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Markets are fairly self-correcting. Excess content will kill lowest quality content producers (not enough ad revenue). Homogeneity of content will create ways t

by djhn 11y ago

Markets are fairly self-correcting. Excess content will kill lowest quality content producers (not enough ad revenue). Homogeneity of content will create ways to differentiate (niche publications). Globalization... well, some niches are somewhat global, and to that extent this will also lead to either consolidation or dying out of poorer quality publications. The only way you can make a valid "everything will be shit, markets are bad" argument is if there is a mechanism through which you believe regression to the mean of [cultural values, intellectual endeavors] is "BAD", and PERMANENT for some reason (culture, psychology, neurobiology) leading us as a society to some kind of mental poverty. But then you're saying someone should somehow regulate this? Decide? Maybe even you? "I am most certainly not fooled by the antirigorous arguments of the way above their pay grade academics who truly believe they could run the world the way Plato intended them to. Get thee behind me, Satan." That's from http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/ http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/. If you like SSC, you might enjoy it.

ethbro 11y ago
I offer the following as a thought experiment: Without aspirational media & news (by which I mean media that is intellectually targeted above the optimal profit point), intellectual discourse lessens in greater society. This lessening of discourse leads to lessening of intellect in greater society. Repeat ad nauseum until we've optimized our culture's stupidity. In reality, there are obviously multitudinous different streams of media one can partake in. But I would say that the existence of any mass/popular/mainstream vein still makes the above a concern.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
> Excess content will kill lowest quality content producers (not enough ad revenue). I disagree with you here. It won't kill lowest quality content producers. On the contrary, it will kill the higher-quality content producers (as it in fact does), because quality content is more expensive to make than crap one. The optimized variable is profitability, which right now is strongly tied to view count - therefore you get more and more viral, easy to make content, made of every cheap mind hack we can think of. I'm not sure about your second paragraph - you say "regression to the mean" and "permanent", as if regression to the mean wasn't by definition the default state of the system, and hence permanent (absent default-changing influences). My belief is though that the degeneration of mass media is a continuous process driven by the market, so as long as the market incentives are in place, no regression is going to happen. You'd have to destroy the current mass media industry for news to regress to the (arguably much better) mean. > But then you're saying someone should somehow regulate this? Decide? Maybe even you? Well, yeah. Not me, or not one person in general, but we'd better regulate it somehow, because right now it mostly runs without any kind of explicit control - i.e. it does whatever it wants, which is not what humans generally want it to.
- djhn 11y ago
  I reckon the death of marginally medium-to-highbrow low-profitability journalism and the emergence of clickbait only appear to be connected. Clickbait will appeal to population, spring up new clickbait ventures, and descend down a spiral you describe. Best clickbaiters will emerge victorious, worse clickbaiters will crawl back with their tails between their legs. The first will be profitable, but not excessively so. The latter will have been hopefully funded by rational venture capitalists, not taken on any unreasonable personal risk and carry on with their careers. Nobody will have lost anything, except all the people reading their content. Medium-to-highbrow journalism is struggling to get by - but that is mostly because it's readership doesn't care enough - or enough of it's readership doesn't care - which is to say their quality wasn't great. It may have cared before, but now there are better options. Some of them are better in the sense that people are lazy and passive entertainment has gained their favour. Others are better options, because they are of even better quality. It's unfortunate, but the thriving high-brow media sector shows that there is a market for quality publications. Maybe I'm in a delusional bubble, since I live in a country where the average person gets 3-4 long form periodical publications (weeklies/ monthlies) and 20-30% of the population gets their daily newspaper delivered every morning before sunrise. > which is not what humans generally want it to. "Which is not what you think humans generally want it to." is softer form of the same statement :)

by djhn 11y ago

ethbro 11y ago

I offer the following as a thought experiment: Without aspirational media & news (by which I mean media that is intellectually targeted above the optimal profit point), intellectual discourse lessens in greater society. This lessening of discourse leads to lessening of intellect in greater society. Repeat ad nauseum until we've optimized our culture's stupidity. In reality, there are obviously multitudinous different streams of media one can partake in. But I would say that the existence of any mass/popular/mainstream vein still makes the above a concern.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> Excess content will kill lowest quality content producers (not enough ad revenue). I disagree with you here. It won't kill lowest quality content producers. On the contrary, it will kill the higher-quality content producers (as it in fact does), because quality content is more expensive to make than crap one. The optimized variable is profitability, which right now is strongly tied to view count - therefore you get more and more viral, easy to make content, made of every cheap mind hack we can think of. I'm not sure about your second paragraph - you say "regression to the mean" and "permanent", as if regression to the mean wasn't by definition the default state of the system, and hence permanent (absent default-changing influences). My belief is though that the degeneration of mass media is a continuous process driven by the market, so as long as the market incentives are in place, no regression is going to happen. You'd have to destroy the current mass media industry for news to regress to the (arguably much better) mean. > But then you're saying someone should somehow regulate this? Decide? Maybe even you? Well, yeah. Not me, or not one person in general, but we'd better regulate it somehow, because right now it mostly runs without any kind of explicit control - i.e. it does whatever it wants, which is not what humans generally want it to.

djhn 11y ago
I reckon the death of marginally medium-to-highbrow low-profitability journalism and the emergence of clickbait only appear to be connected. Clickbait will appeal to population, spring up new clickbait ventures, and descend down a spiral you describe. Best clickbaiters will emerge victorious, worse clickbaiters will crawl back with their tails between their legs. The first will be profitable, but not excessively so. The latter will have been hopefully funded by rational venture capitalists, not taken on any unreasonable personal risk and carry on with their careers. Nobody will have lost anything, except all the people reading their content. Medium-to-highbrow journalism is struggling to get by - but that is mostly because it's readership doesn't care enough - or enough of it's readership doesn't care - which is to say their quality wasn't great. It may have cared before, but now there are better options. Some of them are better in the sense that people are lazy and passive entertainment has gained their favour. Others are better options, because they are of even better quality. It's unfortunate, but the thriving high-brow media sector shows that there is a market for quality publications. Maybe I'm in a delusional bubble, since I live in a country where the average person gets 3-4 long form periodical publications (weeklies/ monthlies) and 20-30% of the population gets their daily newspaper delivered every morning before sunrise. > which is not what humans generally want it to. "Which is not what you think humans generally want it to." is softer form of the same statement :)