4 ms·

> There is nothing evil happening on either end of this. I am speaking in pure material terms. I am not injecting morality. This is a despicable trend because

> There is nothing evil happening on either end of this. I am speaking in pure material terms. I am not injecting morality. This is a despicable trend because we are seeing emergent, widespread immiseration in advanced, developed countries. The quality of our journalism is suffering, and journalism is a bulwark against corruption in a democracy. Corruption is bad not because it is immoral but because it leads to waste, which reduces our material well being. David Simon, the creator of The Wire has spoken about how important local papers were in catching corruption at the city and state level of government. I said that this is worse than sweatshops because at least in a sweatshop the workers earn subsistence wages. > If it is actually a product or skill that merits the money in a changing market, and if the specific one being offered is of good quality, in the long run it will harm the one unwilling to pay. The product and skills are valuable. There is a demand for them. What we are witnessing is deflation. The demand is strong, the ability for the creators to be credited is what has broken down. I will not just be a passive observer in all of this. The end game to this scenario is obvious. We are looking down the barrel of a new feudalism, and I do not want a period of reduced living standards and stagnation. An entire generation has had it's prospects diminished, and the trend is only accelerating. Perhaps all that is needed here for the market to correct this is for consumers to be educated. This is a new trend, and I would like to draw people's attention to it. Do you still feel warm, fuzzy and excited when you buy a ticket to SXSW? When you know the festival organizers, bars, restaurants and hotels are all making money, the only people not making money are the performers and the volunteers that draw the crowds and make everything run? In the absence of knowledge about how SXSW works the organizers are able to exploit the performers. I am not going to keep their secret for them. I'm boycotting SXSW until their labor practices change. Who's with me?

nutate 14y ago
> I will not just be a passive observer in all of this. What journalism outlets do you pay money to subscribe to?
- willholloway 14y ago
  I think you are trolling but I gave it a hard look anyway. My cable subscription helps fund several TV news operations and I buy the paper edition of the NY Times frequently. That is not enough, and point taken. If you have any recommendations for a high quality subscription only journalism operation please tell me. Where I have changed considerably though is with video entertainment. In my younger days I used to use bittorrent, and megavideo et al... and rarely pay for movies/tv shows. Jaron Lanier changed my mind about all of this. I now pay for a lot of movies/tv with my Netflix/Amazon Prime subscription and by renting/buying on iTunes and Amazon. I even went so far as to create an app to facilitate this. My problem with not pirating movies is that the catalog of these online services are incomplete. You have to search a few, and sometimes a particular title is not available at all. I built http://streamjoy.tv http://streamjoy.tv as an abstraction layer above Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon. Search in one place, compare availability and price. That is how I am putting my coding skills behind my economic philosophy. When the machines do most of our jobs, my hope is we can still find meaningful, gainful employment in creative projects. In the current economic context the creators need a mechanism to be compensated.
  - nutate 14y ago
    Good on you, that is a good looking site and it fills a niche for people like you and I who pay for content. I really hope there can be a tip system (bitcoin, ripple, paypal, dwolla) that can be a click at the end of a good article. I could imagine dropping $0.25 on 4 good articles a day. Like TV, video, music, books, if you give the people an extremely convenient way to pay for your content, a good number of them will. Little known fact, my gf is a journalist, an editor, at a certain publication named after a body of water, who may or may not be in her second week on the job and already embroiled in a bit of controversy. :-o
    - willholloway 14y ago
      Well, thank you. I like the site too. I really hope that everything works out well for your gf, and the Atlantic. I called trading exposure for work a despicable trend because it's happening in so many fields. Its unfair to place all the blame on the Atlantic. People should go easy on The Atlantic. This new phenomenon needs more society-wide awareness and technologies for micro-payments. My understanding is that regulations have stymied micro-payments. If that is the case legislation should be adopted to correct this. Journalism is extremely tough, and has much more of my sympathy. I have total disdain for operations like SXSW that are very profitable and still stiff their talent. EDIT: After posting this I thought about how your gf may or may not be embroiled in this controversy. I think the issue of free work/immiseration of the creative class would make a good piece. The Atlantic could acknowledge that it has succumbed to economic (and perhaps social) pressure, do some human interest pieces on people that have been effected, people that have found ways to be viable despite the economic changes, and maybe regulatory reforms that might make micro-payments feasible. I could see a continuing series on this topic being well received. This issue made it to the top of HN today, I think that validates the market.
jdminhbg 14y ago
Running a hotel is not fun; playing in a rock band is fun. This is why you have to pay people to run a hotel and people will desperately make and spam you with demo tapes for a chance at consideration for a spot to play for free. This isn't exploitation, this is the fact that the world does not owe you remuneration for doing something you love.

