3 ms·

I feel like you're describing a huge win here. The idea that our culture needs media juggernauts for some reason is absurd. The "vast amount of quality content"

I feel like you're describing a huge win here. The idea that our culture needs media juggernauts for some reason is absurd. The "vast amount of quality content" I experience from day to day comes almost exclusively from small creators, creators who's content would in many cases be a hell of a lot better if it wasn't encumbered by onerous copyright laws. Don't even get me started on how bad patents are.

CabSauce 4y ago
Copyright laws protect small creators too. I'm not sure how they could expect to make a living if their work could just be copied and sold or given away by anyone.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > Copyright laws protect small creators too. I'm not sure how they could expect to make a living if their work could just be copied and sold or given away by anyone. Blatantly false. The majority of these small creators are Twitch Streamers, Tik-tockers, Youtubers these days. All of them give their work away for free effectively. In particular, the value in the Twitch-stream is from interacting with the chat realtime. Its effectively a live performance tied to a chatroom in some niche subject matter that the audience is interested in. All of those can probably be released public-domain and free to copy, and they won't lose a single subscriber. -------- Others are paid primarily through their Patreon account or other forms of merchandise (dolls, plushies, etc. etc.). Or direct advertisements inside of the content (see Oversimplified and VPN). You can't "skip" the ad because the Ad is part of the video itself and worked into the script.
  - thot_experiment 4y ago
    FWIW if you don't want to see sponsored segments in youtube videos etc, there's a tool for this called SponsorBlock which uses crowdsourced timestamp information and allows you to opt out of seeing various different kinds of content you'd rather skip over (sponsorship, self promotion, likecommentsubscribe segments etc.)
scarface74 4y ago
Well, economics has something called “revealed preferences”. Despite your opinions, most people do prefer media from the juggernauts based on where they spend their money. Based on where people spend their money, your preferences are in the minority.
- nvrspyx 4y ago
  Is it that they prefer media from juggernauts or that they're more likely to know of media from juggernauts? Juggernauts are able to put their movies in theaters or cable/streaming television, put trailers in front of other movies or tv shows, take out billboards, etc. Juggernauts are able to market the hell out of their products, while most little guys don't have that opportunity. I imagine that this also has a lasting effect. For example, juggernauts are more likely to have a streaming service trying to pick up their media while also putting that media ahead of little guy's media in that streaming service's recommendations. I'd also guess that over time the probability of organically finding little guy's media drops at a significantly faster rate than juggernaut's media .
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Well, we have studios like Blumhouse that create low budget movies that do get a lot of press, have trailers, get plenty of promotion etc. They do well on an ROI basis. But they don’t top the box office.
    - nvrspyx 4y ago
      Since 2014, all of Blumhouse's movies are owned, distributed, and co-produced by Universal Studios. Well, except for their BH Tilt division, which is partnered with Neon for co-production and distribution. Their most notable low-budget film that kickstarted their rise was Paranormal Activity, which was straight up acquired by Paramount Pictures for an actual theatrical release. Blumhouse wouldn't be where they are without the juggernaut's purposefully propping them up.
      - deleted 4y ago
tenpies 4y ago
I agree with you, but I wish there were more effort from big-name directors or producers to crowd fund their film or series. Imagine for example something like the Expanse being crowd funded. That's about $3.5 - $5 MM per episode - a huge amount. And then it takes a year or more to see the content. And the Expanse wasn't really that expensive in the scale of things. Unfortunately, until a better model emerges, the media juggernauts do serve a function in the marketplace as financiers.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  By now, I figured we'd have a lot more visual media being 100% CGI. That would have allowed small creators to ride the collapsing cost of hardware. You're probably pushing more triangles in ten seconds of a modern video game at 4K than in the entire run of Babylon 5's groundbreaking CGI usage. So we've definitely got the resources available to deliver broadcast-quality CGI video to the masses, and the right tooling could make it accessible. I could imagine franchises that started with modest visuals, and if they can find bigger backers (more subscribers, advertisers, merchandising, whatever), they can level up with more resources behind them. I also imagined that studios and directors would love the idea of CGI actors-- you could do things that are still infeasible with practical effects, you can pull them back out 10 years later and they haven't aged, and you don't need to worry that they'll suddenly go on a binge that effects their ability to film.

