6 ms·

Nobody should be a "content creator"

70 points by mfld 2y ago

floundy 2y ago
Yet he created content for his blog. A very basic and derivative post, adding nothing more to discussion on the internet than the social media engagement bait and AI slop he is criticizing.
trizoza 2y ago
I've stopped using most social media but Twitter, it's still full of indie hackers and the content is good. But you have to be careful and immediately unfollow when you smell the kind of indie hacker who schedule their content for the sake of scheduling content. They're not real, they are not sharing their current thoughts, they are just following some playbooks on how to please the algo. Luckily they are often so obvious that it's quite easy to weed them out and just keep following the interesting ones. And yeah, stay away from the "For you" tab.
- whatevertrevor 2y ago
  On the flip side Twitter is one form of social media I have never been attracted to. Impossible to have deep conversations due to character limits, promotes really ephemeral discourse which taps into the everything-is-super-urgent FOMO dark pattern, and has so much low effort content to sift through due to its encouragement of brevity.
kcoddington 2y ago
There has always been filler entertainment that caters to the lowest denominator. The new medium types just allow for more of it. Maybe I'm in a very small minority, but I only consume HN and a heavily curated YouTube account. I don't even see most of the viral content unless somebody else shows me. Anf since I don't have an account with most social media sites, they have to show me directly on their own devices. I also filter on all email with the word 'unsubscribe' and route it appropriately. The short of it is: do better at filtering with allow listing or aggressive block lists. Consume content you search for. Or accept the fact that an algorithm will spoon feed you 99% filler.
- bluGill 2y ago
  I am still mad that I had to give up facebook because of the garbage. It was and is a great way to see what my old school friend's kids are doing (we never were close, and I've moved a long way away so I wouldn't call, but I still go back to visit every class reunion and seeing those pictures helps have something to talk about). However all the garbage has made the platform useless and I gave up. I spent a year trying to block it all, but I wasn't making progress.
hobofan 2y ago
The author seems to make up their mind early on that "content creator" = "slop creator". I think there is a lot more use to the label than that, and the reason why some people in the space happily self-label as "content creators". For one it creates a delineation to "influencers" with the contrast that a "content creator" _creates_ something. They also create _content_, which could on the one hand be seen as "anything that fills a void", or more positively "something that's interesting". Most of the examples that the author highlighted I would classify as non-content/slop. I think "content creator" is also a good descriptor for people that work as "independent creators in the digital media space", whose activities spread across multiple social media platforms, and would thus be hard to pidgeon hole into just one of: youtuber, streamer, podcaster, etc. as people working in the space full time often do all of that.
- detaro 2y ago
  Indeed, they are using a very restrictive and negative definition of the word. I totally get why many people dislike the term and don't want it applied to themselves, but as you say it does have a use and does not have to be negative. I don't disagree with a lot in the post, but it is odd to tie it to the "creator" term.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  If you are a successful content creator by default you are engaging in slop by the virtue of the fact that these platforms reward slop. if you don’t know what I mean, look at the gaming of the youtube algorithm and how every successful youtube video is titled in the exact same style. “You won’t BELIEVE what we did after THIS happened!” with a sloppified thumbnail image.
  - hobofan 2y ago
    So what? That doesn't make the video itself bad (the "content" if you will). You could easily aim the same criticism at books and book titles and cover art, which by the same standards is in a constant state of sloppified titles and cover art that never strays too far from the norm. But who cares? There's still enjoyable and valuable content in those books, regardless of how they represent on the outside.
ashoeafoot 2y ago
Templated UnitOfWorks should not complain about the factory(factory(factorys(plans and namingconventions))). The recipe of the entertainment rich mystery slob is not yours to ponder unless its rich in vitamin a(&d&d)
OgsyedIE 2y ago
Absolute rules have a high burden of proof and I don't think the article meets it. One of the better essays on the merits of content creation I'm familiar with is Gavin Howard's "To Broadcast or not to Broadcast" and it provides a respectable contrast: https://gavinhoward.com/2024/09/to-broadcast-or-not-to-broadcast-a-nuanced-perspective/ https://gavinhoward.com/2024/09/to-broadcast-or-not-to-broad...
vintermann 2y ago
I, too, hate the words "content creator" or (even worse) "creatives". Everyone makes things for others. Creatives are not a subset of humanity, every human is a creative human. Now, whether you can sell the things you create on gamified online markets is another question, but it sucks to conflate the pride at being able to do that, with the pride in creativity itself.
