Bad examples.

For me, Amazon's recommendation system is just another source of potential reading material, and not a very important one at that. I get much more out of other sources, such as reviews, references, friends' recommendations and plain old bookstore browsing. Even if it -could- replace those, it won't, because it sucks. Based on a few one-off purchases their system has built up a completely wrong image of what my interests are. I suppose one can waste some time trying to fix that, but who would bother?

Others have already pointed out the flawed thinking in blaming Web 2.0 for the flash-in-the-pan careers of musicians.

I'm a bit cynical about the whole Web 2.0 concept because it's dumb and ineffective, not because it's too effective, as the author imagines it is. Web 2.0 isn't going to "break" anything that hasn't been long broken by TV, video games and Web 1.0.