Salon: What about the idea that the Internet is somehow degrading the quality of the art people make these days?
Doctorow: The right way to think about the way technology and art interact is that it creates and it takes away opportunities for different kinds of artists — some of whom are improbable until the technology comes along, and then they seem inevitable. The performer who likes making music but who doesn’t like being in front of an audience: That was a contradiction in terms before the vinyl record and the radio. It was unimaginable, like a swimmer who didn’t like being wet. Now, in hindsight, it seems like one of those weird beliefs of old-timey people — like leeches and humors — that we just can’t understand. How could you not know that there would be shy people who made great music? It just seems weird. But if there’s no opportunity for that kind of work to emerge, there will be no opportunity for us to know that work like that is lurking in potential.