@Simon Greenwood

You raised some very valid points there, and they made me consider this as an addendum:

Since there are now many more events, festivals and avenues of publication because of the internet, and the demand for media content has thus increased exponentially as a result, the quantity of content works now being produced to fill this increased market would reduce the overall quality of any given one of those works. This is because truly great works that stand the test of time to become "classics" like Gone with the Wind, Lord of the Rings etc. don't appear that often. Perhaps one in several thousand works will elevate to this level. Further, simply because more works are produced doesn't mean more "great" works will be produced - inspiration isn't statistical, and human nature dictates that "great" works only occur rarely - if they're common, what makes them "great"? Greatness is proportional to the amount of time since any other great work has appeared multiplied by its overall popularity, just as gold would be worthless if it was as common as sandstone. Thus it is more likely that the ratio of short-lived works to great works will actually increase in relation to the production rate.

As a result, the increased efficiency of Web 2.0 and its recommendation and search tools becomes offset by the higher volume of commonplace content masking the presence of outstanding content. The speed with which one can find a "gem" is thus countered by the extra time you spend looking through all the extra commonplace content.

A quick visit to YouTube will illustrate this principle perfectly. Even if you only look at the "recommended" videos, few if any of them will really stand out in the eyes of the average viewer.