Roger McNamee has an interesting take on creativity and the internet that is different to the take on the politics of anonymity on the internet--eg., the trolls and their online violence. McNamee's argument is that the era of Google controlling all content is over.

He says:

When Google showed up, the World Wide Web was a wild environment. No one was in charge. The prevailing philosophy was "open source" . . . and free software.Google had a plan for organizing the web’s information that treated every piece of information as if all were equally valuable. To create order, Google ranked every page based on how many people linked to it.What we all missed at the time is that by treating every piece of information the same, Google enforced a standard that permitted no differentiation. Every word on every Google page is in the same typeface. No brand images appear other than Google’s. This action essentially neutered the production values of every high end content creator. The Long Tail took off and the music industry got its ass kicked.

People who have iPhones and iPads do far fewer Google searches than people on PCs. The reason is that Apple has branded, trustworthy apps for everything. If they want news, Apple customers use apps from the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. If they want to know which camera to buy, they ask friends on Facebook. If they want to go to dinner, they use the Yelp app. These searches have economic value and its not going to Google, even on Android....When Apple and the app model win, Google’s search business loses.