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I know that this is a website for startups, but looking at art that people enjoy and put their soul into and thinking "how can I extract profit from this" I thi

I know that this is a website for startups, but looking at art that people enjoy and put their soul into and thinking "how can I extract profit from this" I think is actually close to a mental illness. I understand that commodification is inevitable (and yes anime is already a soulless business), but goddamn if it doesn't look like some form of neurosis. It's like walking into an old growth forest and seeing the potential for a toothpick factory.

gruez 2y ago
To a first approximation, "extract profit from this" means providing goods/services that people are willing to pay money for. If people are willing to pay for more anime content, companions, vtubers, and streaming sites, why is it a "mental illness" to provide that? >It's like walking into an old growth forest and seeing the potential for a toothpick factory. At least for old growth forests you could argue that it's mispriced because it's providing biodiversity/carbon sequestration which can't be sold on the market. Meanwhile the benefits provided by anime accrue solely to its consumers. What's the problem with getting them to pay for it?
- jjulius 2y ago
  >To a first approximation, "extract profit from this" means providing goods/services that people are willing to pay money for. This is too generous, particularly with regards to a16z coming into an already existing market. In reality, it's more akin to taking something that already exists in a form that people enjoy and are already willing to pay for, and both bastardizing and cannibalizing it into something of lesser quality just so that you can have additional excuses to charge more money for things that you never used to charge money for before. "Nice thing you have there, be a shame if we fucked it up so that we could make more money off of it," is a mental illness.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    To put it another way, it's taking surplus value that was previously going to either the producers or consumers of the product and funneling it to Silicon Valley VCs instead.
  - lioeters 2y ago
    This is a main driver of the enshittification of society, people who are net negative being in the middle of all interpersonal transactions, seeking every opportunity to exploit and extract value. The self-styled "elite" ruling class is mostly made up of sociopaths who are excellent at being parasites.
  - anomaly_ 2y ago
    It takes two parties for a transaction to work. Basically, you're railing against free markets and the free exchange of ideas/money/work/etc.
    - jjulius 2y ago
      This is a black and white perspective, while the world happens to be quite nuanced.
    - phs318u 2y ago
      You’re assuming that the other party in this transaction is rational. If there’s one thing that should be obvious to all by now it’s that humans as consumers can be incredibly irrational to the point where entire industries have flourished by gaming this irrationality for the aforementioned purpose of squeezing even greater profits.
    - DanHulton 2y ago
      That's not the slam dunk you think it is. Not everyone believes a completely unrestricted market is a good thing. Regulations, for example, exist for good reasons, and when deregulation happens to an industry, boy, do you ever have to get ready to remember the good old days fondly. There is an inherent power imbalance in a lot of transactions, and an utterly free market allows that imbalance to be exploited _ruthlessly._
- robbiewxyz 2y ago
  > "extract profit from this" means providing goods/services that people are willing to pay money for This is definitely not accurate: a functioning market drives profits toward zero. Therefore "extract profit" is always synonymous with "break the market" i.e. monopolize through regulatory capture, trade secrets, network effects, proprietary protocols, or whatever else. To quote Mr Thiel [to a venture capitalist, at least] "monopoly is the condition of every successful business". Fwiw it might be fair to say extracting revenue means providing something people are willing to pay for. Not profit though.
teachrdan 2y ago
Your comment made me think of a blog written by Marc Andreessen at the beginning of Covid. >It’s time for full-throated, unapologetic, uncompromised political support from the right for aggressive investment in new products, in new industries, in new factories, in new science, in big leaps forward. He writes from the perspective of, "How are we having so many shortages during this global pandemic? We used to BUILD things, goddammit!" And now, fewer than 5 years later, a16z says: > Yet, we believe that anime is just getting started – today, new technologies and business models are accelerating a once niche industry to even greater heights. To the extent that anyone in power in tech claims to believe in the greater good, they are full of shit, a16z very much included. It's fun for CEOs and VCs to make grand proclamations about what's wrong in the world. But at the end of the day, they only care about making money. Or maybe anime is one of those "new industries" Marc Andreessen said he was so excited about? https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/ https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/
codingdave 2y ago
You may be right, but it is hardly unique to either startups or to anime. The fine art world is full of artists who put their soul into their work, and galleries who try to profit from it. In an ideal world, both sides get value from working together despite being at odds philosophically, but in reality there is certainly some misalignment of incentives.
jajko 2y ago
Look at the top world leaders, so called captains of business. Cold stone heartless sociopaths, every single one of them. Jobs, Gates, Musk, Bezos, Schmidt and so on and on. For a second imagine what environment they went through, what battles they had to fight for decades and keep being on top. You can't be a normal balanced person with good friendly personality and achieve any of that. Even if you start at absolutely stellar lucky place, you will end up as say Stallman (respect to that guy, but you can see life path vs Jobs difference mainly due to character). The fact that such people are celebrated and imitated and there is a lot of strive to replicate their success path is normal. Why - as per J. Peterson (topic on its own, but his psychological stuff I still respect) there is cca 1:20 sociopaths and 1:100 psychopaths in general population. Do the numbers, they are not nice but then you can understand whats happening in this world and politics much better. HN isn't representative of general population, that ratio is much worse although smart folks like that know when to be quiet and just watch/read. I am not trying to scorn those folks, at their best they do move whole society further, and we desperately need that now. But they are overall not good people, sort of necessary evil IMHO.
- disqard 2y ago
  HHGG-style, like how our planet was summarized as "Mostly Harmless", your comment is a pithy summary of CEOs: "necessary evil".
- wslh 2y ago
  > Look at the top world leaders, so called captains of business. Cold stone heartless sociopaths, every single one of them. Jobs, Gates, Musk, Bezos, Schmidt and so on and on. It might be a natural consequence of reaching those positions. While their rise often comes with harsh decision-making and the development of certain traits, it's not just luck or randomness. Gates, Jobs, and others possess(ed) unique talents and vision that propelled them forward. Their abilities, whether in technology, leadership, or understanding markets, are rare, and that's a critical part of the equation. Of course, such talent, combined with navigating cutthroat environments, shapes the person in ways that we don't like. Let’s not forget politicians in this discussion, as they add layers to the same dynamic. It may simply be the way things work, at least until we shift (or not) toward something else. Beyond the ethical and moral debate, someone has to do the work. For example, during the antitrust case against Microsoft, Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems' CEO, was one of Microsoft’s most vocal critics. At that time, I couldn’t help but wonder: would McNealy play the same game if he had the chance? Interestingly, this was also a period when Sun and IBM were reportedly bribing politicians in other parts of the world to stay competitive in the very game they criticized. It's like The Scorpion and the Frog fable: entities in power often act according to their nature. Microsoft's dominance might have been inevitable, and even McNealy, in a similar position, could have behaved the same. The question is whether this is just the nature of competition at the top, or if there's another way forward.
NoCoooode 2y ago
That's what I found so dystopian about web3. It seemed they were trying to financialize everything, declaring they were making payments frictionless while inserting themselves into every new financial stream they were trying to create. As for a16z, andreeson's 30k word moronic Randian rant speaks for itself. People obsessed with optimization should not be involved in public policy.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  > People obsessed with optimization should not be involved in public policy. I mean, they should. It would be cool if we could optimize public policy. Optimize means make as effective as possible, right? They should just not be so laser-focused on one metric that they're blind to the side effects created by optimizing for it.
  - DanHulton 2y ago
    You missed the key word "obsessed," and so I think you're agreeing, just with different words. A counterpoint, though, just for fun. Optimizing for one thing usually means tradeoffs in another. Optimize for space, lose out on time. Optimize for efficiency, lose out on resiliency. Time spent optimizing one metric means time lost for working on others, that kind of thing. There are a lot of qualities you want from those who work on policy, but "hyperfocusing on pet policies and specific metrics" ain't one of them.
MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
That's why I like things like the PICO-8 "fantasy console". People making games just for the heck of it, with no objective of a paycheck. If you make a good one you could always port it and sell it later (Celeste), but that's kinda beside the point.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cousin_it 2y ago
Creators who don't want their work to be monopolized by commercial interests can always use something like Creative Commons noncommercial licenses. But I think most creators will choose the path that pays the most money, not the path that gives the most freedom. See YouTube vs PeerTube.

