Virtuosity: Forest or Trees?

After reading Nostradamus Rheingold against Robins, Fernbach and the backdrop of the autonomists, I can't help but wonder if Rheingold isn't being given a fair shake.

From the tone of the prompt, one would think Rheingold's piece commits some egregious error like being reductionist or light on concrete examples (of which Robins is the culprit, if anyone). It appears Rheingold's only crime is a starry-eyed outlook on the future.

If I understand the autonomist view correctly, it bemoans the immaterial and affective labor on which capital depends. while advocating resistance "from below" or outside traditional structures. This seems to set up a tension between free labor and the virtuosity of the multitude -- where is the line between these two? Let me clarify my question:

What Rheingold lauds as virtuosity in the intro and chapters 3 and 9, some autonomists (the fire-and-brimstone ones, anyway) would call free labor (medical advice, printer support, software sharing, etc.). Thus, Rheingold might be criticized for missing the free labor forest for the virtuosity trees. Rheingold, of course, would say just the opposite, and I'm inclined to agree with Rheingold. It seems that the virtuosity of Virno's multitude is a key element of the resistant action that autonomists call for -- and what Rheingold is describing in real terms. So why are some so eager to brush him aside? Which one of these (free labor or virtuosity) is the big picture, the more important focus?

To be fair, at the time Rheingold is writing, these online communities emerged relatively unfettered by the data mining that is so ubiquitous today (wasn't part of his book a call to arms to fend off that eventuality?) But now that we're at this point in time, where everything Rheingold predicted is in process, does this mean that everything is subject to subsumption? And if capital is able to extract any surplus value out of some important work on the resistance front, does that negate its resistance value entirely? I say no.

In another class today, someone mentioned that guitar lessons are at an all-time low, presumably because there are so many tablature transcriptions available for free online. Granted, it's not Guitar Lessons, Inc., but it is an example of people bypassing a capital structure.

The example that's really sticking out in my mind is the online community that rallied around me when my dog died, but it's late and this post is long. I'll come back to this one tomorrow.

I admit, I've got my Rheingold-brand rose-colored blinders on, so I wouldn't be shocked to find that I'm overlooking something important...I'm sure someone can set me straight in class.