I guess the way it looks to me is that the last dramatic production advancement for lay people was the advent of blogging. The two major advancements after that have been social networking and tablets, which both somewhat degrade production signal.
The observation that an optimized consumption experience gives producers a bigger audience is an interesting one. But I think what I'm objecting to is the further distinction between those classes. The PC and blogging revolutions were profound to me in that they closed the gap between the producers and consumers. Tablets, on the other hand, make the distinction more overt. Same with the Kindle.
You cannot have better and better consumption oriented devices in a vacuum. Someone has to produce what the masses are consuming.
While this is true, my point is about who has the means for production. I would rather see that power distributed than concentrated.