4 ms·

I feel like the economy as a whole has been hit by this pattern. Call it "disruption","creative destruction", or whatever, but the general pattern has been that

by vtange 10y ago

I feel like the economy as a whole has been hit by this pattern. Call it "disruption","creative destruction", or whatever, but the general pattern has been that supply has gone up (it's never been easier to create content) while demand has remained constant (only so many eyeballs and so much time). Back then you could grow smoothly since there were always new people to reach, and only so much content for them to read. With the internet we've also sort of fostered a society that expects some content (music, blog posts, etc) to be dirt-cheap if not free, especially if it does not meet ever-increasing standards. This again leads to a race-to-the-bottom style market where you have to outproduce others to gain a following that might be willing to pay you something.

thwarted 10y ago
With the internet we've also sort of fostered a society that expects some content (music, blog posts, etc) to be dirt-cheap if not free, especially if it does not meet ever-increasing standards. This again leads to a race-to-the-bottom style market where you have to outproduce others to gain a following that might be willing to pay you something. Is this any different, or even less desirable, than the patronage style of old, where only a relative few obtained artist-in-residence-style support from from the limited market of nobles and moneyed interests (who may have been maintaining stables of artisans as a conspicuous display of wealth rather than a specific interest in the artist or their works)? Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history?
- clock_tower 10y ago
  > Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history? They normally couldn't in pre-revolutionary France; The Great Cat Massacre has the details.
- taway_1212 10y ago
  > Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history? It was probably true for top fine artists, but at a price of working on commission (i.e. clients dictating the content). For writers, philosophers and composers, I think it was much tougher. For example Chopin, even when he was a celebrity, was living largely off piano lessons. Rousseau made a living copying piano sheets.
  - paganel 10y ago
    > Rousseau made a living copying piano sheets. As far as I remember Jean-Jacques wanted to make a living by being a musician and "copying piano sheets" and didn't want to depend on how well his books were selling. The reason being that had he started living off his books he would have felt compelled to write what his readers wanted to read, not what he really thought. At least that's what I remember from reading his Confessions.
    - taway_1212 10y ago
      It was the same with Czeslaw Miłosz (poet Nobel laureate) - he wrote that, if he tried to live off his writing, he'd had to resort to writing commercial novels, which for him was dreadful. He chose to be a Slavic literature professor at Berkeley instead, and wrote poetry in spare time.
PeterisP 10y ago
This is the whole point of the article - while artists likely had it better in the old situation, from an outside perspective, increased supply == more creation == cultural boom in quantity; ever-increasing standards + larger pool of candidates competing for attention == cultural boom in quality. Saying that this is killing culture is like saying "nobody ever goes there, it's too crowded". Yes, the growth in supply is killing art as a job, but that's more a sign of a general transformation of all non-horrible jobs towards something that's not paid; as long as the planet has more than enough people who are willing and able to do that thing for free, it won't be a valid source of income except for rare exceptions.
- l33tbro 10y ago
  This what I find frightening about the landscape we're moving into. When the emphasis becomes on the volume of your content and how fast it can be produced, the overall artistic output of a culture suffers because there's no system to support artists doing 'deep work'. So it's difficult to agree with your point that increasing standards and a larger pool of candidates create more quality. In my experience, quality artistic output is a time sink that arises from repeatedly generating and refining concepts and the media itself.
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    Volume of your content is an emphasis only while the revenue is low but still reasonable to work for, which is at best a phase of transition. As the revenue goes to zero and becomes insignificant (which is already the case for many art forms), or even becomes negative (i.e. authors paying in effort or money to attract attention to a free product), there is no emphasis on the volume of your content - the emphasis is on building something that's good enough to get attention despite an overwhelming supply of free alternatives, and that barrier is getting higher and higher. The people that break above that standard do invest quality deep work and a time sink, even despite a lack of system to fund most of them. Yes, funding them would likely help - but as current reality shows, it's not strictly necessary, the supply of good art anyway outstrips the availability of attention.
  - deleted 10y ago

by vtange 10y ago

thwarted 10y ago

With the internet we've also sort of fostered a society that expects some content (music, blog posts, etc) to be dirt-cheap if not free, especially if it does not meet ever-increasing standards. This again leads to a race-to-the-bottom style market where you have to outproduce others to gain a following that might be willing to pay you something. Is this any different, or even less desirable, than the patronage style of old, where only a relative few obtained artist-in-residence-style support from from the limited market of nobles and moneyed interests (who may have been maintaining stables of artisans as a conspicuous display of wealth rather than a specific interest in the artist or their works)? Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history?

clock_tower 10y ago
> Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history? They normally couldn't in pre-revolutionary France; The Great Cat Massacre has the details.
taway_1212 10y ago
> Have most artists and other creatives been surviving off income from their artistic endeavors for most of history? It was probably true for top fine artists, but at a price of working on commission (i.e. clients dictating the content). For writers, philosophers and composers, I think it was much tougher. For example Chopin, even when he was a celebrity, was living largely off piano lessons. Rousseau made a living copying piano sheets.
- paganel 10y ago
  > Rousseau made a living copying piano sheets. As far as I remember Jean-Jacques wanted to make a living by being a musician and "copying piano sheets" and didn't want to depend on how well his books were selling. The reason being that had he started living off his books he would have felt compelled to write what his readers wanted to read, not what he really thought. At least that's what I remember from reading his Confessions.
  - taway_1212 10y ago
    It was the same with Czeslaw Miłosz (poet Nobel laureate) - he wrote that, if he tried to live off his writing, he'd had to resort to writing commercial novels, which for him was dreadful. He chose to be a Slavic literature professor at Berkeley instead, and wrote poetry in spare time.

PeterisP 10y ago

This is the whole point of the article - while artists likely had it better in the old situation, from an outside perspective, increased supply == more creation == cultural boom in quantity; ever-increasing standards + larger pool of candidates competing for attention == cultural boom in quality. Saying that this is killing culture is like saying "nobody ever goes there, it's too crowded". Yes, the growth in supply is killing art as a job, but that's more a sign of a general transformation of all non-horrible jobs towards something that's not paid; as long as the planet has more than enough people who are willing and able to do that thing for free, it won't be a valid source of income except for rare exceptions.

l33tbro 10y ago
This what I find frightening about the landscape we're moving into. When the emphasis becomes on the volume of your content and how fast it can be produced, the overall artistic output of a culture suffers because there's no system to support artists doing 'deep work'. So it's difficult to agree with your point that increasing standards and a larger pool of candidates create more quality. In my experience, quality artistic output is a time sink that arises from repeatedly generating and refining concepts and the media itself.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  Volume of your content is an emphasis only while the revenue is low but still reasonable to work for, which is at best a phase of transition. As the revenue goes to zero and becomes insignificant (which is already the case for many art forms), or even becomes negative (i.e. authors paying in effort or money to attract attention to a free product), there is no emphasis on the volume of your content - the emphasis is on building something that's good enough to get attention despite an overwhelming supply of free alternatives, and that barrier is getting higher and higher. The people that break above that standard do invest quality deep work and a time sink, even despite a lack of system to fund most of them. Yes, funding them would likely help - but as current reality shows, it's not strictly necessary, the supply of good art anyway outstrips the availability of attention.
- deleted 10y ago