Need Affluence?

Until recently, there were only two kinds of social classes when it came to online: Technology Haves and Technology Have Not’s. The Technology Haves tend to be more highly educated, higher income, with fewer minorities, while the Technology Have Not’s were just the opposite. The Internet became the field leveler for the Technology Haves. Each person had equal access to information, while information itself became the social capital.

A new class of social network sites has emerged and their sole purpose is to re-establish the dominance of the wealthy in this new order. These sites have attempted to winnow their membership by utilizing an invitation only system. To date this has not been all that successful of a model.

Along comes affluence.org. Affluence is changing the traditional invitation only model in hopes of connecting to more people. Instead of each member sending an invitation to each of his or her connections, Affluence has drawn a line based on income. If someone can simply prove that they have a net worth of $3 million or a minimum annual household income of $300,000 they can become members.

Is this really something that is necessary on the Internet? Is this simply a natural re-segregation that was inevitable?

http://www.elroyjetson.org/2009/01/27/need-affluence/