Take a careful look at the number they're measuring. They say that only 0.2% of visits to Flickr are uploads.
That's very different from saying that only 0.2% of users upload content. Even someone who regularly uploads photos to Flickr probably views 10 photos for every one they upload. Think about news.YC: in a typical day, I probably post 3-4 comments and submit one article, yet I read about two dozen articles and 50+ comments. And I'm #13 on the leader list, so most people would probably consider me a participant.
IMHO, the article chose a very meaningless number and then reported it as a big find. Reads always outnumber writes, by a large margin. Your top contributors don't just post things, they're also usually voracious consumers, probably reading dozens of items for every one they submit.
It's like saying that novelists read 100 books for every one that they write, and therefore they aren't really contributing anything to literature.
That's very different from saying that only 0.2% of users upload content. Even someone who regularly uploads photos to Flickr probably views 10 photos for every one they upload. Think about news.YC: in a typical day, I probably post 3-4 comments and submit one article, yet I read about two dozen articles and 50+ comments. And I'm #13 on the leader list, so most people would probably consider me a participant.
IMHO, the article chose a very meaningless number and then reported it as a big find. Reads always outnumber writes, by a large margin. Your top contributors don't just post things, they're also usually voracious consumers, probably reading dozens of items for every one they submit.
It's like saying that novelists read 100 books for every one that they write, and therefore they aren't really contributing anything to literature.