Thanks so much, everyone for reading my inane rantings, tolerating my cluelessness, and for contributing your valuable insight. My goal in all this is to develop a better understanding of the world *out there*. As you were each so kind as to read and reply, I'll address each of your comments.
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Originally Posted by The Batlord
You're gonna have to explain that one. How can you clothe 7 billion people without mass produced goods?
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You are quite right, of course. The market for artisanal goods could never, ever sustain a customer base of 7BN people. But that was not my claim. I stated that, “more and more, mass produced goods have become obsolete” and that these newer direct print businesses render “the traditional print and textile industries practically irrelevant.” That data is only relevant in the context of demographics with the ability and potential to make online purchases for reasons of cost-saving, convenience, and the additional bonus of customization. None of those attributes benefit the 2.5 billion people who are more concerned with pressing issues such as clean water and adequate sanitation. But I’ll amend my statement to be more factually precise - e-commerce (including the markets I cited) have had a profoundly negative impact on brick and mortar real-world shopping trends.
WSJ published an article titled,
Stores Confront New World of Reduced Shopper Traffic - E-Commerce Not Only Siphons Off Sales, but Changes Shopping Habits and featured some alarming statistics about the massive downward trend in shopping center traffic. In January of 2014 when the piece was published, online sales had increased by more than double the rate of brick-and-mortar sales.
So please forgive me for my narrow-sighted claim - it is e-commerce and not artisanal goods which continue to displace the brick and mortar corporate industries.
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Originally Posted by Frownland
You were born to play the hurdy gurdy.
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Yes. Yes, I was. (More on this after Tristan’s comment below.)
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Originally Posted by Tristan Geoff
I was talking to Qwertyy about it earlier. But I could see you playing in some weirdo electronic or folk outfit.
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I’ll confess a dirty secret here - in art college, I had a 360-degree beard-afro and was captivated by madrigally-inspired prog. There were Tull and Gentle Giant LPs everywhere and I swooned many a lass with my 12-string acoustic guitar. I recorded a few albums back then but I don’t think the reels survived.
But then I left art school, found Eno, took a damn shower, cut my hair, and never looked back.
Funny you should mention music-making - I’m presently building an audio workstation with Ableton Live Suite, Reaktor 6 and a stockpile of VST banks. Now it’ll be MY turn to not get compensated for my work!
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Originally Posted by mordwyr
Well, there's one thing you can't consume digitally.  |
Touché.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Hey, I'm down to talk about all of this again.
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Fantastic! I love having my eyes opened!
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Because people are paying for a good/service, not for the packaging. The cost of manufacture is irrelevant when you're talking about a product of experience. For example, I could walk up to someone and sing a song for them, which wouldn't cost me anything to do. Because the song was made without expense, does that mean it is worthless? Are the feelings evoked in the listener worthless? Are they a fool for giving me a dollar for the experience?
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I in no way claimed the content was worthless. I claimed that the business model is wholly unsustainable as there is no incentive for the consumer to use the service. The only possible incentive is supporting the artist, which is entirely illusory as the artist only receives $0.0011 from your purchase. Even if 60 million users collectively decide to ignore the DRM-free, lossless FLAC+.cue+.log copies of the album they’re tripping over on their way to purchase the legitimate official cut, the artist is still making less than minimum wage. It makes no odds.
I’m simply claiming that that sort of a business model is patently unsustainable and unrealistic. And every few years, I create an account on Spotify and their competitors’ sites and throw a dozen or so albums at their database to see what’s available. The results have been painfully embarrassing without fail every single time. So, (speaking only for myself), streaming services are absolutely useless. They have horrifically-limited content libraries, and there is still the looming dystopian element of the fact that you don’t have any of the music you play. A corporation is in complete control of your access to that data. I’ve seen how this book ends.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Dude, we get it. Itunes sucks. That's because digital goods are a relatively new market, and new markets are always playgrounds for corporate corruption. ... But on average, things do get better over time. Bandcamp has already proven that artists don't need a massive streaming conglomerate to sell their music. They can sell it directly to their audience, for whatever price they want, with minimal middle-man fees.
