4 ms·

> Does everyone who puts out anything original deserve to have it heard by a wider audience? Yes! This is a failure of capitalism coalescing and centralizing

> Does everyone who puts out anything original deserve to have it heard by a wider audience? Yes! This is a failure of capitalism coalescing and centralizing under fewer and fewer big profit centers. There are many, many creators putting out work as good (if not better) that deserve discovery. (NB: not everything is worthy of "discovery", like some early experimental learning work, but there's definitely undiscovered well-polished work out there.) Culture can be made by the masses, not by the few, but profit sharks don't let that happen.

jjulius 4y ago
Just to clarify, I agree with the general sentiment of your comment. My concern, or confusion, or lack of understanding, or ignorance, or whatever you wanna call it, is less about the mechanisms of capitalism controlling distribution and moreso the sheer volume of music available. I posit that there is more well-polished music being released on a daily basis than people are capable of listening to, or that we even mathematically have the available time, as a whole, to fit into our lives. Even if we shifted the controls of distribution and such, there seems to be far more content than there are ears to hear the content, and I just don't get how we can ever expect everything worth it's weight in notes to be heard. I understand the desire, as an artist myself, to be heard, but I also know that I'm one of millions of other people feeling the same way. If everyone's creating (and there are definitely far more creators than ever before), who's listening? Am I crazy? Am I missing something?
- bjt2n3904 4y ago
  No, you're not. You're dealing with principles of communism here. They're inherently nonsensical. Note the standard of justice being used. It's not, "impersonating someone to use them as a stepping stone is wrong, no matter who does it, or who is the victim". The standard is, the rich and powerful don't "deserve" equal protection from the law, the real victim is the artist who isn't being recognized because the industry isn't playing "fair". So it's ok if the underdog breaks the law, because the world is stacked against him. Yeah, and basket ball isn't fair because I'm fat and uncoordinated, and math isn't fair because I'm stupid and don't want to study. Ironically, these were the same people that said, "Nobody deserves a platform to spread the 'wrong' ideas." when it came to censorship on Twitter, and had the gall to call it "accountability" when people were banned for wrong think about vaccines. If you're scratching your head and saying, "Wait, what am I missing? That makes no sense! Ten seconds ago it was the rich and powerful censoring the poor underdog, and that was bad. But now big pharma backed censorship is a good thing?" -- it's because you're the sane and logical person, and they're the ones without a consistent worldview.
  - nonbirithm 4y ago
    > You're dealing with principles of communism here. I don't know, the reasoning seems simpler than any school of thought can offer. Humans are bound to 14-16 waking hours per day. A large portion of those hours are taken up by obligations like work or chores. That leaves a set amount of time to consume media created by other humans. Even if more free time could be had, there will always be a hard biological limit of about 14 waking hours to consume things. But more and more humans are being born and learning the arts, so combined with instant global communication they will inevitably produce and distribute way more than can be crammed into those hours. Look at a random streamer's Let's Play history for an example. If they play a longer JRPG then they can leave a trail of many hours-long videos per week depending on how long their sessions last. Sometimes that's to the exclusion of every other game in existence. It's a bit sobering if you think about it. I read a book called The Plenitude by Rich Gold who discusses some of these topics. He doesn't go as far to give a fully workable solution to the problem but one of his suggestions is to challenge creators to limit themselves to 5 "big creations" over their entire life, and focus on honing those creations to the greatest extent. It's an interesting book and I'd recommend it.
    - jjulius 4y ago
      >I read a book called The Plenitude by Rich Gold who discusses some of these topics. He doesn't go as far to give a fully workable solution to the problem but one of his suggestions is to challenge creators to limit themselves to 5 "big creations" over their entire life, and focus on honing those creations to the greatest extent. It's an interesting book and I'd recommend it. Ooh, this sounds interesting. Thanks for the suggestion!
    - Slow_Hand 4y ago
      While I like the spirit behind Rich Gold’s suggestion here, I think he may be overlooking the fact that for a large number of artists the practice of quickly iterating and “shipping” songs is a fruitful one. Not every creation is going to be solid gold, but overall this mindset is a valid one for generating work with artistic value.
usrusr 4y ago
They "deserve" discovery? Ever since playback devices for recorded audio have become widely available there have been far more talented musicians than listeners could make any use of. An almost infinite oversupply, that's the price musicians pay, if they want or not, for the technical/physical ability to be heard by more people than they can fit in a room, and even at times when they don't actually play. The world does not owe attention to a musician, no matter how talented. If a musician is getting heard, good for them, if not, that's life.
vlunkr 4y ago
This is totally backwards. Anyone can upload music and have it heard around the world. As another commenter stated, the problem for artists is oversupply. How do you propose capitalism or any economic system will make the situation better? What do "profit sharks" have to do with this?
JohnFen 4y ago
> There are many, many creators putting out work as good (if not better) that deserve discovery. With music, specifically, this has been one of the best impacts of the internet. As long as you avoid services that curate (streaming services, etc.), as a music lover there is a vast world of excellent music at your fingertips that you wouldn't ever have had the chance to hear otherwise. As an artist, you can develop an audience from the pool of the whole world. You can make a decent living with a pool of a few thousand fans -- and finding a few thousand fans from the set of the Earth's population is a much more feasible thing than before because of the internet.

