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I enjoyed the article, too and agree that Levy did a great job telling what could have been a bring story in a lesser reporter's hands. The whole "it's a damn

I enjoyed the article, too and agree that Levy did a great job telling what could have been a bring story in a lesser reporter's hands. The whole "it's a damn shame how rare his kind of journalism is" sentiment comes up fairly often here on HN and always bugs me a little bit. This is a community where people heap praise on folks who create things like Instapaper and Readability, link to the printer-formatted version long articles, complain about pay walls, and generally take an extremely liberal view toward copyright infringement and content monetization subversion. Those are all fine things, but I think it's important to understand that we can't have it both ways. Online ads pay for the great journalism people on HN claim to want more of.

pg 15y ago
I think you've set up a false dichotomy here. There are probably other ways to support good writing than the clumsy methods existing media companies have tried so far.
- brandnewlow 15y ago
  This is true, it's not a direct if/then relationship. I do think however that the spirit of gleeful copyright subversion is at odds with the desire to read great journalism. It's very hard for a publisher to derive value from content when they have no control over the experience in which the content is consumed. A story that's been Readability-ed creates no immediate value for the publisher.
  - pg 15y ago
    I do think however that the spirit of gleeful copyright subversion is at odds with the desire to read great journalism. I think you're mistaken about that. I'm not 100% sure, but I suspect copyright is a (mostly) obsolete concept, and that gleeful copyright subverters are just the people who are already living in the future. A lot of musicians have already given up on the idea of making money from selling recorded music, and expect to make it from concerts instead. I suspect we will see similar displacements in writing.
    - brandnewlow 15y ago
      That is absolutely what's happening and where things are going for musicians. The equivalent for writers and reporters is to go teach at a local college on the side to earn more. But time spent teaching is time spent not writing. So yes, there are other opportunities, but I don't think they're going to lead us toward more great longform pieces like this one. To be fair, as it gets harder and harder for publishers to support longform content like this, the stuff that does get funded will be better and better.
    - replicatorblog 15y ago
      As a student of Classics do you think the patronage model that companies like Kickstarter enable will become dominant or at least mainstream? It seems like a key to understanding the future of copyright heavy industries will be to understand how people like Vivaldi (or any artist up until the 1950s) made art that persists to this day without the benefit of recorded media.
    - earbitscom 15y ago
      I'm not disagreeing that it's the direction things are going, but I don't think we should take the "I'll just try to make money from concerts" attitude from musicians as a good thing or one they embrace. It's more of a surrender and it's not good for consumers. This future everyone is living in may be one where artists start recording only 5 song EPs and playing a lot of shows, which I would consider a major loss. There will be many albums that don't get recorded because there's no financial incentive. I already know some great musicians who have given up on albums because they're not willing to pay $20k to record something nobody will pay for, despite the fact that there is plenty of "demand" for the content. You get worse content when you don't pay people for creating content you like. If that's the future people are accelerating toward by taking things without paying for it, then they're just going to get the crappy music they deserve.

pg 15y ago

I think you've set up a false dichotomy here. There are probably other ways to support good writing than the clumsy methods existing media companies have tried so far.

brandnewlow 15y ago
This is true, it's not a direct if/then relationship. I do think however that the spirit of gleeful copyright subversion is at odds with the desire to read great journalism. It's very hard for a publisher to derive value from content when they have no control over the experience in which the content is consumed. A story that's been Readability-ed creates no immediate value for the publisher.
- pg 15y ago
  I do think however that the spirit of gleeful copyright subversion is at odds with the desire to read great journalism. I think you're mistaken about that. I'm not 100% sure, but I suspect copyright is a (mostly) obsolete concept, and that gleeful copyright subverters are just the people who are already living in the future. A lot of musicians have already given up on the idea of making money from selling recorded music, and expect to make it from concerts instead. I suspect we will see similar displacements in writing.
  - brandnewlow 15y ago
    That is absolutely what's happening and where things are going for musicians. The equivalent for writers and reporters is to go teach at a local college on the side to earn more. But time spent teaching is time spent not writing. So yes, there are other opportunities, but I don't think they're going to lead us toward more great longform pieces like this one. To be fair, as it gets harder and harder for publishers to support longform content like this, the stuff that does get funded will be better and better.
  - replicatorblog 15y ago
    As a student of Classics do you think the patronage model that companies like Kickstarter enable will become dominant or at least mainstream? It seems like a key to understanding the future of copyright heavy industries will be to understand how people like Vivaldi (or any artist up until the 1950s) made art that persists to this day without the benefit of recorded media.
  - earbitscom 15y ago
    I'm not disagreeing that it's the direction things are going, but I don't think we should take the "I'll just try to make money from concerts" attitude from musicians as a good thing or one they embrace. It's more of a surrender and it's not good for consumers. This future everyone is living in may be one where artists start recording only 5 song EPs and playing a lot of shows, which I would consider a major loss. There will be many albums that don't get recorded because there's no financial incentive. I already know some great musicians who have given up on albums because they're not willing to pay $20k to record something nobody will pay for, despite the fact that there is plenty of "demand" for the content. You get worse content when you don't pay people for creating content you like. If that's the future people are accelerating toward by taking things without paying for it, then they're just going to get the crappy music they deserve.