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> It’s not all bad, though. The tools and platforms listed above have given way to a “personal revolution” that’s delivered unprecedented productivity and reach

by rndmize 13y ago

> It’s not all bad, though. The tools and platforms listed above have given way to a “personal revolution” that’s delivered unprecedented productivity and reach to small businesses and entrepreneurs. You don’t need nearly as much money to start a business anymore. Moritz gave a slew of examples of people who made small fortunes selling sleds on Amazon, becoming makeup spokeswomen on YouTube, becoming best-selling authors via Kindle, or earning huge real estate commissions through Trulia. Its really too bad that this article lets slip a critical point here. Yes, you don't really need much money to start doing something these days; it doesn't take more than a computer and an internet connection to start making music, or writing books, or getting a youtube channel going, or selling stuff on eBay or Amazon or Etsy or whatever. But in all of these things, the wealth distribution is crap. I've heard the stories about the spectacular success of this writer or that one that sold an ebook on Amazon after being rejected by publishers and made millions of dollars, and its naturally never mentioned how many thousands or tens of thousands of people have tried doing exactly that and walked away with a pittance or nothing. It's no different from the millions of people that want to become actors, or singers, or whatever; most of them fail. A 1% or 5% or 10% chance at a big success is not a replacement for a stable, decently paying job for the vast majority of people. And things are only going to go farther in this direction. I honestly don't see a solution to this aside from basic income. More/free/better educational resources aren't going to change this problem. Teaching everyone programming (insert other currently stable/growing industry here) isn't going to change this problem. Heck, programmers already deal with this on the app markets; what percentage of apps/developers walk away with 90%/99%/99.9% of the revenue?

AsymetricCom 13y ago
The key though is that faster and cheaper tools for trying allows someone to fail faster, thus mitigating the impact of their failed potential career and allowing them to try or evolve faster. A lot of these tools are built on open source frameworks, but rely on the network effect for their staying power and financial momentum. You could do the distribution yourself, but you'll have to do it on the open internet, not on a "Internet of Things" that is supported by the walled garden purveyors. This isn't too difficult to do, but is obviously out of the scope of something a musician might attempt. What I'm getting at is that if they do charge too much, they'll end up undercut by some other media, unless they gain a "standard for enterprise" market saturation, then they can charge what they want since they own all the customers capable of buying your product. Since as soon as someone becomes "standard for anything", the NSA soon comes knocking at your door for a piece of your data pie, thus fueling the creation of yet more "gardens" until what end, I don't know.

by rndmize 13y ago

AsymetricCom 13y ago

The key though is that faster and cheaper tools for trying allows someone to fail faster, thus mitigating the impact of their failed potential career and allowing them to try or evolve faster. A lot of these tools are built on open source frameworks, but rely on the network effect for their staying power and financial momentum. You could do the distribution yourself, but you'll have to do it on the open internet, not on a "Internet of Things" that is supported by the walled garden purveyors. This isn't too difficult to do, but is obviously out of the scope of something a musician might attempt. What I'm getting at is that if they do charge too much, they'll end up undercut by some other media, unless they gain a "standard for enterprise" market saturation, then they can charge what they want since they own all the customers capable of buying your product. Since as soon as someone becomes "standard for anything", the NSA soon comes knocking at your door for a piece of your data pie, thus fueling the creation of yet more "gardens" until what end, I don't know.