CabSauce 4y ago

Copyright laws protect small creators too. I'm not sure how they could expect to make a living if their work could just be copied and sold or given away by anyone.

dragontamer 4y ago
> Copyright laws protect small creators too. I'm not sure how they could expect to make a living if their work could just be copied and sold or given away by anyone. Blatantly false. The majority of these small creators are Twitch Streamers, Tik-tockers, Youtubers these days. All of them give their work away for free effectively. In particular, the value in the Twitch-stream is from interacting with the chat realtime. Its effectively a live performance tied to a chatroom in some niche subject matter that the audience is interested in. All of those can probably be released public-domain and free to copy, and they won't lose a single subscriber. -------- Others are paid primarily through their Patreon account or other forms of merchandise (dolls, plushies, etc. etc.). Or direct advertisements inside of the content (see Oversimplified and VPN). You can't "skip" the ad because the Ad is part of the video itself and worked into the script.
- thot_experiment 4y ago
  FWIW if you don't want to see sponsored segments in youtube videos etc, there's a tool for this called SponsorBlock which uses crowdsourced timestamp information and allows you to opt out of seeing various different kinds of content you'd rather skip over (sponsorship, self promotion, likecommentsubscribe segments etc.)

scarface74 4y ago

Well, economics has something called “revealed preferences”. Despite your opinions, most people do prefer media from the juggernauts based on where they spend their money. Based on where people spend their money, your preferences are in the minority.

nvrspyx 4y ago
Is it that they prefer media from juggernauts or that they're more likely to know of media from juggernauts? Juggernauts are able to put their movies in theaters or cable/streaming television, put trailers in front of other movies or tv shows, take out billboards, etc. Juggernauts are able to market the hell out of their products, while most little guys don't have that opportunity. I imagine that this also has a lasting effect. For example, juggernauts are more likely to have a streaming service trying to pick up their media while also putting that media ahead of little guy's media in that streaming service's recommendations. I'd also guess that over time the probability of organically finding little guy's media drops at a significantly faster rate than juggernaut's media .
- scarface74 4y ago
  Well, we have studios like Blumhouse that create low budget movies that do get a lot of press, have trailers, get plenty of promotion etc. They do well on an ROI basis. But they don’t top the box office.
  - nvrspyx 4y ago
    Since 2014, all of Blumhouse's movies are owned, distributed, and co-produced by Universal Studios. Well, except for their BH Tilt division, which is partnered with Neon for co-production and distribution. Their most notable low-budget film that kickstarted their rise was Paranormal Activity, which was straight up acquired by Paramount Pictures for an actual theatrical release. Blumhouse wouldn't be where they are without the juggernaut's purposefully propping them up.
    - deleted 4y ago

tenpies 4y ago

I agree with you, but I wish there were more effort from big-name directors or producers to crowd fund their film or series. Imagine for example something like the Expanse being crowd funded. That's about $3.5 - $5 MM per episode - a huge amount. And then it takes a year or more to see the content. And the Expanse wasn't really that expensive in the scale of things. Unfortunately, until a better model emerges, the media juggernauts do serve a function in the marketplace as financiers.

hakfoo 4y ago
By now, I figured we'd have a lot more visual media being 100% CGI. That would have allowed small creators to ride the collapsing cost of hardware. You're probably pushing more triangles in ten seconds of a modern video game at 4K than in the entire run of Babylon 5's groundbreaking CGI usage. So we've definitely got the resources available to deliver broadcast-quality CGI video to the masses, and the right tooling could make it accessible. I could imagine franchises that started with modest visuals, and if they can find bigger backers (more subscribers, advertisers, merchandising, whatever), they can level up with more resources behind them. I also imagined that studios and directors would love the idea of CGI actors-- you could do things that are still infeasible with practical effects, you can pull them back out 10 years later and they haven't aged, and you don't need to worry that they'll suddenly go on a binge that effects their ability to film.