Why would the age of celebrity end? High quality output becomes much easier, but the authorship is still difficult (and requires talent). Photoshop and Illustrator definitely changed the game in the design world, but there are still clear differences in talent.

Ok, What I was getting at here is that ordinary people will see in a very real way just how easily stars like Britney can be manufactured. Photoshop has already come a long way in exposing to everyone in a visceral and easy to understand way the simplicity with which images can be altered. Everyone kind of knew this before hand but its now becoming ingrained.

I wasn't suggesting that everyone will suddenly be a virtuoso, I'm just hoping that as people in the future are presented with manufactured stars the response will change to "big deal, I know a guy who can do that on his mac with a girl down the street. They're really good. Here, listen...".

Of course, this won't fix the publics fascination with giving people who can't handle it celebrity status and too much money and using the inevitable train wreck as entertainment. At least we'll quit pretending its music.

"could the age of celebrity finally be over?"

Thats like saying that the piano would kill all virtuosos, because all the notes are already there, as opposed to a violin where the player has to press the string on the right spot.

Just getting the pitch right is not gonna make the music, not by a long shot.