superfunny 2y ago
I'm pretty sure many people on their internet would view themselves as "discontent creators"
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> The question is why you take part in social media. > If your goal is to make money, good luck trying to compete with the deluge of AI slop. > If your goal is to get reach as an influencer, this is also getting trickier as a lot of people want a slice of that pie. We are in a post Mr. Beast world and quite some ground has been scorched. > If your goal is to use it as a source of passive income, there’s still some bits to gain, but you’d also have to keep abiding to the rules of the platforms. And if you answered "Yes" to any of those, you are part of the reason social media is a huge social problem, and you should not have been allowed on it in the first place.
pxoe 2y ago
"Nobody deserves to make money on the internet except some opinionated subset of people I deem worthy of it." Also, this utterly confuses what's basically spam content with "content creation". All in all, just odd conflations to make some point, doused in elitism.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  It may surprise you to know there was a time when people created content for the sake of it. It appears you have missed the point of what you’re responding to.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - pxoe 2y ago
    Cool, they're still free to do so, just like people are free to make money on the internet from their works. And believe it or not, people are still creating things for free.
    - JohnMakin 2y ago
      And these things are not incentivized by the platforms they are created on, and thus rarely seen by anyone. Slop is incentivized. So yes while I am free not to create slop, I’m also bombarded by it, and my own creative output is limited due to the incentives of these platforms. It doesn’t seem to me you understood what this post was saying, and I don’t care to explain it further. The state of content will continue to degrade with this very oafish mindset.
      - pxoe 2y ago
        Popular things are widely appealing things, and it's not really gonna be any different in that regard in any medium. It's just the kind of stuff that appeals to the widest audience. So, you just have to look. Do your part as a consumer. Again, believe it or not, but you do have to put in a bit more effort to look for stuff that might appeal more to you, creators, artists, musicians, rather than just complaining that things aren't served to you while doing nothing. Or you could just complain and wait for better algos or whatever, for somebody to do the curation job for you. Also, again, just so snobby. I'm sure your taste is oh so superior to everyone else.
JohnMakin 2y ago
Long gone is the age where people created content for the sheer fun of it with no monetary expectation. Amongst some age groups this is now an entirely foreign concept, to the point they won’t believe you.
- whatamidoingyo 2y ago
  Eh, I still do things like that. In fact, I just published an entire free platform for people interested in Stoic philosophy. It has free texts, exercises, a journal, and much more. The thing is, though... people don't care. It currently has 15 users. And I've published it in a few groups with thousands of users... but nobody cared to click the link. Reddit and other communities absolutely refuse to allow you to share anything, even if it's a free product. I can see why people just say F it, and start running ads and go the way of monetization.
  - Anthony-G 2y ago
    One of the big problems with how easy it is to generate “content” is that the good stuff easily gets lost among the deluge of dross. Also, there’s no shortage of good quality content being produced so even if you find something good, it may not be the right time for that person. E.g., I checked your Hacker News submissions and found your platform via your Show HN submission.¹ As someone interested in philosophy and the concepts of stoicism, it looks good but unfortunately I’m too busy at the moment and don’t have enough time to engage with it properly so I’ve bookmarked it to come back to it later. ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43214712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43214712
- rkachowski 2y ago
  when was this age where people created content for the sheer fun of it?
- ziddoap 2y ago
  Given your replies throughout this thread, I get the impression that you don't filter or curate anything and just see a few things on the default youtube feed or whatever and judge everything else based on that. There are so many good people, making good content, on several platforms. A bare minimum effort is required, just like when you visit a bookstore you have to take a little bit of time to find the book that is appealing to you.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wespad 2y ago
Comic books, original paperback books (crime/detective stories, westerns, science fiction, etc.), hip-hop,... all intended as disposable entertainment—the commodified, created content of its day.
- jtwoodhouse 2y ago
  They were all intended as disposable? That would likely be news to the authors and musicians behind those works.
  - wespad 2y ago
