I mean, you can't have advertising be the only official business of the information economy if the information economy is going to take over.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that advertising should not dominate the information economy as it evolves.
Jaron Lanier's quote suggests that as the information economy grows and becomes more integral to our lives, it should not be solely driven by advertising interests. Instead, a more balanced approach that values the true potential of information and innovation is needed, enabling a more beneficial environment for users and creators alike.
In practice
During a conference on digital marketing, one might reference this quote to discuss the future impact of technology on advertising.
Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action.
We're losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science. We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential.
Separation anxiety is assuaged by constant connection. Young people announce every detail of their lives on services like Twitter not to show off, but to avoid the closed door at bedtime, the empty room, the screaming vacuum of an isolated mind.
Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy, cheerful rhetoric to them, but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans, human nature and the human future.
Facebook says, 'Privacy is theft,' because they're selling your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day.
When you have a global mush, people lose their identity, they become pseudonyms, they have no investment and no consequence in what they do.
No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code.
I don't have any authority over Linux other than this notion that I know what I'm doing.
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
If you just hold your cell phone for 30 seconds and think backwards through its production, you have the entire techno-industrial culture wrapped up there. You can't have that device without everything that goes with it.
People don't want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video.
Social engineering bypasses all technologies, including firewalls.
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