I think somebody who is more self-reflective should ask why they personally aren't going on that path. If amateurism is so great, why didn't you stay one? You have to look at the larger economy, a backdrop of unemployment; it's shitty out there.

Also, after Examined Life was finished I found myself thinking about the way creative opportunities and distribution channels were shifting. Should I be showing my films in theaters or just think about getting them out online? There were other issues, too.

One consequence of this is that people are expected to make it on their own by chasing clicks or building a brand. What a diminished vision that is.

Are we on the tail-end of a generation that is enamored with the novelty of these devices and will younger people coming of age be more blasé about them in a healthy way? You look back at the history of any medium and the people who were there when it was developing, whether it was the telegraph or cable television or radio, thought, This is amazing, it's going change everything, or, The human community will finally be able to recognize each other and speak and be one - I mean, some people thought the telegraph or television would usher in world peace.

I would like people to be more aware of the fact that ultimately we are paying for things, and it's not just as privacy advocates point out that we're paying with our time and our data. We're also paying with money, because the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising is just factored into the cost of the goods that we buy. It's all coming out of our pocket, just in a really roundabout way.

I was shocked when I tried to articulate this to someone who had posted the film and asked them to remove it for a few months, and I actually told them that after that they could put it back up and they were just completely unwilling to compromise - you'd think I was Rupert Murdoch or something.

Whether it's a professional, academic keeping people out by using certain mystifying language, or technologists presenting their work as incredibly complicated, no one can understand it (especially not "moms," who are always invoked as the ultimate know-nothings, which is incredibly insulting to a whole lot of people).