    These forms of media were work-for-hire projects owned by the publisher, paid at a rate per word or page. Assignment turned in and paid for (or not) and on to the next assignment. A volume game.
    - helle253 2y ago
      this is definitely true for genre fiction, especially when pulp magazines were still in business. That doesn't preclude quality from coming out of it eventually - one of my favorite examples is Walter Miller's 'Canticle for Leibowitz' which was reworked from several of his pulp short stories into a single novel. It's a really great book! I think the incentive structure encouraged volume over quality, but quality still did matter. There wasn't the same algorithm-hacking incentive at play, and you still had to get your works past an editor and approved. Those are important distinctions! that said, as an aside, im a little nonplussed by the inclusion of hiphop as opposed to, say, 'pop' or 'country', music.
      - wespad 2y ago
        I agree with you on hip-hop. It's very important to me. And it's great that it's become so ubiquitous. But it wasn't always like that. Early hip-hop was just music created extemporaneously at a party or a park jam. It wasn't even recorded. It didn't fit the format of "about 4 minutes and some seconds." And the whole mixtape era was music of the moment, not even an official release, mostly a promotional product.
curtisszmania 2y ago
[dead]
jtwoodhouse 2y ago
We only suffer from these platforms because we put up with them. Social media is not the be-all, end-all. There's a world of grass to touch outside of these walled gardens.
abbadadda 2y ago
Really well said: > “ Good thing I have this blog. Here is where I make the rules. Maybe this will get a lot of readers, maybe it won’t. I don’t make any money with it either way. It’s out of my head now, and that is what counts. Do wonderful things that make you happy, folks. Chasing the numbers will not give you any fulfilment. Quite the opposite.”
beeforpork 2y ago
Hmm, I read the title as 'nobody should be doing porn' (with which I disagree -- everybody should do whatever they want). Because I thought 'content creator' was synonymous with 'onlyfans model'. I was then genuinely surprised by the content of the article and by calling 'content creator' a generic term. I'm not sure -- is it an ambiguous title, or is my context way off?
- _aavaa_ 2y ago
  I think the prevailing usage for content creator generally includes YouTubers, podcasters, bloggers, etc. Though given the scare quotes I can see why you assumed it was being used euphemistically rather than “person who makes slop to feed an algorithmic feed”.
- ziddoap 2y ago
  The first thing I associate with "content creator" is youtube. Probably one of the last is "onlyfans model".
- rkachowski 2y ago
  I find it surreally dystopian: there's no more food bloggers or travel bloggers, or even enthusiasts with something to share - there's only content creators creating content for consumption. Yet noone seems to be concerned at the reduction to this creator x consumer system.
- junelle 2y ago
  [flagged]
Anthony-G 2y ago
Here’s what Richard Stallman had to say about these terms in his 1996 essay published in “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard, M. Stallman”¹: Content > If you want to describe a feeling of comfort and satisfaction, by all means say “content,” but using it to describe written and other works of authorship embodies a specific attitude towards those works: that they are an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money. In effect, it treats the works themselves with disrespect. > Those who use this term are often the publishers that push for increased copyright power in the name of the authors (“creators,” as they say) of the works. The term “content” reveals what they really feel. > As long as other people use the term “content provider,” political dissidents can well call themselves “malcontent providers.” Creator > The term “creator” as applied to authors implicitly compares them to a deity (“the creator”). The term is used by publishers to elevate the authors’ moral stature above that of ordinary people, to justify increased copyright power that the publishers can exercise in the name of the authors. ¹ https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf Note: I have a paper copy of this book at home but I found very hard to find this text on the web via Duck Duck Go or Google. Thankfully, the Wikipedia article had links to the original.
- krapp 2y ago
  Since RMS said it, I have no doubt that it reflects the general consensus of people on HN, but in general terms it seems a bit out of touch with reality. No one actually uses the term "creator" to imply some elevated divine right to copyright power, nor does "content" imply " an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money". This isn't how people think or act or use this language in the real world. I mean... "malcontent providers?" Really?
  - Anthony-G 2y ago
    I think that’s his own particular sense of humour coming through. I don’t mind such idiosyncrasies in his writing as I know to expect it but I would agree that it’s not the best way of communicating to appeal to a mass audience (I’m upvoting your comment as it seems like you’re being unfairly downvoted). While RMS is a great thinker, he’s not the best spokesperson for the Free Software Foundation.
junelle 2y ago
[flagged]
Gagahala 2y ago
[flagged]