jjulius 4y ago

Just to clarify, I agree with the general sentiment of your comment. My concern, or confusion, or lack of understanding, or ignorance, or whatever you wanna call it, is less about the mechanisms of capitalism controlling distribution and moreso the sheer volume of music available. I posit that there is more well-polished music being released on a daily basis than people are capable of listening to, or that we even mathematically have the available time, as a whole, to fit into our lives. Even if we shifted the controls of distribution and such, there seems to be far more content than there are ears to hear the content, and I just don't get how we can ever expect everything worth it's weight in notes to be heard. I understand the desire, as an artist myself, to be heard, but I also know that I'm one of millions of other people feeling the same way. If everyone's creating (and there are definitely far more creators than ever before), who's listening? Am I crazy? Am I missing something?

bjt2n3904 4y ago
No, you're not. You're dealing with principles of communism here. They're inherently nonsensical. Note the standard of justice being used. It's not, "impersonating someone to use them as a stepping stone is wrong, no matter who does it, or who is the victim". The standard is, the rich and powerful don't "deserve" equal protection from the law, the real victim is the artist who isn't being recognized because the industry isn't playing "fair". So it's ok if the underdog breaks the law, because the world is stacked against him. Yeah, and basket ball isn't fair because I'm fat and uncoordinated, and math isn't fair because I'm stupid and don't want to study. Ironically, these were the same people that said, "Nobody deserves a platform to spread the 'wrong' ideas." when it came to censorship on Twitter, and had the gall to call it "accountability" when people were banned for wrong think about vaccines. If you're scratching your head and saying, "Wait, what am I missing? That makes no sense! Ten seconds ago it was the rich and powerful censoring the poor underdog, and that was bad. But now big pharma backed censorship is a good thing?" -- it's because you're the sane and logical person, and they're the ones without a consistent worldview.
- nonbirithm 4y ago
  > You're dealing with principles of communism here. I don't know, the reasoning seems simpler than any school of thought can offer. Humans are bound to 14-16 waking hours per day. A large portion of those hours are taken up by obligations like work or chores. That leaves a set amount of time to consume media created by other humans. Even if more free time could be had, there will always be a hard biological limit of about 14 waking hours to consume things. But more and more humans are being born and learning the arts, so combined with instant global communication they will inevitably produce and distribute way more than can be crammed into those hours. Look at a random streamer's Let's Play history for an example. If they play a longer JRPG then they can leave a trail of many hours-long videos per week depending on how long their sessions last. Sometimes that's to the exclusion of every other game in existence. It's a bit sobering if you think about it. I read a book called The Plenitude by Rich Gold who discusses some of these topics. He doesn't go as far to give a fully workable solution to the problem but one of his suggestions is to challenge creators to limit themselves to 5 "big creations" over their entire life, and focus on honing those creations to the greatest extent. It's an interesting book and I'd recommend it.
  - jjulius 4y ago
    >I read a book called The Plenitude by Rich Gold who discusses some of these topics. He doesn't go as far to give a fully workable solution to the problem but one of his suggestions is to challenge creators to limit themselves to 5 "big creations" over their entire life, and focus on honing those creations to the greatest extent. It's an interesting book and I'd recommend it. Ooh, this sounds interesting. Thanks for the suggestion!
  - Slow_Hand 4y ago
    While I like the spirit behind Rich Gold’s suggestion here, I think he may be overlooking the fact that for a large number of artists the practice of quickly iterating and “shipping” songs is a fruitful one. Not every creation is going to be solid gold, but overall this mindset is a valid one for generating work with artistic value.

usrusr 4y ago

They "deserve" discovery? Ever since playback devices for recorded audio have become widely available there have been far more talented musicians than listeners could make any use of. An almost infinite oversupply, that's the price musicians pay, if they want or not, for the technical/physical ability to be heard by more people than they can fit in a room, and even at times when they don't actually play. The world does not owe attention to a musician, no matter how talented. If a musician is getting heard, good for them, if not, that's life.

vlunkr 4y ago

This is totally backwards. Anyone can upload music and have it heard around the world. As another commenter stated, the problem for artists is oversupply. How do you propose capitalism or any economic system will make the situation better? What do "profit sharks" have to do with this?

JohnFen 4y ago

> There are many, many creators putting out work as good (if not better) that deserve discovery. With music, specifically, this has been one of the best impacts of the internet. As long as you avoid services that curate (streaming services, etc.), as a music lover there is a vast world of excellent music at your fingertips that you wouldn't ever have had the chance to hear otherwise. As an artist, you can develop an audience from the pool of the whole world. You can make a decent living with a pool of a few thousand fans -- and finding a few thousand fans from the set of the Earth's population is a much more feasible thing than before because of the internet.