It's easy to generalize about "users" or "prosumers"-- the participants in the sociable web. What follows is a close-up look at the "user" perspective of the acquisition of the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us. I'm not focusing on the rights or wrongs of the acquisition itself; the goal is to look at some reasons behind people's rejection or acceptance of it.

On December 09, 2005 Joshua Schachter, a Morgan Stanley analyst who created Del.icio.us in 2003, announced on his blog that his company has been acquired by Yahoo. It was sold for somewhere between $15 and $30 million.

244 out of the 505 comments to this announcement of the acquisition were congratulatory and 261 people rejected it or were doubtful. Within the group of negative voices I also counted a few spam messages. This suggests a slightly higher number of skeptical del.icio.us users. More interesting than these numbers, however are the stated reasons for being in favor or opposition to this acquisition.

The supportive voices celebrated the fact that Joshua Schachter, the Del.icio.us founder made millions of dollars and on December 13, 2005 "Naomi" summed up the sentiment of many who commented on the blog, reveling in Joshua Schachter's ability to strike it rich by writing: congrats! seems American dream live and well!

The practical impact that the acquisition will have on them as "users" was secondary to the appreciation of somebody who "made it," which they took as an indication that such financial  success is also in reach for them.

Many studies have shown, however, that such dreams of economic and class mobility in the United States are not based on fact at all. In 2005, The New York Times ran a series called Class Matters that confronted the myths of the American Dream with the realities on the ground. The report showed that income is heavily based on the economic background of one's parents and education. Schachter, for example, has a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He hardly rose from waiting tables to the ranks of a multi-millionaire. In 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers' generation. (American) Dream over.

On Schachter’s blog there were also other comments that pointed more to the possibility of a big corporation like Yahoo to support large-scale sociality. "Chris" wrote on December 9, 2005 Joshua: Pay no attention to all the whining naysayers, and welcome aboard! ... No doubt your voice will be a powerful force, and you'll have the unique opportunity to shape the experiences of millions of people worldwide on a much higher level than you've already achieved. Things are about to get really interesting!! I'm so excited for you!
 
“Chris” proposes that Yahoo will be able to cope with large numbers of users in opposition to a small or non-profit organization that can’t. On the other hand, the reasons for negative responses to the merger included Yahoo's support of China's human rights violations.

Considering Yahoo's complicity in the arrest of pro-democracy activists in China, I can't say I'm pleased, commented "sad_delicious_user" on December 10, 2005. Others suggested moving to competing social bookmarking sites. "Gabe"  wrote on December 9, 2005:
 
So.... where should we go now? www.shadows.com www.wink.com www.furl.com www.blinklist.com I'm bummed, but looking forward to trying some new stuff out.

In addition, there were also demands for payment for the bookmarking labor. Juna Duncan wrote on December 12, 2005:

So where's the payback for all of us storing stuff on del.icio.us, who are now not only 'social bookmarking' but building a big database of 'the most important' websites for Yahoo! ... There is no kidding ourselves that this is social bookmarking for society anymore. It is social bookmarking for Yahoo!s profits.
 
There are open source social bookmarking clones such as sa.bros.us, Simpy, BlinkList and Furl but none of them has community quite as sizable as Del.icio.us, which makes the site a useful research tool among many other possible applications. The users on Del.icio.us can download their own data freely through the API in an XML or JSON format, and the data can also be exported to a standard Netscape bookmarks format. It is a true sharing site that supports individualistic collectivism. The rules of the game are transparent. Users are aware that Yahoo owns the site and the walled garden effect that is obvious with MySpace and Facebook does not apply, as exit costs are extremely low.

The favorable comments about the Del.icio.us acquisition on the company's blog are in part based on the hope of users that one day they follow in the food steps of the Delicious founder and become wealthy. These dreams of class and economic mobility have been shown to be delusional by the cited NYT and Wall Street Journal reports.

photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid