3 ms·

> The authors in best seller's lists may well be immune for a bit longer than others writers, as they're necessarily the top 0.1% of writers The top best selli

> The authors in best seller's lists may well be immune for a bit longer than others writers, as they're necessarily the top 0.1% of writers The top best selling. Only one of many possible reasons for that might be the quality.

ben_w 3y ago
Quality is subjective, therefore I think it is reasonable to say the best are those most able to profit rather than, e.g. winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, or the list of books people most pretend to have read.
- mejutoco 3y ago
  I disagree. While quality is subjective popularity is different to quality. Otherwise we would only have marvel movies. Your argument assumes no marketing is manipulating the best selling lists, something known to happen in new york best selling and others. Regarding people pretending to read "fancy books" (my term) I think most people just dont read, but I find it annoying, for ex. when people see my shelves, that some people think that I buy those books to impress somebody. It is as if people that do not enjoy reading cannot conceive somebody enjoying it. I think it is slightly antiintellectual, and cynical. I have a better opinion of people in general.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    > I disagree. While quality is subjective popularity is different to quality. Otherwise we would only have marvel movies. I disagree on two fronts. First, given I responded to "> because authors prefer to be paid for their labor", I think the economics are the key, rather than the artistic merits. The authors and artists suffer economically purely on the basis of the AI doing their work for less, not on the basis of actual artistic merit. Second, the subjectivity of artistic merit means different people like different things. From a market perspective, this is why horror films get made even though they disgust people like me, it's why kids films get made even though adults outnumber kids, and it's why RomComs exist despite the stereotype of men cringing at them. You are however correct that it assumes no marketing exists to manipulate the best seller lists. But the marketing is also being outsourced to AI, and I suspect there were more writers writing copy than writing novels and screenplays. Now? Now I'm not so sure, though I'd guess it's still true. I can sympathise with you about other people thinking you're just virtue signalling with your book collection. What I meant more along the lines of how War and Peace has a reputation for being a book that people like to claim to have read but actually have not, or how many loud atheists state that only atheists have read the bible and that's how they ended up being atheists, though in either case I don't know how accurate the reputations are.

ben_w 3y ago

Quality is subjective, therefore I think it is reasonable to say the best are those most able to profit rather than, e.g. winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, or the list of books people most pretend to have read.

mejutoco 3y ago
I disagree. While quality is subjective popularity is different to quality. Otherwise we would only have marvel movies. Your argument assumes no marketing is manipulating the best selling lists, something known to happen in new york best selling and others. Regarding people pretending to read "fancy books" (my term) I think most people just dont read, but I find it annoying, for ex. when people see my shelves, that some people think that I buy those books to impress somebody. It is as if people that do not enjoy reading cannot conceive somebody enjoying it. I think it is slightly antiintellectual, and cynical. I have a better opinion of people in general.
- ben_w 3y ago
  > I disagree. While quality is subjective popularity is different to quality. Otherwise we would only have marvel movies. I disagree on two fronts. First, given I responded to "> because authors prefer to be paid for their labor", I think the economics are the key, rather than the artistic merits. The authors and artists suffer economically purely on the basis of the AI doing their work for less, not on the basis of actual artistic merit. Second, the subjectivity of artistic merit means different people like different things. From a market perspective, this is why horror films get made even though they disgust people like me, it's why kids films get made even though adults outnumber kids, and it's why RomComs exist despite the stereotype of men cringing at them. You are however correct that it assumes no marketing exists to manipulate the best seller lists. But the marketing is also being outsourced to AI, and I suspect there were more writers writing copy than writing novels and screenplays. Now? Now I'm not so sure, though I'd guess it's still true. I can sympathise with you about other people thinking you're just virtue signalling with your book collection. What I meant more along the lines of how War and Peace has a reputation for being a book that people like to claim to have read but actually have not, or how many loud atheists state that only atheists have read the bible and that's how they ended up being atheists, though in either case I don't know how accurate the reputations are.