Hello, Deb! Thank you for a great post.I have never thought about it,though felt that my  vacation preparation takes too much time:) But,I don't really like the word "job". Job is something we are paid for-though of course we save a lot of money , looking for the cheapest trip or cheapest dvd.But when we wash our car,  we do not think about it as a job.could it be called something like sharing repsonsibilities o?:)

I disagree with you a bit there. I don't think it's so much that we want to do it ourselves, we want the OPTION of doing it ourselves. Going back to the grocery store example for a second, when i have just a few items i don't mind doing it myself, but when i get my bi-weekly groceries i want someone else to do it for me....and most people are the same way!

 and let's not forget self checkouts were created not because we wanted to "do it ourselves" but because it is more profitable for stores to have 1 person manning 4-6 registers. So basically we are paying them to NOT do their job, which is something that peeves me about self checkouts, half the time the minimum wage teen isn't even doing his job, last time i went to wal-mart the guy had walked away and that held everything up because everyone pays with a credit card now and the guy needed to push a button!

But we've been wanting to do it ourselves for a while. The DIY industry keeps growing and everyday someone invents something new to replace someone else's job.

We've wanted this third job so much that we don't even want journalist and reporters anymore, we want to do it ourselves!

i totally agree with you! I work hard everyday as a wife, mother, realtor by day and retail sales associate by night. I'm not sure what's worse at the end of the day though, stopping in the grocery store and ringing out my own purchase....or dealing with a cranky casher who smushes my bread and either makes my bags so heavy they break, or puts one item in every bag! Maybe if people went back to a more "hands on" idea of customer service and dealing with people there would be more service with a smile and less smushed bread!

Deb, this was a very interesting post.  Although I must admit I’ve never heard the term “prosumer” before, it’s an interesting concept.

There certainly can be no doubt that more work is being pushed onto consumers.  This is great for producers/businesses, because it cuts costs and directly impacts their bottom line.  Like you, I believe this will continue into the near future.  However, I like to look beyond that to the other possibilities.  To me that’s where the real excitement is – beyond the third job.

With the invention and broad acceptance of the Internet over the past 10 years, we have seen a major social change within America.  We shifted from industrialization to informatization.  On the macro level, I think this resulted in three important trends – decentralization of production process, a compression of time and space, a shift to individuals as the new owners of the means of production (i.e. intellectual capital).

You mentioned that we are now expected to do the work others used to do – travel agent, store clerk, and bank teller, for example.  While it’s true more demands are placed on us as consumers, we also are given more power as producers.   These changing definitions of work and work roles are but a step toward the future, as these three trends ripple throughout every level of our society.  I see it as a natural evolution as we fully embrace what it means to live, work, and play in an information society.  My disappointment is the lack of progress while we wait for other areas of society to catch up – e.g. government and economics.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post.

Gary W. Griffin, Ph.D.

When did service go out of fashion?  Why do I have to know so much about so many things just to make a purchase get something done in my life? Getting paid for the "3rd job" is nice, but it doesn't make up for the time lost to just live.

My ongoing ventures online ARE my jobs. The income is a bit iffy sometimes; any self-employed service provider can tell you that life is a continual scramble for new job leads combined with the efficient and on-time completion of existing ones. But it's MY scramble. I have no one to blame but myself if I fail in one aspect or another.

I used to have some pretty high-powered engineering jobs, and I made a lot more money then. But I am much happier now, eking out a life at the low end of the income spectrum, because I am independent and I can make the decisions about when 'good enough' really is good enough and when I have to do it over. It's up to my clients, and to me, to agree on the product. It's usually harder for me to accept it than my clients so there is rarely conflict about that.

 

We are getting more tasks pointed our way but we might also see a number of tasks that can be done by someone / (something?) else ... the Mowba - from the creators of the Roomba is a good example.

But also, we are being relieved from tasks when don't really want to do like waiting in line at the bank, etc.

I hope that in the end I still get enough time to be on Facebook - doing nothing.

Owing to the increasein online activity by all of us, it would turn productive if we start looking for a third job. Converting a fraction of time we spend on Internet could turn into earning.