty much how it works I think. Change throughout history destroys one thing and creates another. But while this process unfolds not just the material value of intellectual works as property will diminish but the very essence of intellectual works themselves. With this are threatened the spiritual, educational and knowledge value in our cultural assets.

It's all this that lurks in the dark side of the Google generation, those who are technologically savvy, with everything at their fingertips, easy, effortless, simple and free. It's an age-old truth that things of value in life are usually hard. If something is too easy, one should be suspicious. Too good to be true is probably a fixed dictum.