It's just that Patreon is financial agnostic. We need to treat these investments like fungible capital goods. And we need to invest in the intellectual property that artists make, not the artists themselves. Why should we do that? Because it works and its a foundational element of a market economy. We're capable of much more than a simplistic patron model. That's how things were financed in the middle ages. We've got a few hundred years of modern finance to learn from.
> we need to invest in the intellectual property that artists make, not the artists themselves
At first approximation, this sounds like a worse scenario for the artist.
> Why should we do that? Because it works and its a foundational element of a market economy.
Modern finance has already created a model where music artists are beholden to financiers and middlemen. How and why do you expect this to turn out differently?
It's not as productive as it could be if people were instead engaged in the commercial activities of investing in intellectual property.
Financial assets and intellectual property are not something I can teach you in a comment box. I recommend reading these two books and then we can start the conversation back up again.
Tyler Cowen and Hernando de Soto are two economists that are held in incredibly high regard and have done a wonderful job explaining the core concepts of both what constitutes finance and how it applies to intellectual creativity in a market economy.
I do not intend this to offend, I truly would like to share some constructive criticism on this particular comment you've shared.
First, I totally understand how it can feel to share opinions that frequently are not given the seriousness that you feel they deserve, where it seems people may dismiss what you're saying out of hand or disagree without engaging what you're saying at all. The frustration of "spitting into the wind" in this way is totally valid.
However, I would invite you to leave off ending your comments with language decrying or dismissing those who disagree with you.
As I was reading you comment, up to the end I really was thinking "I get the sense that the internet did change quite a lot, I would like to learn more about the reasons others may disagree or why others think it may not apply." But the moment I reached where you call what I was wondering about a "yawn inducing knee-jerk rebuttal" I completely moved from curious to hurt.
I may very well have questions about what you've shared (and indeed, I do!) but disgruntled dismissal of alternative viewpoints makes me feel as though asking to learn more would yield only contemptuous or belittling comments.
I suspect you'll convince many more people if you leave off the needling language.
I'm not going to convince anyone of anything on HackerNews. I'm up against the entire California Ideology on this forum. Every time you guys go to a conference or talk with a coworker or your boss this philosophy is being reinforced. I can't do shit but sit here and throw darts. It's really the only effective course of action. Sorry if it stings a little. If you actually are interested, I've previously said everything I ever need to say about these issues and if you read those two books you'll immediately understand what I'm talking about. It's just too much work to school someone on a fucking internet forum. I'm done. I don't have the patience.
This is the exact opposite of preaching to the choir. Most people on these forums have been leading successful lives by toeing the party line in the tech industry. You all already think you know everything worth knowing and that the Internet has made the pre-networked world completely irrelevant. It is such a strongly reinforced ideology paired with addictions to touch screen devices that control your thoughts and actions so completely you can't seem to notice how ignorant and arrogant you've all become.
I'm here to just plain tell you that you're wrong. I don't have the resources to roll back the brainwashing of 100,000 techies. I can't sit here and be your personal psychologists and hold your hands while I explain the fundamentals of intellectual property in a market economy. I'm up against 25 years of raging idiots screaming about the RIAA and the MPAA. I know this ideology well because I used to be a true believer. I figured out this was bullshit on my own, just by leading life, learning about love, and finding myself a real community, not some digital hideout for run-away teenagers like HackerNews and Reddit. Again, I used to be that, I used to be that kid sitting at home in small town American feeling really left out and finding a group of other rejects on IRC and Slashdot and the open source "community".
So you just keep on thinking that "The Internet has changed everything!" and keep on ignorantly disrupting the entire known universe with your hair-brained schemes, and I'll sit here on the sidelines and call you all a bunch of jackasses, how's that?
Also, I'm trying to get dang's attention because I really want to have a serious sit down talk with the dude in person but I've probably scared him away by cursing like a sailor and talking about hanging out with rednecks in a honky tonks bar. If I make a stink he normally shows up. So dang, buddy, let's get coffee in San Francisco sometime soon. I promise to be polite.
Everyone, go listen to some Merle Haggard and actually try and listen instead of just talk talk talk talk talking the fuck all the time on your dumb ass devices.
I'm not going to convince anyone of anything on HackerNews. I'm up against the entire California Ideology on this forum.
Stop it, now you're just whining! 'lelandbatey' is offering you excellent feedback. The number of people that voted you down (or up) is a tiny fraction of the membership.
Communication is hard, but you've got good things to say, and people that want to hear you. Probably it's true that no one here agrees with everything you believe, but they certainly don't all agree with each other either. Whether or not the person you are responding to directly understands (American?) intellectual property law, there are others that do, and other perspectives that are important. It's a more diverse community than you give it credit.
So you just keep on thinking that "The Internet has changed everything!"
No, it hasn't changed everything, but it's sure changed a lot of things, and music is one of those. While practically free and instantaneous delivery may not change drastically change the business of music, it certainly changes the process of discovery. While it's not quite as major as the first phonograph, I think it's likely to have comparable impact. For example, without the internet, I don't think I ever would have found this[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtX2HPBMcsQ. And now that I have, certainly my life will never be the same?
[1] Antti Paalanen - Meluta (We Wanna Make Some Noise)
Well, I concede that HN is not the forum for in depth debate. I do think your image of who visits this forum is a bit narrow though. Two data points speaking against it, you, and me.