nutate 14y ago

> I will not just be a passive observer in all of this. What journalism outlets do you pay money to subscribe to?

willholloway 14y ago
I think you are trolling but I gave it a hard look anyway. My cable subscription helps fund several TV news operations and I buy the paper edition of the NY Times frequently. That is not enough, and point taken. If you have any recommendations for a high quality subscription only journalism operation please tell me. Where I have changed considerably though is with video entertainment. In my younger days I used to use bittorrent, and megavideo et al... and rarely pay for movies/tv shows. Jaron Lanier changed my mind about all of this. I now pay for a lot of movies/tv with my Netflix/Amazon Prime subscription and by renting/buying on iTunes and Amazon. I even went so far as to create an app to facilitate this. My problem with not pirating movies is that the catalog of these online services are incomplete. You have to search a few, and sometimes a particular title is not available at all. I built http://streamjoy.tv http://streamjoy.tv as an abstraction layer above Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon. Search in one place, compare availability and price. That is how I am putting my coding skills behind my economic philosophy. When the machines do most of our jobs, my hope is we can still find meaningful, gainful employment in creative projects. In the current economic context the creators need a mechanism to be compensated.
- nutate 14y ago
  Good on you, that is a good looking site and it fills a niche for people like you and I who pay for content. I really hope there can be a tip system (bitcoin, ripple, paypal, dwolla) that can be a click at the end of a good article. I could imagine dropping $0.25 on 4 good articles a day. Like TV, video, music, books, if you give the people an extremely convenient way to pay for your content, a good number of them will. Little known fact, my gf is a journalist, an editor, at a certain publication named after a body of water, who may or may not be in her second week on the job and already embroiled in a bit of controversy. :-o
  - willholloway 14y ago
    Well, thank you. I like the site too. I really hope that everything works out well for your gf, and the Atlantic. I called trading exposure for work a despicable trend because it's happening in so many fields. Its unfair to place all the blame on the Atlantic. People should go easy on The Atlantic. This new phenomenon needs more society-wide awareness and technologies for micro-payments. My understanding is that regulations have stymied micro-payments. If that is the case legislation should be adopted to correct this. Journalism is extremely tough, and has much more of my sympathy. I have total disdain for operations like SXSW that are very profitable and still stiff their talent. EDIT: After posting this I thought about how your gf may or may not be embroiled in this controversy. I think the issue of free work/immiseration of the creative class would make a good piece. The Atlantic could acknowledge that it has succumbed to economic (and perhaps social) pressure, do some human interest pieces on people that have been effected, people that have found ways to be viable despite the economic changes, and maybe regulatory reforms that might make micro-payments feasible. I could see a continuing series on this topic being well received. This issue made it to the top of HN today, I think that validates the market.

jdminhbg 14y ago

Running a hotel is not fun; playing in a rock band is fun. This is why you have to pay people to run a hotel and people will desperately make and spam you with demo tapes for a chance at consideration for a spot to play for free. This isn't exploitation, this is the fact that the world does not owe you remuneration for doing something you love.