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> Your stylistic choices can limit who can even view your text. And sometimes that's okay.

falcolas 8y ago
Honest question - what author would knowingly limit the scope of their readers not only to those interested in the topics they're writing about, but those who can read moderately legible handwriting on a busy background? From getting their point across, building an audience, and making a living, it makes no practical sense. Even the OP came out with transcripts and improved accessibility in the long run - but you have to dig in the HN threads for those. How many potential valuable followers and opinions were lost in that time?
- CptFribble 8y ago
  > making a living > valuable followers Gaining followers and financial success is usually a sideshow to the artist's message. Compromising your message for more money is like the actual definition of selling out.
  - falcolas 8y ago
    > Gaining followers and financial success is usually a sideshow to the artist's message. There's a subreddit devoted to the rather painful ridicule of this (unfortunately common) belief. It's /r/ChoosingBeggers and it has lots of tales of people who try and exploit artists for "the exposure" and accuse them of "selling out" when they demand payment for their work. I know of no professional-grade artists who are happy to give away all their art. Even face painters at fairs charge for their moderately simplistic work.
    - CptFribble 8y ago
      I'm not suggesting artists must give away their art or be sellouts, I'm just saying that not all messages must necessarily be optimized for maximum exposure. Artists shouldn't give away their art for free, but audiences shouldn't expect all art to be easily digestible either.
- justanothersys 8y ago
  It was intentional. To quote the article: "The Zelda cartridge I played contains 500 kilobytes of information. The game is how you are forced to browse that information."

Honest question - what author would knowingly limit the scope of their readers not only to those interested in the topics they're writing about, but those who can read moderately legible handwriting on a busy background? From getting their point across, building an audience, and making a living, it makes no practical sense. Even the OP came out with transcripts and improved accessibility in the long run - but you have to dig in the HN threads for those. How many potential valuable followers and opinions were lost in that time?

CptFribble 8y ago
> making a living > valuable followers Gaining followers and financial success is usually a sideshow to the artist's message. Compromising your message for more money is like the actual definition of selling out.
- falcolas 8y ago
  > Gaining followers and financial success is usually a sideshow to the artist's message. There's a subreddit devoted to the rather painful ridicule of this (unfortunately common) belief. It's /r/ChoosingBeggers and it has lots of tales of people who try and exploit artists for "the exposure" and accuse them of "selling out" when they demand payment for their work. I know of no professional-grade artists who are happy to give away all their art. Even face painters at fairs charge for their moderately simplistic work.
  - CptFribble 8y ago
    I'm not suggesting artists must give away their art or be sellouts, I'm just saying that not all messages must necessarily be optimized for maximum exposure. Artists shouldn't give away their art for free, but audiences shouldn't expect all art to be easily digestible either.
justanothersys 8y ago
It was intentional. To quote the article: "The Zelda cartridge I played contains 500 kilobytes of information. The game is how you are forced to browse that information."