70 points by mfld 2y ago

Yet he created content for his blog. A very basic and derivative post, adding nothing more to discussion on the internet than the social media engagement bait and AI slop he is criticizing.

trizoza 2y ago

I've stopped using most social media but Twitter, it's still full of indie hackers and the content is good. But you have to be careful and immediately unfollow when you smell the kind of indie hacker who schedule their content for the sake of scheduling content. They're not real, they are not sharing their current thoughts, they are just following some playbooks on how to please the algo. Luckily they are often so obvious that it's quite easy to weed them out and just keep following the interesting ones. And yeah, stay away from the "For you" tab.

whatevertrevor 2y ago
On the flip side Twitter is one form of social media I have never been attracted to. Impossible to have deep conversations due to character limits, promotes really ephemeral discourse which taps into the everything-is-super-urgent FOMO dark pattern, and has so much low effort content to sift through due to its encouragement of brevity.

kcoddington 2y ago

There has always been filler entertainment that caters to the lowest denominator. The new medium types just allow for more of it. Maybe I'm in a very small minority, but I only consume HN and a heavily curated YouTube account. I don't even see most of the viral content unless somebody else shows me. Anf since I don't have an account with most social media sites, they have to show me directly on their own devices. I also filter on all email with the word 'unsubscribe' and route it appropriately. The short of it is: do better at filtering with allow listing or aggressive block lists. Consume content you search for. Or accept the fact that an algorithm will spoon feed you 99% filler.

bluGill 2y ago
I am still mad that I had to give up facebook because of the garbage. It was and is a great way to see what my old school friend's kids are doing (we never were close, and I've moved a long way away so I wouldn't call, but I still go back to visit every class reunion and seeing those pictures helps have something to talk about). However all the garbage has made the platform useless and I gave up. I spent a year trying to block it all, but I wasn't making progress.

hobofan 2y ago

The author seems to make up their mind early on that "content creator" = "slop creator". I think there is a lot more use to the label than that, and the reason why some people in the space happily self-label as "content creators". For one it creates a delineation to "influencers" with the contrast that a "content creator" _creates_ something. They also create _content_, which could on the one hand be seen as "anything that fills a void", or more positively "something that's interesting". Most of the examples that the author highlighted I would classify as non-content/slop. I think "content creator" is also a good descriptor for people that work as "independent creators in the digital media space", whose activities spread across multiple social media platforms, and would thus be hard to pidgeon hole into just one of: youtuber, streamer, podcaster, etc. as people working in the space full time often do all of that.

detaro 2y ago
Indeed, they are using a very restrictive and negative definition of the word. I totally get why many people dislike the term and don't want it applied to themselves, but as you say it does have a use and does not have to be negative. I don't disagree with a lot in the post, but it is odd to tie it to the "creator" term.
JohnMakin 2y ago
If you are a successful content creator by default you are engaging in slop by the virtue of the fact that these platforms reward slop. if you don’t know what I mean, look at the gaming of the youtube algorithm and how every successful youtube video is titled in the exact same style. “You won’t BELIEVE what we did after THIS happened!” with a sloppified thumbnail image.
- hobofan 2y ago
  So what? That doesn't make the video itself bad (the "content" if you will). You could easily aim the same criticism at books and book titles and cover art, which by the same standards is in a constant state of sloppified titles and cover art that never strays too far from the norm. But who cares? There's still enjoyable and valuable content in those books, regardless of how they represent on the outside.

ashoeafoot 2y ago

Templated UnitOfWorks should not complain about the factory(factory(factorys(plans and namingconventions))). The recipe of the entertainment rich mystery slob is not yours to ponder unless its rich in vitamin a(&d&d)

OgsyedIE 2y ago

Absolute rules have a high burden of proof and I don't think the article meets it. One of the better essays on the merits of content creation I'm familiar with is Gavin Howard's "To Broadcast or not to Broadcast" and it provides a respectable contrast: https://gavinhoward.com/2024/09/to-broadcast-or-not-to-broadcast-a-nuanced-perspective/ https://gavinhoward.com/2024/09/to-broadcast-or-not-to-broad...

