Many of current popular Web 2.0 applications are based on active and voluntary contribution of end-users. While I am a strong proponent of its basic concept, I think there is certain limitation to apply this to every application.
There exists significant gap between active contributors and average internet users. Only a small group of people contributes and the majority of internet users tends to just consume the information, since in many cases there is not enough motivation and often requires change of their behavior. This potentially results to the outcome being biased to the group’s opinions/preferences.
Of course, depending on the type of application this can work perfectly as witnessed in the success of Wikipedia, YouTube, Craigslist, and many others. However, for general applications, it is impossible to assume a small number of people can represent the interest of general public.
