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It's true that content publishers (music, books, video, academic papers, news, software, etc) are all being eliminated by the current disruption. The problem is

by bregma 6y ago

It's true that content publishers (music, books, video, academic papers, news, software, etc) are all being eliminated by the current disruption. The problem is that they added real value to the chain, and that value is also being eliminated. The current trend towards heaping massive quantities of low-value undifferentiated product in a heap at the feet of the consuming masses is wonderful if your metric is quantity. By eliminating discoverability, accessibility, quality, and curation you can massively increase the quantitative choice of consumers. In theory the cost difference is either saved by the consumer or passed on to the creator. In addition, eliminating the idea of capitalizing investment in content creation means far less investment in content creation. The marginal cost of copying is virtually free, but the cost of creating the first instance to be copied has not decreased. I suspect what we're seeing is the first wave of restructuring: tearing down the old to create a vast swamp of crap. I expect a second wave to come in which the vacuum created by tearing down the old will be filled by new publishers and their ilk to provide the services of discoverability, acessibility, quality, and curation and the capitalization of content creation.

dalbasal 6y ago
I agree broadly, and I think we both agree with the author's main point... life goes on. But, I think we need to be careful with our expectations. Currently, the biggest factor determining what content gets created is the preferences or MO of a handful of big guys. Netflix is like the old world. Executives. Deals. Do Netflix insiders still like sexposition or do they think it's corny now? It's a lot like selling a show to a cable channel. On Youtube, a minute of news equals a minute of fart jokes and subscribers are important. That's their ethic. The future isn't really about what "content" will do.. it's about what youtube or amazon will do. These companies are not neutral conduits of consumer preferences, whether or not they make decisions algorithmically.
ric2b 6y ago
> The current trend towards heaping massive quantities of low-value undifferentiated product in a heap at the feet of the consuming masses is wonderful if your metric is quantity. But filtering for quality should be the job of critics/reviewers, not gatekeepers to the industry.

by bregma 6y ago

dalbasal 6y ago

I agree broadly, and I think we both agree with the author's main point... life goes on. But, I think we need to be careful with our expectations. Currently, the biggest factor determining what content gets created is the preferences or MO of a handful of big guys. Netflix is like the old world. Executives. Deals. Do Netflix insiders still like sexposition or do they think it's corny now? It's a lot like selling a show to a cable channel. On Youtube, a minute of news equals a minute of fart jokes and subscribers are important. That's their ethic. The future isn't really about what "content" will do.. it's about what youtube or amazon will do. These companies are not neutral conduits of consumer preferences, whether or not they make decisions algorithmically.

ric2b 6y ago

> The current trend towards heaping massive quantities of low-value undifferentiated product in a heap at the feet of the consuming masses is wonderful if your metric is quantity. But filtering for quality should be the job of critics/reviewers, not gatekeepers to the industry.