vintermann 2y ago

I, too, hate the words "content creator" or (even worse) "creatives". Everyone makes things for others. Creatives are not a subset of humanity, every human is a creative human. Now, whether you can sell the things you create on gamified online markets is another question, but it sucks to conflate the pride at being able to do that, with the pride in creativity itself.

superfunny 2y ago

I'm pretty sure many people on their internet would view themselves as "discontent creators"

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> The question is why you take part in social media. > If your goal is to make money, good luck trying to compete with the deluge of AI slop. > If your goal is to get reach as an influencer, this is also getting trickier as a lot of people want a slice of that pie. We are in a post Mr. Beast world and quite some ground has been scorched. > If your goal is to use it as a source of passive income, there’s still some bits to gain, but you’d also have to keep abiding to the rules of the platforms. And if you answered "Yes" to any of those, you are part of the reason social media is a huge social problem, and you should not have been allowed on it in the first place.

pxoe 2y ago

"Nobody deserves to make money on the internet except some opinionated subset of people I deem worthy of it." Also, this utterly confuses what's basically spam content with "content creation". All in all, just odd conflations to make some point, doused in elitism.

JohnMakin 2y ago
It may surprise you to know there was a time when people created content for the sake of it. It appears you have missed the point of what you’re responding to.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pxoe 2y ago
  Cool, they're still free to do so, just like people are free to make money on the internet from their works. And believe it or not, people are still creating things for free.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    And these things are not incentivized by the platforms they are created on, and thus rarely seen by anyone. Slop is incentivized. So yes while I am free not to create slop, I’m also bombarded by it, and my own creative output is limited due to the incentives of these platforms. It doesn’t seem to me you understood what this post was saying, and I don’t care to explain it further. The state of content will continue to degrade with this very oafish mindset.
    - pxoe 2y ago
      Popular things are widely appealing things, and it's not really gonna be any different in that regard in any medium. It's just the kind of stuff that appeals to the widest audience. So, you just have to look. Do your part as a consumer. Again, believe it or not, but you do have to put in a bit more effort to look for stuff that might appeal more to you, creators, artists, musicians, rather than just complaining that things aren't served to you while doing nothing. Or you could just complain and wait for better algos or whatever, for somebody to do the curation job for you. Also, again, just so snobby. I'm sure your taste is oh so superior to everyone else.

JohnMakin 2y ago

Long gone is the age where people created content for the sheer fun of it with no monetary expectation. Amongst some age groups this is now an entirely foreign concept, to the point they won’t believe you.

whatamidoingyo 2y ago
Eh, I still do things like that. In fact, I just published an entire free platform for people interested in Stoic philosophy. It has free texts, exercises, a journal, and much more. The thing is, though... people don't care. It currently has 15 users. And I've published it in a few groups with thousands of users... but nobody cared to click the link. Reddit and other communities absolutely refuse to allow you to share anything, even if it's a free product. I can see why people just say F it, and start running ads and go the way of monetization.
- Anthony-G 2y ago
  One of the big problems with how easy it is to generate “content” is that the good stuff easily gets lost among the deluge of dross. Also, there’s no shortage of good quality content being produced so even if you find something good, it may not be the right time for that person. E.g., I checked your Hacker News submissions and found your platform via your Show HN submission.¹ As someone interested in philosophy and the concepts of stoicism, it looks good but unfortunately I’m too busy at the moment and don’t have enough time to engage with it properly so I’ve bookmarked it to come back to it later. ¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43214712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43214712
rkachowski 2y ago
when was this age where people created content for the sheer fun of it?
ziddoap 2y ago
Given your replies throughout this thread, I get the impression that you don't filter or curate anything and just see a few things on the default youtube feed or whatever and judge everything else based on that. There are so many good people, making good content, on several platforms. A bare minimum effort is required, just like when you visit a bookstore you have to take a little bit of time to find the book that is appealing to you.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

wespad 2y ago

Comic books, original paperback books (crime/detective stories, westerns, science fiction, etc.), hip-hop,... all intended as disposable entertainment—the commodified, created content of its day.