gruez 2y ago

To a first approximation, "extract profit from this" means providing goods/services that people are willing to pay money for. If people are willing to pay for more anime content, companions, vtubers, and streaming sites, why is it a "mental illness" to provide that? >It's like walking into an old growth forest and seeing the potential for a toothpick factory. At least for old growth forests you could argue that it's mispriced because it's providing biodiversity/carbon sequestration which can't be sold on the market. Meanwhile the benefits provided by anime accrue solely to its consumers. What's the problem with getting them to pay for it?

jjulius 2y ago
>To a first approximation, "extract profit from this" means providing goods/services that people are willing to pay money for. This is too generous, particularly with regards to a16z coming into an already existing market. In reality, it's more akin to taking something that already exists in a form that people enjoy and are already willing to pay for, and both bastardizing and cannibalizing it into something of lesser quality just so that you can have additional excuses to charge more money for things that you never used to charge money for before. "Nice thing you have there, be a shame if we fucked it up so that we could make more money off of it," is a mental illness.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  To put it another way, it's taking surplus value that was previously going to either the producers or consumers of the product and funneling it to Silicon Valley VCs instead.
- lioeters 2y ago
  This is a main driver of the enshittification of society, people who are net negative being in the middle of all interpersonal transactions, seeking every opportunity to exploit and extract value. The self-styled "elite" ruling class is mostly made up of sociopaths who are excellent at being parasites.
- anomaly_ 2y ago
  It takes two parties for a transaction to work. Basically, you're railing against free markets and the free exchange of ideas/money/work/etc.
  - jjulius 2y ago
    This is a black and white perspective, while the world happens to be quite nuanced.
  - phs318u 2y ago
    You’re assuming that the other party in this transaction is rational. If there’s one thing that should be obvious to all by now it’s that humans as consumers can be incredibly irrational to the point where entire industries have flourished by gaming this irrationality for the aforementioned purpose of squeezing even greater profits.
  - DanHulton 2y ago
    That's not the slam dunk you think it is. Not everyone believes a completely unrestricted market is a good thing. Regulations, for example, exist for good reasons, and when deregulation happens to an industry, boy, do you ever have to get ready to remember the good old days fondly. There is an inherent power imbalance in a lot of transactions, and an utterly free market allows that imbalance to be exploited _ruthlessly._
robbiewxyz 2y ago
> "extract profit from this" means providing goods/services that people are willing to pay money for This is definitely not accurate: a functioning market drives profits toward zero. Therefore "extract profit" is always synonymous with "break the market" i.e. monopolize through regulatory capture, trade secrets, network effects, proprietary protocols, or whatever else. To quote Mr Thiel [to a venture capitalist, at least] "monopoly is the condition of every successful business". Fwiw it might be fair to say extracting revenue means providing something people are willing to pay for. Not profit though.

teachrdan 2y ago

Your comment made me think of a blog written by Marc Andreessen at the beginning of Covid. >It’s time for full-throated, unapologetic, uncompromised political support from the right for aggressive investment in new products, in new industries, in new factories, in new science, in big leaps forward. He writes from the perspective of, "How are we having so many shortages during this global pandemic? We used to BUILD things, goddammit!" And now, fewer than 5 years later, a16z says: > Yet, we believe that anime is just getting started – today, new technologies and business models are accelerating a once niche industry to even greater heights. To the extent that anyone in power in tech claims to believe in the greater good, they are full of shit, a16z very much included. It's fun for CEOs and VCs to make grand proclamations about what's wrong in the world. But at the end of the day, they only care about making money. Or maybe anime is one of those "new industries" Marc Andreessen said he was so excited about? https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/ https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/

codingdave 2y ago

You may be right, but it is hardly unique to either startups or to anime. The fine art world is full of artists who put their soul into their work, and galleries who try to profit from it. In an ideal world, both sides get value from working together despite being at odds philosophically, but in reality there is certainly some misalignment of incentives.

