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Destroying Hollywood would not destroy ability for entertainers to entertain. If anything it would probably increase the ability for an entertainer to entertain

by fleitz 15y ago

Destroying Hollywood would not destroy ability for entertainers to entertain. If anything it would probably increase the ability for an entertainer to entertain. Hollywood doesn't really "make" movies so much as market and distribute them. Destroying "hollywood" according to the ideas proposed would likely open up millions MORE opportunities for entertainers to entertain and would likely change the market dynamics from a winner take all market dominated by a few "stars" to a more yeoman farmer type system where everyone does OK. "Hollywood" makes entertainers sign grossly unfair contracts at the beginning of their careers justified only by the winner take all market they propagate. Hollywood is unnecessary in an age where anyone can put blender on their computer, buy an HD video camera and start making movies. You don't need huge budgets to make decent movies. Hollywood keeps most artists starving in order to gain leverage, if most artists did OK it would dramatically change the landscape at the bargaining table. The average artist will do better with out hollywood at the expense of the "stars". After Hollywood is dead there probably won't be any entertainers who have "millions" of fans but likely far more that have tens of thousands of fans. If Hollywood dies because of the RFS it will be because the people voted with their feet and decided the offerings of the RFS are superior to the offerings of Hollywood. I believe that's called a "free market". It's not up to PG, me, Ben Parr or anyone else to decide what is best for the people, it is up to the people decide what is best for them. Any projected funded by YC will only succeed to the degree that it provides a better experience to consumers.

shenberg 15y ago
I think a decent case could be made for the fact that the internet tends to cause people to converge more, not less - the same anti-long-tail arguments apply (for example, see http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/11/08/the-myth-of-the-long-tail/ http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/11/08/t...). That being said, the general point is valid - the current business model for generating entertainment is broken, leaving it ripe for disruption, and the OP's fallacy is the assumption that the current business model is the only way for content to be created and distributed.
- office 15y ago
  i loked hard for any arguments in the linked article from your comment,sadly i could not find any. yeah, the long tail is about distribution and about filters. the long tail is not about bocoming a mainstream hit withot effort, its not about the lack of hits in the future. there is a great book called "he long tail" -it`s a hihly recommended read. p.s. the example about video games is outdated, there is a long long long til of videogames now (please see your iphone or android market for references )
jpdoctor 15y ago
> Hollywood doesn't really "make" movies so much as market and distribute them. If that was a complete listing: Then destroying them would be a pretty straightforward matter, because startups do distribution and marketing like the best. The problem as I see it: I think you missed a function. Hollywood is a specialized VC community. Their investments are movies. No amount of Y-combinatoring is going to supplant the money machine, without building a brand new money machine.
- sambeau 15y ago
  So let's build a brand-new money machine! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3492153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3492153
- learc83 15y ago
  >Hollywood is a specialized VC community. That's true, but we dont need a VC community that specializes in handing out tens of millions when, thanks to technology, movies can be made for tens of thousands.
  - teamonkey 15y ago
    That's true too, but the web hasn't introduced that. The RoR of big budget movies is potentially much greater than low-budget movies. Hollywood invests where any VC would invest, where the potential reward is greatest. I'm not sure that a VC would or could change anything here.
    - nekojima 15y ago
      The average RoR of big-budget movies is less than the average RoR of low-budget movies, as well as a higher risk for potentially lower reward. There are financial very successful (in terms of $100k's/a rather than millions of dollars) movie producers, actors, writers and directors who specifically aim for sub-segments of the market and fulfill niche demand. Christian and African-American movies being two successful segments of the market for low-budget, high-return movies.
capkutay 15y ago
"Destroying Hollywood would not destroy ability for entertainers to entertain. If anything it would probably increase the ability for an entertainer to entertain." Agreed. If anything, new tech could create a new medium for truly determined entertainers to reach a large audience. Right now it seems like most of the youtube celebrities are, for the most part, jokesters. But perhaps a new sphere of entertainment can be created where the next great actors/directors can make it big without Hollywood.
mc32 15y ago
>Destroying Hollywood would not destroy ability for entertainers to entertain. If anything it would probably increase the ability for an entertainer to entertain. How does that follow? No one needs to follow Hollywood as it is. Anyone can create and post their product on their personal site or Youtube etc. What Hollywood gives artists is a great vehicle. No one needs to use that vehicle. People are free to act in local productions, etc. Besides, I think there are at least two kinds of artists, ones who do it for the joy/love and others who do it for fame/recognition. The latter would likely feel out of place in new environment where they were not widely known. I admit, that's my impression, and not based on any study or such. It feels almost as if people would wish that artists/actors, etc. would return to a time of travelling acts like vaudeville shows. Those people barely made ends meet. A modern, technologically enhanced version of this, but still. >It's not up to PG, me, Ben Parr or anyone else to decide what is best for the people, it is up to the people decide what is best for them. Any projected funded by YC will only succeed to the degree that it provides a better experience to consumers. This I agree with.
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  I think the argument is that the marketing and distribution institution that is Hollywood can be remade more efficiently. This streamlined Hollywood would capture fewer rents, exhibit less social malignancy, and pass on more of the value-added income to the creatives. This would, theoretically, increase the rewards to creativity.
- vannevar 15y ago
  What Hollywood gives artists is a great vehicle. True, but you have to ask why it's such a great vehicle. And the reason is that Hollywood uses marketing to ensure that millions of people all watch the same movie. This audience doesn't come out of nowhere---it represents at least in part the potential audience for other, less rabidly-marketed films. That 'great vehicle' is running over other artists. We create a handful of multi-millionaires at the expense of providing a living wage to thousands of others. Our copyright law doesn't incentivize artists, or even distribution anymore---it subsidizes a marketing machine.
sek 15y ago
Who will miss Mission Impossible 4, when the alternative is something new? Hollywood killed the art in most of his movies already. Think about this Viacom coolness-metric-optimization-crap and stuff like Zookeeper. People like Nolan will still make gigantic hits with decent movies.