jtwoodhouse 2y ago
They were all intended as disposable? That would likely be news to the authors and musicians behind those works.
- wespad 2y ago
  These forms of media were work-for-hire projects owned by the publisher, paid at a rate per word or page. Assignment turned in and paid for (or not) and on to the next assignment. A volume game.
  - helle253 2y ago
    this is definitely true for genre fiction, especially when pulp magazines were still in business. That doesn't preclude quality from coming out of it eventually - one of my favorite examples is Walter Miller's 'Canticle for Leibowitz' which was reworked from several of his pulp short stories into a single novel. It's a really great book! I think the incentive structure encouraged volume over quality, but quality still did matter. There wasn't the same algorithm-hacking incentive at play, and you still had to get your works past an editor and approved. Those are important distinctions! that said, as an aside, im a little nonplussed by the inclusion of hiphop as opposed to, say, 'pop' or 'country', music.
    - wespad 2y ago
      I agree with you on hip-hop. It's very important to me. And it's great that it's become so ubiquitous. But it wasn't always like that. Early hip-hop was just music created extemporaneously at a party or a park jam. It wasn't even recorded. It didn't fit the format of "about 4 minutes and some seconds." And the whole mixtape era was music of the moment, not even an official release, mostly a promotional product.

curtisszmania 2y ago

[dead]

jtwoodhouse 2y ago

We only suffer from these platforms because we put up with them. Social media is not the be-all, end-all. There's a world of grass to touch outside of these walled gardens.

abbadadda 2y ago

Really well said: > “ Good thing I have this blog. Here is where I make the rules. Maybe this will get a lot of readers, maybe it won’t. I don’t make any money with it either way. It’s out of my head now, and that is what counts. Do wonderful things that make you happy, folks. Chasing the numbers will not give you any fulfilment. Quite the opposite.”

beeforpork 2y ago

Hmm, I read the title as 'nobody should be doing porn' (with which I disagree -- everybody should do whatever they want). Because I thought 'content creator' was synonymous with 'onlyfans model'. I was then genuinely surprised by the content of the article and by calling 'content creator' a generic term. I'm not sure -- is it an ambiguous title, or is my context way off?

_aavaa_ 2y ago
I think the prevailing usage for content creator generally includes YouTubers, podcasters, bloggers, etc. Though given the scare quotes I can see why you assumed it was being used euphemistically rather than “person who makes slop to feed an algorithmic feed”.
ziddoap 2y ago
The first thing I associate with "content creator" is youtube. Probably one of the last is "onlyfans model".
rkachowski 2y ago
I find it surreally dystopian: there's no more food bloggers or travel bloggers, or even enthusiasts with something to share - there's only content creators creating content for consumption. Yet noone seems to be concerned at the reduction to this creator x consumer system.
junelle 2y ago
[flagged]

Anthony-G 2y ago

Here’s what Richard Stallman had to say about these terms in his 1996 essay published in “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard, M. Stallman”¹: Content > If you want to describe a feeling of comfort and satisfaction, by all means say “content,” but using it to describe written and other works of authorship embodies a specific attitude towards those works: that they are an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money. In effect, it treats the works themselves with disrespect. > Those who use this term are often the publishers that push for increased copyright power in the name of the authors (“creators,” as they say) of the works. The term “content” reveals what they really feel. > As long as other people use the term “content provider,” political dissidents can well call themselves “malcontent providers.” Creator > The term “creator” as applied to authors implicitly compares them to a deity (“the creator”). The term is used by publishers to elevate the authors’ moral stature above that of ordinary people, to justify increased copyright power that the publishers can exercise in the name of the authors. ¹ https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf Note: I have a paper copy of this book at home but I found very hard to find this text on the web via Duck Duck Go or Google. Thankfully, the Wikipedia article had links to the original.

krapp 2y ago
Since RMS said it, I have no doubt that it reflects the general consensus of people on HN, but in general terms it seems a bit out of touch with reality. No one actually uses the term "creator" to imply some elevated divine right to copyright power, nor does "content" imply " an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money". This isn't how people think or act or use this language in the real world. I mean... "malcontent providers?" Really?
- Anthony-G 2y ago
  I think that’s his own particular sense of humour coming through. I don’t mind such idiosyncrasies in his writing as I know to expect it but I would agree that it’s not the best way of communicating to appeal to a mass audience (I’m upvoting your comment as it seems like you’re being unfairly downvoted). While RMS is a great thinker, he’s not the best spokesperson for the Free Software Foundation.

junelle 2y ago

[flagged]

Gagahala 2y ago

[flagged]