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Comment by Jemmeh | Hacker News Reader

I think the point was that these days technology has made things so efficient and cheap that even college students can make a big production.

Of course it was harder and more expensive back in the day...but that also meant less competition and a smaller pool of talent.

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What's interesting is that most (all?) do not. Everyone has the resources, for the most part, to produce high quality content, but most simply do not. We have all this potentially productive tech, and we waste it on mindless entertainment. Sadly, I think this is one of those moments which decide the winners and losers of tomorrow. If you, or your family, are sucked into entertainment, you (or they) are highly unlikely to discover or invent anything, or start a successful business.

All literate people are capable of writing books, too. But most do not.

The march of technology only changes the things that are not being created -- not the fact itself.

I mean, somebody has to consume all that entertainment (which you call "mindless")

We can't all be creators

This is a fallacy. Creation and consumption are not mutually exclusive. We can all be creators. We can't all be creators with global reach, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't all try. And the more people try, the higher the bar will raise.

Not to mention that all the "creators" I know also consume a way above average amount of 'entertainment'.

Well it still takes quite a lot of work and skill to produce high quality content. It's just more accessible now than it was. You have to write scripts, gather people, find the location, do makeup and costumes, have all the equipment(lights, cameras, audio, etc) and know how to use it, manage how you get paid through ads and sponsors, manage fans, and editing is huge time killer.

Entertainment can be mixed with education, and even the most successful people are not robots and do not work 24/7. How many times have you seen education gamified just here on HN? Did you see how popular the recent "Hidden Figures" historical drama got? There are countless books that have made huge changes on society, and it would have been hard to do that if they weren't at least somewhat entertaining.

I get that there's a lot of mindless media though. The Endless Scroll on Facebook is notorious for being a time suck.

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