by fleitz 15y ago

shenberg 15y ago

I think a decent case could be made for the fact that the internet tends to cause people to converge more, not less - the same anti-long-tail arguments apply (for example, see http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/11/08/the-myth-of-the-long-tail/ http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/11/08/t...). That being said, the general point is valid - the current business model for generating entertainment is broken, leaving it ripe for disruption, and the OP's fallacy is the assumption that the current business model is the only way for content to be created and distributed.

office 15y ago
i loked hard for any arguments in the linked article from your comment,sadly i could not find any. yeah, the long tail is about distribution and about filters. the long tail is not about bocoming a mainstream hit withot effort, its not about the lack of hits in the future. there is a great book called "he long tail" -it`s a hihly recommended read. p.s. the example about video games is outdated, there is a long long long til of videogames now (please see your iphone or android market for references )

jpdoctor 15y ago

> Hollywood doesn't really "make" movies so much as market and distribute them. If that was a complete listing: Then destroying them would be a pretty straightforward matter, because startups do distribution and marketing like the best. The problem as I see it: I think you missed a function. Hollywood is a specialized VC community. Their investments are movies. No amount of Y-combinatoring is going to supplant the money machine, without building a brand new money machine.

sambeau 15y ago
So let's build a brand-new money machine! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3492153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3492153
learc83 15y ago
>Hollywood is a specialized VC community. That's true, but we dont need a VC community that specializes in handing out tens of millions when, thanks to technology, movies can be made for tens of thousands.
- teamonkey 15y ago
  That's true too, but the web hasn't introduced that. The RoR of big budget movies is potentially much greater than low-budget movies. Hollywood invests where any VC would invest, where the potential reward is greatest. I'm not sure that a VC would or could change anything here.
  - nekojima 15y ago
    The average RoR of big-budget movies is less than the average RoR of low-budget movies, as well as a higher risk for potentially lower reward. There are financial very successful (in terms of $100k's/a rather than millions of dollars) movie producers, actors, writers and directors who specifically aim for sub-segments of the market and fulfill niche demand. Christian and African-American movies being two successful segments of the market for low-budget, high-return movies.

capkutay 15y ago

"Destroying Hollywood would not destroy ability for entertainers to entertain. If anything it would probably increase the ability for an entertainer to entertain." Agreed. If anything, new tech could create a new medium for truly determined entertainers to reach a large audience. Right now it seems like most of the youtube celebrities are, for the most part, jokesters. But perhaps a new sphere of entertainment can be created where the next great actors/directors can make it big without Hollywood.

mc32 15y ago

>Destroying Hollywood would not destroy ability for entertainers to entertain. If anything it would probably increase the ability for an entertainer to entertain. How does that follow? No one needs to follow Hollywood as it is. Anyone can create and post their product on their personal site or Youtube etc. What Hollywood gives artists is a great vehicle. No one needs to use that vehicle. People are free to act in local productions, etc. Besides, I think there are at least two kinds of artists, ones who do it for the joy/love and others who do it for fame/recognition. The latter would likely feel out of place in new environment where they were not widely known. I admit, that's my impression, and not based on any study or such. It feels almost as if people would wish that artists/actors, etc. would return to a time of travelling acts like vaudeville shows. Those people barely made ends meet. A modern, technologically enhanced version of this, but still. >It's not up to PG, me, Ben Parr or anyone else to decide what is best for the people, it is up to the people decide what is best for them. Any projected funded by YC will only succeed to the degree that it provides a better experience to consumers. This I agree with.

JumpCrisscross 15y ago
I think the argument is that the marketing and distribution institution that is Hollywood can be remade more efficiently. This streamlined Hollywood would capture fewer rents, exhibit less social malignancy, and pass on more of the value-added income to the creatives. This would, theoretically, increase the rewards to creativity.
vannevar 15y ago
What Hollywood gives artists is a great vehicle. True, but you have to ask why it's such a great vehicle. And the reason is that Hollywood uses marketing to ensure that millions of people all watch the same movie. This audience doesn't come out of nowhere---it represents at least in part the potential audience for other, less rabidly-marketed films. That 'great vehicle' is running over other artists. We create a handful of multi-millionaires at the expense of providing a living wage to thousands of others. Our copyright law doesn't incentivize artists, or even distribution anymore---it subsidizes a marketing machine.

sek 15y ago

Who will miss Mission Impossible 4, when the alternative is something new? Hollywood killed the art in most of his movies already. Think about this Viacom coolness-metric-optimization-crap and stuff like Zookeeper. People like Nolan will still make gigantic hits with decent movies.