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Kali Yuga · 02-05-2010, 10:06 AM

Meh

I concur that "ownership" is a bit confusing in an intangible world, and clearly people place less value on ebooks than paper books.

But IMO it's an illusion to think that all the principles of economics go out the window in the digital realm, or that in the New Intarnet World, the only beneficiary is the Long Tail. Things are definitely changing, but "zomg no more publishers" is the type of pie-in-the-sky talk that largely went out in 1999 with all the tech IPO's (with good reason IMO).

For example, digital music has been a fixture for years now; the cost to make an album can be a fraction of what it was 20 or 10 years ago; and anyone can shoot a video for $1000 (or $100), upload it to YouTube, and in theory have international distribution. However, this has yet to produce anything more substantial in terms of popularity than "Chocolate Rain."

Similarly, the never-published self-published-on-Amazon-and-Scribd author-gets-70% gets thrown into the morass of the biggest slush-pile ever, the undifferentiated Internet, with little or no resources to get noticed.

Now, if becomes common for a totally unknown writer (or musician) to rise to prominence on their own aptitudes and abilities, and maintain a career without agents and publishers and the like, I will gladly change my tune. But until then, I'm skeptical of the late 90s rhetoric about an allegedly wonderful and decentralized new world of media.

02-05-2010, 10:06 AM	#7
Kali Yuga Professional Contrarian Posts: 2,045 Karma: 3289631 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: Kindle 4 No Touchie	Meh I concur that "ownership" is a bit confusing in an intangible world, and clearly people place less value on ebooks than paper books. But IMO it's an illusion to think that all the principles of economics go out the window in the digital realm, or that in the New Intarnet World, the only beneficiary is the Long Tail. Things are definitely changing, but "zomg no more publishers" is the type of pie-in-the-sky talk that largely went out in 1999 with all the tech IPO's (with good reason IMO). For example, digital music has been a fixture for years now; the cost to make an album can be a fraction of what it was 20 or 10 years ago; and anyone can shoot a video for $1000 (or $100), upload it to YouTube, and in theory have international distribution. However, this has yet to produce anything more substantial in terms of popularity than "Chocolate Rain." Similarly, the never-published self-published-on-Amazon-and-Scribd author-gets-70% gets thrown into the morass of the biggest slush-pile ever, the undifferentiated Internet, with little or no resources to get noticed. Now, if becomes common for a totally unknown writer (or musician) to rise to prominence on their own aptitudes and abilities, and maintain a career without agents and publishers and the like, I will gladly change my tune. But until then, I'm skeptical of the late 90s rhetoric about an allegedly wonderful and decentralized new world of media.