jajko 2y ago

Look at the top world leaders, so called captains of business. Cold stone heartless sociopaths, every single one of them. Jobs, Gates, Musk, Bezos, Schmidt and so on and on. For a second imagine what environment they went through, what battles they had to fight for decades and keep being on top. You can't be a normal balanced person with good friendly personality and achieve any of that. Even if you start at absolutely stellar lucky place, you will end up as say Stallman (respect to that guy, but you can see life path vs Jobs difference mainly due to character). The fact that such people are celebrated and imitated and there is a lot of strive to replicate their success path is normal. Why - as per J. Peterson (topic on its own, but his psychological stuff I still respect) there is cca 1:20 sociopaths and 1:100 psychopaths in general population. Do the numbers, they are not nice but then you can understand whats happening in this world and politics much better. HN isn't representative of general population, that ratio is much worse although smart folks like that know when to be quiet and just watch/read. I am not trying to scorn those folks, at their best they do move whole society further, and we desperately need that now. But they are overall not good people, sort of necessary evil IMHO.

disqard 2y ago
HHGG-style, like how our planet was summarized as "Mostly Harmless", your comment is a pithy summary of CEOs: "necessary evil".
wslh 2y ago
> Look at the top world leaders, so called captains of business. Cold stone heartless sociopaths, every single one of them. Jobs, Gates, Musk, Bezos, Schmidt and so on and on. It might be a natural consequence of reaching those positions. While their rise often comes with harsh decision-making and the development of certain traits, it's not just luck or randomness. Gates, Jobs, and others possess(ed) unique talents and vision that propelled them forward. Their abilities, whether in technology, leadership, or understanding markets, are rare, and that's a critical part of the equation. Of course, such talent, combined with navigating cutthroat environments, shapes the person in ways that we don't like. Let’s not forget politicians in this discussion, as they add layers to the same dynamic. It may simply be the way things work, at least until we shift (or not) toward something else. Beyond the ethical and moral debate, someone has to do the work. For example, during the antitrust case against Microsoft, Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems' CEO, was one of Microsoft’s most vocal critics. At that time, I couldn’t help but wonder: would McNealy play the same game if he had the chance? Interestingly, this was also a period when Sun and IBM were reportedly bribing politicians in other parts of the world to stay competitive in the very game they criticized. It's like The Scorpion and the Frog fable: entities in power often act according to their nature. Microsoft's dominance might have been inevitable, and even McNealy, in a similar position, could have behaved the same. The question is whether this is just the nature of competition at the top, or if there's another way forward.

NoCoooode 2y ago

That's what I found so dystopian about web3. It seemed they were trying to financialize everything, declaring they were making payments frictionless while inserting themselves into every new financial stream they were trying to create. As for a16z, andreeson's 30k word moronic Randian rant speaks for itself. People obsessed with optimization should not be involved in public policy.

karaterobot 2y ago
> People obsessed with optimization should not be involved in public policy. I mean, they should. It would be cool if we could optimize public policy. Optimize means make as effective as possible, right? They should just not be so laser-focused on one metric that they're blind to the side effects created by optimizing for it.
- DanHulton 2y ago
  You missed the key word "obsessed," and so I think you're agreeing, just with different words. A counterpoint, though, just for fun. Optimizing for one thing usually means tradeoffs in another. Optimize for space, lose out on time. Optimize for efficiency, lose out on resiliency. Time spent optimizing one metric means time lost for working on others, that kind of thing. There are a lot of qualities you want from those who work on policy, but "hyperfocusing on pet policies and specific metrics" ain't one of them.

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago

That's why I like things like the PICO-8 "fantasy console". People making games just for the heck of it, with no objective of a paycheck. If you make a good one you could always port it and sell it later (Celeste), but that's kinda beside the point.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cousin_it 2y ago

Creators who don't want their work to be monopolized by commercial interests can always use something like Creative Commons noncommercial licenses. But I think most creators will choose the path that pays the most money, not the path that gives the most freedom. See YouTube vs PeerTube.