In any case if you'd like an in depth economic analysis of how the Internet actually did change everything that might challenge your view you might appreciate The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Bekler.
Someone had better teach these techies some basic finance, accounting and economics at some point. Right now when someone posts something to Facebook it's basically a dead end for further economic potential. Compare this to how the finances of the book trade worked in the 19th century and it appears as if we're headed backwards. I blame a certain kind of arrogance in Silicon Valley for thinking that "information just has to be free now"... if anyone opened up their history books they'd realize that the printing press made the distribution costs of information comparatively cheaper than the Internet. People used to make copies by hand! Then it took us a few hundred years to fully invent intellectual property as a response to the issues created by cheap copies.
All that's happened as a result of the Internet is that we now have even cheaper copiers, but there's still a cost. Facebook's operation costs are in the billions of dollars a year. That's hardly "free information". Everyone needs to realize that Clay Shirkey and CmdrTaco were full of shit so we can move on with our lives.
It's about time that some adults with some conservative tendencies as well as a functional and practical understanding of the Internet stepped in and showed these techies a thing or to about how the world really works when they're not just spending daddy VC's money.
I'm not sure what triggered this response, but I'm guessing it was the "social production" in the book title. In case that caused you to dismiss the book, do have a look. It's not meant to indicate anything doing with social media.
I guess the intention of the term was more inline with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_production_of_habitat "social production involves people at the community level relying on them collectively to identify, exploit and increase local capital as assets in the development process"
In practice the book is more about what Benkler calls "Commons-based peer production" though.
"Commons-based peer production is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler.[1] It describes a new model of socioeconomic production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively (usually over the Internet). Commons-based projects generally have less rigid hierarchical structures than those under more traditional business models. Often—but not always—commons-based projects are designed without a need for financial compensation for contributors.
The term is often used interchangeably with the term social production."
The book does shows its age in some respects though. At the time it was written p2p, open source, wikipedia and all the other institutions the book focuses on was rather new in the public mind, and perhaps treated a bit too much like magic. A sober follow up would certainly be a valuable addition to the discourse.
I think the biggest take aways from that book in particular is that
- There are other ways to organize human activity than market economies, even when rather large capital assets are involved in the production.
- People are capable of, and actually do, produce many things of enormous value, without any expectation of economic compensation.
- Current legal, cultural, and economic, institutions are somewhat at odds with this mode of production. Thus acting more to suppress (some forms of) valuable economic activity than enabling it.
Framed like this it certainly looks like an argument in a rather old political conflict. But I think that is the wrong way to look at it. It looks more like a synthesis to me, a much more inspiring proposition.
Edit: And Facebook is an interesting thing to study, it embodies both the good and bad parts Benkler talk about. There certainly is a certain amount of social production going on amongst Facebook users. At the same time most of the capital value produced is reaped by Facebook and used to in parts to enable the infrastructure as such, a good thing, but also to cater to Facebooks less amicable interests, essentially destroying the very habitat their users is working to improve.
While I find your vitriol refreshing, I would suggest a change in your reading list. For those that want to examine the economics of IP vs. The Record Business, I would first read Fredric Dannen's Hit Men.
Yup, I've read it. Even at it's most grotesque the record labels were still writing checks to artists. That the artists never saw another dime, well, it's a shame they didn't have better legal representation and that there weren't standardized contracts that gave artists better leverage. You can blame this mainly on the cost and access to legal professionals. As we move to cheaper more user friendly types of digital contracts I imagine this will make these types of contract negotiations much more equitable and just.
It is still better than today where there are no advances and really no way to ever recoup the production costs unless you completely ignore digital and go back to selling vinyl... which is what most artists are doing.
In the next few years we're going to see a wholesale abandonment of digital and social media from musicians because everyone is finally going to figure out that what Silicon Valley has been building for the last decade is an economic desert. Who gives a crap if you're reaching an audience that doesn't come to your shows and doesn't buy any of your wares?
You're right, it's not an argument. Those are the prerequisites to having an argument because I don't have the time nor energy to get you up to speed.
I don't think you even remotely understand what the term "intellectual property" means outside of some narrow and lopsided definition of the term from something you read in Wired magazine or on Slashdot.
From my perspective you're too ignorant to have this conversation and you need to go learn a few things before you should try and engage in a discussion about these concepts.
Right now it's like I'm trying to discuss differential equations with someone who hasn't even studied grade school algebra.
Yup. Currently supporting a future working artist. How to make a living as a working artist is a big topic for her cohort.
I've been optimistic for stuff like etsy.com and artsyo.com. I have some additional notions (use cases) that I probably won't ever have the gumption to tackle, but would love to see happen.
Now I wonder about the marketing magic required for self-promotion and "multi-channel" content. Of her peers is a genius for self-promotion, self-publishing. Another does side gigs teaching art, running events like art parties for children birthdays. And everyone's chasing commissions, of course.
Not so different from being a consultant or small biz entrepreneur , really.
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Big fan of de Soto. Thanks for the Tyler Cowen link.
can we not financialize everything in the entire world? that seems like a great way to make extra work for brokers, traders, gamblers, accountants, and lawyers. I'm not convinced that this gets anywhere near the goal of making it easier to have sustainable business relationships between creators and their audience.
