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Originally Posted by Tuna
Good points all, and eloquently made. However, that assumption is not mine - paid content does not guarantee quality, but it does broaden what is possible.
You mention the responsibility of deciding what is good and what is bad. Sadly the talent to do so is rare, and the ability to deliver rarely lies with one person. Whilst publishing infrastructure can be a poor bedfellow of changing technology, it's role in polishing creative works into gems does benefit us, even if much of the time the items it is polishing are less worthy.
I'd be happier with the headlong rush to democratic distribution of media (shit or otherwise), if someone could come up with a useful way to support talent scouts, editors, proofreaders, typesetters and their other media equivalents as much as the authors that benefit from them. Anderson's explanation of how authors might be supported by free media is somewhat tenuous, so what place these others have in the new media model I don't know.
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I do agree that Anderson hasn't nailed the method of monetization of creative content, but I don't think that makes what he's saying any less truthful. We are rapidly moving away from all the old models that were so ingrained in our culture. They don't and they can't work with a populace that is used to zero or near zero cost cultural products. This is only accelerating by the day. The idea that talent scouts, proofreaders (typesetters?) and any of those analogue jobs will exist five years from now is tenuous. Ten years from now I don't expect we'll even need something as primitive as a hand held reader. What are we, eleven years away from Kurzwell's moment of singularity? Another ten years on top of that and we'll be fully on the other side of that singularity. The publishing industry can't survive the technological changes needed to make that singularity come about.
Technology is changing at such a rapid rate that we can't possibly accommodate the old fashioned methods, and this isn't spiteful, it's just the nature of the technology we're using and how that technology is developing. A lot of these companies are willfully ignoring this change, burying their heads in the sand and hoping beyond hope that somehow all this is just a passing fad. Well it isn't. And if they're hoping to replicate the music industry, well that's going to be dashed also. The music industry is enjoying a momentary monetary reprieve with their paid-for downloads that will evaporate very quickly. And why?
Well, more and more artists are asking the big question 'Why do we need all these middlemen and hangers on?" "Why should I do the lion's share of the work, yet receive the smallest portion of the returns?" Your typical author with a big publisher makes %7-15 return after a couple G's advance on their work. Most authors can't make a living wage off what they write, and yet, somehow they're better off with the agents and the PR people and the editors and the gatekeepers...well, you get where I'm going with this and I don't have much time for those old fashioned book publishing ways. The balance is shifting toward a more equitable and fair relationship between creator and audience. A relationship that doesn't need the third wheel of publishing houses.
Of course there will be those who can't see how anything good can be created without the 'gatekeepers' from the publishing houses. Who reason that the gatekeepers filtered the crap out before it got to us, but I've always found this to be a ludicrous notion. Go to the shelves of any major bookstore, look in any section, pick up any five books randomly and you're bound to come away with a bad stench on your fingers. Quality isn't a driving force in the economics of publishing, that's why we have Stephanie Myer selling millions and Kelly Link barely visible to most.
Me, I'm on the side of change, on the side of the audience being the ones who decide what is gold and what is merely a shiny rock. Creators and audience first, the companies and their lackeys can go rot in Hell for all I care. Good riddance.