4 ms·

There's no empirical way to measure the amount of effort or creativity that goes into something. It just seems to me like 20 dollars for a movie is more justifi

by imtyler 14y ago

There's no empirical way to measure the amount of effort or creativity that goes into something. It just seems to me like 20 dollars for a movie is more justifiable than 15 on an album, based on the _apparent_ amount of work that went towards their creation (not to mention the actual cost). In the end, I could probably make an album myself, but I couldn't create an entire movie. Why are they priced so similarly?

majormajor 14y ago
It's ultimately the end quality and impact of the product that make it worth (or not worth) the price. An album is more feasible to make on one's own, but it's also much more likely to be listened to many more times. I've heard my favorite albums far more than I've watched my favorite movies. But at the same time I realize how much it costs to produce a major motion picture, so I'm okay with paying ten bucks to sit in a theater for two hours. They provide me different kinds of value. That quality/impact has always been what gave creative works value—the scarcity of physical distribution only enforced that value, it didn't create it. A physical copy of an album nobody liked couldn't be sold for $15, even though it was no more sharable than a physical copy of an album everybody liked. The problem facing creative works with the internet is finding a way to make money off of producing high quality works when you can no longer rely on physical scarcity. But that doesn't mean there is no value there anymore: genius and talent are still scarce. Moving to models built on services like Pandora and Spotify could turn out to be a good thing if it shifts rewards in favor of things with lasting quality, not just a "make two good hits and ten crappy songs to push a bunch of one-time album sales." But I think they're going to have to bring in a lot more revenue to be really effective at rewarding truly talented artists. But hey, radio is able to do it, and that's a "free" service too.

by imtyler 14y ago

majormajor 14y ago

It's ultimately the end quality and impact of the product that make it worth (or not worth) the price. An album is more feasible to make on one's own, but it's also much more likely to be listened to many more times. I've heard my favorite albums far more than I've watched my favorite movies. But at the same time I realize how much it costs to produce a major motion picture, so I'm okay with paying ten bucks to sit in a theater for two hours. They provide me different kinds of value. That quality/impact has always been what gave creative works value—the scarcity of physical distribution only enforced that value, it didn't create it. A physical copy of an album nobody liked couldn't be sold for $15, even though it was no more sharable than a physical copy of an album everybody liked. The problem facing creative works with the internet is finding a way to make money off of producing high quality works when you can no longer rely on physical scarcity. But that doesn't mean there is no value there anymore: genius and talent are still scarce. Moving to models built on services like Pandora and Spotify could turn out to be a good thing if it shifts rewards in favor of things with lasting quality, not just a "make two good hits and ten crappy songs to push a bunch of one-time album sales." But I think they're going to have to bring in a lot more revenue to be really effective at rewarding truly talented artists. But hey, radio is able to do it, and that's a "free" service too.