Personal Value

Personal value is the kind of value we receive from being active instead of passive, creative instead of consumptive. If you take a photo, or weave a basket, or build a model train set, you get something out of the experience. This energy drives the world’s hobbyists. However, as [a medical advocate] notes, there’s great value in seeing that we are not alone. Adding the social motivations of membership and generosity to the personal motivations of autonomy and competence can dramatically increase activities. Now that people can share videos on YouTube, far more people make such videos than ever made them when sharing was harder and the potential audience was smaller. Because humans have fundamentally social as well [as] personal motivations…social motivations can drive far more participation than can personal motivations alone.
— Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus

: Zubon