Thanks for recommending this piece! I have to admit I laughed out loud at "Do dentists worry about inauthentic ways of filling cavities?" (Especially because, well, they do. I know a lot of medical professionals who worry about getting alienated from the human care imperative at the heart of their work through repetition.)
One of the questions that arose for me as I read it with Amanda in mind was Multitude's practice of publishing "how-tos" and other educational materials marketed at indie producers. Do you consider that work a "gift" in any way?
Thanks for the article! Our culture of consumption has transitioned from one where we need to pay for basic access to content (e.g. buy a record to hear the music, buy a newspaper for the news) to one where we expect to have access to the content for free - payment being a sign of thanksgiving (e.g. subscribe to me on Twitch, if you like what I'm doing sign up on Patreon to support me). It seems to me that this transition has made it so that it is less about selling the content (since it's available for free), and more about selling the artist (developing good will and connection to encourage donations).
The question for me is - does this work? Given the lower barriers to entry and exposure, are more content creators receiving a just wage now than in the past?
Acknowledging the many limitations in this comparison, does the model of the Word of Fire Institute (subscribe for access to this great content) work better than that of the Thomistic Institute (donate to help keep this free content coming)? For news, what about The Pillar's model vs. The Athletic's? What does the fact that Dwarf Fortress needed to start development for Steam once the creator understandably had a need for more money tell us about the future of free (as in beer)?
As an ending anecdote, during the HK protests in 2019, young people found an interesting way to support sympathetic content creators. Long playlists of their YouTube videos were made, designed to played silently in the background (or even overnight). This way, the creators would receive a great deal of ad revenue without anyone actually having to spend time watching their videos, an interesting illustration of my earlier point of paying artists detached from their actual art.
The idea of art being an anti-commodity sounds a lot to me like NN Taleb's idea of "anti-fragile".
I wonder how this contributes to the discussion about whether piracy is good for art in itself, but bad for the artist. "Who gets payed when art is free?" - I would love an answer to that question. There seems to be something clearly unartistic about art that is hoarded, but also something tragic about an artist who gets nothing for his trade.
Thanks for recommending this piece! I have to admit I laughed out loud at "Do dentists worry about inauthentic ways of filling cavities?" (Especially because, well, they do. I know a lot of medical professionals who worry about getting alienated from the human care imperative at the heart of their work through repetition.)
One of the questions that arose for me as I read it with Amanda in mind was Multitude's practice of publishing "how-tos" and other educational materials marketed at indie producers. Do you consider that work a "gift" in any way?
Thanks for the article! Our culture of consumption has transitioned from one where we need to pay for basic access to content (e.g. buy a record to hear the music, buy a newspaper for the news) to one where we expect to have access to the content for free - payment being a sign of thanksgiving (e.g. subscribe to me on Twitch, if you like what I'm doing sign up on Patreon to support me). It seems to me that this transition has made it so that it is less about selling the content (since it's available for free), and more about selling the artist (developing good will and connection to encourage donations).
The question for me is - does this work? Given the lower barriers to entry and exposure, are more content creators receiving a just wage now than in the past?
Acknowledging the many limitations in this comparison, does the model of the Word of Fire Institute (subscribe for access to this great content) work better than that of the Thomistic Institute (donate to help keep this free content coming)? For news, what about The Pillar's model vs. The Athletic's? What does the fact that Dwarf Fortress needed to start development for Steam once the creator understandably had a need for more money tell us about the future of free (as in beer)?
As an ending anecdote, during the HK protests in 2019, young people found an interesting way to support sympathetic content creators. Long playlists of their YouTube videos were made, designed to played silently in the background (or even overnight). This way, the creators would receive a great deal of ad revenue without anyone actually having to spend time watching their videos, an interesting illustration of my earlier point of paying artists detached from their actual art.
The idea of art being an anti-commodity sounds a lot to me like NN Taleb's idea of "anti-fragile".
I wonder how this contributes to the discussion about whether piracy is good for art in itself, but bad for the artist. "Who gets payed when art is free?" - I would love an answer to that question. There seems to be something clearly unartistic about art that is hoarded, but also something tragic about an artist who gets nothing for his trade.