Amateur Environments

Essay author argues that software is turning professional environments into open, amateur ones, which they call "amateur-ization," and that this is reshaping the relationship between peers and between generations. Their examples include Twitter as amateur intellectualism, Instagram as amateur photography, YouTube as amateur videography, Robinhood as amateur finance, and crypto as amateur governance and capital. Robinhood is singled out because its participants do not seek to become professionals and instead want access to similar outcomes, with the author suggesting that the professional and amateur arenas now coincide in markets. The author also contends that once the amateur becomes primary, the professional becomes the anti-environment, and asks which other professional fields are ripe for the same change.