> Writing books is at least cheap, so we would still have hobbyist authors; Arguably, all current commercially unsuccessful authors (and there are a lot of the

> Writing books is at least cheap, so we would still have hobbyist authors; Arguably, all current commercially unsuccessful authors (and there are a lot of them) are hobbyists as well. > but making a movie can be darn expensive. Who would invest into a next Lord of the Rings adaptation without IP? > Well, yeah, maybe Musk would. But then you end up with the old patronage system, where artists need to be on good terms with the ultra-rich. I'm reasonably certain that part of the gap would be filled by crowdfunding (or the Street Performer Protocol), but we've already seen how that works best for creators that are already successful and have a following (or at least some sort of platform) or who have zeroed in on a previously unidentified and unserved niche. It doesn't work so well for "midlist" creators working within established genres. Distributed patronage (eg. Patreon) is another option that can in theory work for the latter, though I don't think there have been all that many success stories there. Most Patreons seem to fund the creator's coffee budget, and not much more.