First and foremost, the title of this post is taken from the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig (1974). The concepts discussed in the book are timeless and are so very relevant today in the midst of the ubiquity and ease of self-publishing — or, if I should say, maintaining the motorcycle.

Pirsig investigates the differences between those who are content to ride the motorcycle and who will fix the motorcycle. Art and Science. Classic and Romantic. This divide still exists in many forms but maybe I’ll come back to that, what I want to touch on is what happens as Science becomes available. I’ll try to stay brief.

What was once thought to be a technology left to the geek in the back is now a utility available to the masses - the new paradigm. This has opened the door to, essentially, the web being maintained by those who use it, love it and hate it.

Lets quickly have a look at the last 5 years. The content on the web being developed now is a different form of art than that of only a few years ago. A few years ago, “maintenance” content was developed and housed in, sometimes, an artful structure. We are now seeing a shift to artful content residing within more simple means. And the people have spoken.

To emphasize my point, we are not seeing a trend of all-things-web becoming more technical or more scientifc or even more “feature-rich”. We are seeing a demand for human inspiration and creation. And a cute little quote: “Web 1.0 was created by Scientists; Web 2.0 was created by Society” taken from Why you should let Web 2.0 into your hearts.

As technology shifts to utility - not unlike electricity, cars, telephones - and as adoption becomes more pervasive real human nature will come through. Its simply a law of averages.

The people want Quality Art.