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An excellent point! You’re right - I haven’t given this fledgling industry a fair shot. But neither my displeasure regarding the limitations of their content libraries nor the nightmarish aspect of corporate control will likely improve without drastically serious changes to copyright law. And that’s a matter I am absolutely interested in participating in. I actively read every book and article published on Creative Commons and copyright reform, and I would love to take part in test markets of these concepts in practice.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Actually, digital goods can be resold. There are already many websites that pay for Steam keys, as well as digital content unlocked or purchased in-game. Not too long ago, there was a big blow-up over some websites that allowed people to gamble their weapon/skin mods, because it turned out that the people shamelessly advertising it on Youtube failed to disclose that they were the owners, and that the whole system was rigged. Just like with physical goods, digital goods have clearly shown that they have a value, and that people are willing to do whatever it takes to acquire them. Just like how you spend hundreds to find a rare pressing of an album you already own that is aurally identical, so do people buy into seedy websites and drop hundreds of dollars for a chance to win a cosmetic mod that changes nothing about the gameplay. So please, do your homework before you talk about digital media.
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Fascinating. Loving the new info you’re sharing. But I did do my homework. My statement was about iTunes music. And CultofMac reports that:
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No, You Can't Sell Your “Used” iTunes Songs Online.
The ruling was handed down from a federal court in New York on Saturday, where the case of Capitol Records v. ReDigi was being heard. ReDigi was a Boston-based startup that allowed you to “resell” your old iTunes songs online.
The judge in the case said that the first sale doctrine doesn’t apply to digital goods since a copy has to be made to transfer it online. Therefore, ReDigi wasn’t selling the MP3 that had actually been downloaded… it was selling a copy, which isn’t protected by first-sale.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Oh, because the exploitation of artists is some new issue? Digital artists who sign on to large streaming networks may make little to nothing, but that's nothing compared to the physical record labels of old who intentionally put artists into debt with recording, pressing, and distribution fees. Things still suck, but not nearly as much as they used to.
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Correct. I made that very same argument myself a few paragraphs above the statement you contested. I never claimed this was something new, and said - “This was a critical fault of the music industry for nearly half a century where labels engineered a system from which artists could never profit, but which has been infinitely refined to a corrupt perfection with the latest digital model.”
But at least with the current situation, filesharing may help increase sales, as was reported in a
study published by Queens University and featured in
an article on TorrentFreak last January.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
But yes, I also hope that people stop accepting the exploitation of artists, and demand that they receive fair wages. You should look into how video game programmers and voice actors are treated if you want some homework. Back in the day, some companies refused to even credit them. The man who designed the expertly crafted pre-rendered cutscenes in Silent Hill had to fight tooth and nail just to get his name on the project.
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I certainly will; thank you for the suggestion!
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
It's called a service economy. You may hate it, but it's what gives you the luxury to sit on the internet and complain about corporations, while waiting for your package of artisinal goods to reach your doorstep.
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Duly noted. I was not familiar with the term here in my tiny reality bubble. A quick Google Search yielded this article from The Washington Post with
an animation of our nation’s shift from manufacturing to service courtesy of redditor, mobuco.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Someone who works two jobs just to stay alive isn't going to have the time or money for custom artisinal goods, when a one dollar t-shirt from the local thrift store or Walmart serves the same purpose at a fraction of the cost. Mass produced goods are ****ing awesome, because if you don't want them you can ignore them and buy your artisinal goods, but the people who literally need them don't have to pay big bucks just to clothe and feed themselves.
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Acknowledged. See my amended statement in reply to Batlord’s same contentive remark above.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Did you know? The world sucks. It has always sucked, and it will always suck. The rich will exploit the poor, and the poor will exploit themselves. Artists will struggle, while thieves become kings. All we can do is carry on, and to try to make things at least a little bit better. You may think digital goods are a conundrum, but guess what? They're here, and they're here to stay. Instead of stealing what you want because in your mental calculations you figure you're hurting corporations more than artists, maybe you could try to figure out a way that artists can sell their music without getting screwed?
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I’m on board. I’ll help fight to preserve net neutrality so that content distributors large and small can compete fairly, I’ll urge Congressmen to help stop corporations from telling ISPs what data to censor without following due process or filing DMCA notices, I’ll advocate for and utilize Creative Commons licensing as a better alternative to traditional copyright, I’ll promote remix culture and a society which thrives artistically with a rich public domain, and I’ll donate, vote, and fight to eliminate the media oligopoly to return distributive control to the artists. And I will support artists who offer their music direct to the listener through new and emerging services.
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Originally Posted by Suzy Creamcheese
Yo, that better be an independently crafted drink. Don't want to piss off Big Hipster.
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It’s tea I had imported from a comrade in Bristol. It’s prepared with French creme and I’m sipping it through a Paragon fine bone china mustache tea cup with Royal Warrant of Appointment by Her Majesty The Queen, issued between 1933 and 1936.
It’s lovely.
