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Originally Posted by Moejoe
This also irks me, but in reverse. The assumption is that the majority of paid-for content is actually good, wherein in fact its mostly mass-marketed, focus-grouped, carbon-copied pablum. Out of all the BBC produced TV shows this year there was only a tiny fraction of that content that could be labelled as 'good', and as usual we got a vast majority of gameshows, reality based humiliation festivals and soap operas. Content that I pay £100+ every year for through my license fee is barely worth that fee. The movies that have come out in the last ten years suffer a similar fate, sequel upon sequel, frothy inept romantic comedies, CGI demonstrations that forgot to add any kind of plot or character. Same for books if we're all going to be honest about this. What was the last genuinely well-written book that made the best seller list? I'm talking about something that will last more than the plane journey it takes to read? The bookseller lists are crammed full of terrible writing, rehashed ideas and sequel upon sequel. Oh and any argument that says monetary payment is a measure of quality can be rebuked instantly by using only two words: Dan Brown  |
The fact that you find most paid-for content crap(which in itself is simply an opinion) isn't an argument that free content is any better.
There are the very rare talents in this world that can and have created masterpieces with little or no input from anyone else. There are books out there that haven't required editing for example. These are the very very few and the very very far between. The vast majority do require proof reading, editing etc to make them worth reading. Like it or not, these things cost money.
Money will not turn a "bad" writer into a "good" writer I grant you. However, in the vast majority of cases, it will allow a "good" writers work to be made into something that is worth reading.
The case for money is even more pronounced in the medium of film and tv. These things take alot of money to produce. Specially if you are trying to produce something of quality. We have a small movie/tv industry here in Australia. There isn't alot of money in it. We still manage to turn out an ok movie/tv show now and then though. However, even the good stuff just doesn't have the production values that a good US or UK movie/show has. It looks cheap and this detracts from the viewing experience. On top of that, because there is so little money in the industry all our actors go elsewhere to try to make a living. We can rarely attract our best actors, writers and directors to come home to work and this has a downward pressure on the quality of the movies/shows that are produced.
When it comes to free content in this media I am yet to see anything longer than 2-3 minutes that was any good at all. Even the 2-3 minute stuff is normally only good for a laugh and not much else.
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Originally Posted by Moejoe
I think where people get confused is in their analogies, for instance yours equating youtube user generated content with professional TV/movies. Youtube isn't an avenue for serious creative endeavours, and it never was. It's a repostitory of video clips, none more than ten minutes in length (supposedly). This isn't the place where you're going to find much more than drunk people singing, filmed accidents and pop videos, and all of these without any notion of building upon a creative career. if you want creativity go to Vimeo or Revver, even Dailymotion has more interesting user-generated content.
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I'll take a look but I wont hold my breath.
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Originally Posted by Moejoe
I suppose what I'm arguing is the Zappa equation (99% of everything is shit). That Zappa equation applies equally to traditional and new media, the only shift we're actually seeing is in how the audience filters out the shit from the shine. The responsibility is now firmly in our hands (pardon the image) to figure out what is good and what is bad. No more intermediaries from the big corps making the initial decisions on what sells and what does not. Because if the ability of a work of fiction to make money is the only metric by which we measure 'quality culture', then we're all fucked. |
And if the prevailing attitude of "It should be free" continues then there will be far less for us to choose from. It wont matter how much power we have in our hands, how much we stick it to the big corps, how much filtering we do. If there is virtually nothing to choose from then is having the choice really worth it?
There is an old saying "beggars can't be choosers". When this "everything should be free" utopia if finally created then we will all truly be the beggars and we simply wont have any choice in what is served up to us.
Cheers,
PKFFW