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You do know Napster? You do know The Pirate Bay? People want access to mainstream music, mainstream videos and mainstream books, no matter the device. If the bi

by ugh 15y ago

You do know Napster? You do know The Pirate Bay? People want access to mainstream music, mainstream videos and mainstream books, no matter the device. If the big companies don’t give it to them people will go to great lengths to get said access. That’s just how it is, always has been, always will be. You are again and again creating false dichotomies. The media distribution model of all the mainstream stuff is not different between PCs and tablets. Tablets might be a bit more convenient when it comes to buying stuff (probably not even that) but that’s it. You can get mainstream stuff on both. People want mainstream stuff on both. Napster and all the later filesharing is a testament to that. But that’s not the whole story. Far from it. All the other content out there is perfectly accessible with tablets. They are just as good at accessing non-mainstream content as PCs. They are not limited in that respect. They all have awesome browsers (the most modern stuff you can get), they allow you to download podcasts or to subscribe to RSS feeds. It’s all possible. Tablets are the content consumption Yin to the content creation Yang. I just don’t understand how one could see that any other way.

joebadmo 15y ago
Napster, at least (I don't know about Pirate Bay), also enabled a class of underground/amateur music by giving it a distribution channel that never existed before. In a way that iTunes does not. I think, at least to some degree, you have the causality backwards. People consumed mainstream content because that was what was largely available to them. How much of mainstream content consumption has been replaced by amateur content on the web? As the culture at large gets more and more used to this, I think the idea of mainstream will hold less and less power. Of course, unless devices like tablets continue to convince them that the mainstream is the only valuable stream. The content is available on tablets, too, but the device subtly privileges its own centrally mediated distribution channels. I believe this privilege will only get stronger.
- ugh 15y ago
  Getting rare music through file sharing sucked. I know it, I was trying to get it. The iTunes music store has a greater selection of rare music than any file sharing I ever tried in the early 2000s. Of course, unless devices like tablets continue to convince them that the mainstream is the only valuable stream. Why should that happen? Why? I don’t understand. Non-mainstream content is a first class citizen on tablets. I … I really don’t get it. You are postulating a effect that seems so wildly implausible and absolutely absurd to me.

by ugh 15y ago

joebadmo 15y ago

Napster, at least (I don't know about Pirate Bay), also enabled a class of underground/amateur music by giving it a distribution channel that never existed before. In a way that iTunes does not. I think, at least to some degree, you have the causality backwards. People consumed mainstream content because that was what was largely available to them. How much of mainstream content consumption has been replaced by amateur content on the web? As the culture at large gets more and more used to this, I think the idea of mainstream will hold less and less power. Of course, unless devices like tablets continue to convince them that the mainstream is the only valuable stream. The content is available on tablets, too, but the device subtly privileges its own centrally mediated distribution channels. I believe this privilege will only get stronger.

ugh 15y ago
Getting rare music through file sharing sucked. I know it, I was trying to get it. The iTunes music store has a greater selection of rare music than any file sharing I ever tried in the early 2000s. Of course, unless devices like tablets continue to convince them that the mainstream is the only valuable stream. Why should that happen? Why? I don’t understand. Non-mainstream content is a first class citizen on tablets. I … I really don’t get it. You are postulating a effect that seems so wildly implausible and absolutely absurd to me.