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Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

Not everyone can be in the top 1% of paid professionals in their field. That extends to acting or consulting. And there simply aren't enough clients that can pay that much to support a significant increase in the # of folks pulling down those fees, regardless of the quality of the service offered. If 100 Michael Jordans showed up tomorrow, that would just increase competition for the same scarce resource of NBA player slots, not the number of slots. Professional sports or acting make these dynamics more transparant, but they're at play in all professions.

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Not everyone can; but anyone can.

As an extreme counter example can a person with an IQ or 50 do it? Clearly not. So not everyone can. There’s a range of abilities and personality types. I suspect the number of people with the ability/personality type necessary for $10,000 a week gig is much less than you imply.

Personalities are built; you're not born an introvert. Anyone can be built into a leader; go join the Marine Corps if you don't believe me.

You can't teach any arbitrary thing (nor temperament) to any arbitrary person. For a specific example, consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teichm%C3%BCller_space

I can say that not only would I never get anywhere with math at that level, but some of the related mathematical pages on Wikipedia surpass my ability to even tell if they are real or the work of cranks.

For any random person, there are things they can't do or learn because of the way they're made, any more than a cow can do calculus.

What's deceptive is that people constantly tell you that you must believe in yourself. But the reason isn't that believing in yourself is sufficient for success - the reason is believing in yourself is necessary to succeed so everyone who is successful attributes their success to that.

Given enough time and training, anyone who puts their all into learning it, is capable of understanding that.

It may take them 20 years to learn math from the ground up, but they can do it. Saying someone can't do something is bullshit. That's sheep mentality.

Many people do put their lives into things without ever becoming world-class talents.

Understanding an algorithm or concept is not a world-class talent.

There are lots of concepts whose understanding is a world class talent. In mathematics one would be hard pressed to find 10 people who have read and really understand Hironaka's Resolution of Singularities. There are many, many concepts whose understanding is a world class talent.

I didn't say anything about being an introvert or any other personality type. I don't know patio11 or anyone else who commands high consulting fees. But clearly it is more than just knowledge that gets patio11 high fees. There is personality too. If patio11 were a raging asshole then his employability would decrease.

I've met Marines that were assholes so I'm guessing that 'join the Marine Corps' isn't as great advice as it first appears. Recently a Marine drill instructor was implicated in the abuse of Muslim recruits. That isn't a good leadership skill for the corporate environment. Your notion is too simplistic. It doesn't apply to everyone. It applies to some people but not all.

People lie on a spectrum in terms of abilities and personality. Not everyone can be molded to have the requisite knowledge/personality type to command high pay. It's simply not possible. Just take extreme examples and one can easily see this.

You're completely missing the point. Being an asshole is a choice. My point is that anyone can be a consultant that puts their all into it. Being an asshole isn't in your DNA.

A Drill Instructor being a dickhead is also a choice. It doesn't make him any less able to be a leader. My point was, joining the Marine Corps turns weak individuals into respectable men that can command dignity and respect into people. What they choose to do with that transformation is up to them.

Even if we generously assume this is the case we still have the problem that the demand is limited.

Hence.. the "not everyone can" bit still applies.. but not everyone will. So that's not even relevant.

I'm not missing the point. You are. Take a person with a 30 IQ. This is a person with severe mental retardation. That person clearly will never learn enough to command a high salary doing software consulting. That's an extreme example. There's a spectrum of ability and talent. Not everyone is capable to learning a given topic. No matter how much time/effort they put into it.

Peoples' personalities are also not always so malleable. My wife is a psychiatrist and she deals regularly with people who simply do not have the choice to change. Forces inside their brain are beyond their conscious control.

The Marine Corps sometimes turns weak individuals into respectable men. And sometimes it pumps out assholes. It doesn't work for everyone. This is obvious.

> you're not born an introvert

There's a substantial body of research suggesting otherwise.

Great comment.

>>Not everyone can be in the top 1% of paid professionals in their field.

The whole point of the 1% is the remaining 99%. The axiom of this game is there are filters enough to filter out the 99%.

I would argue that increasing the number and quality of great actors increases the profitably of movie studios, and thus the number of movies made.

Similarly with sports, there is a huge range of player incomes and assuming the sport becomes more interesting to watch and thus profitable their would be room for more highly compensated players.

Today's pro sports players are, as a rule, far better than pro sports players in the past. Why isn't this happening already? People only have so much time and attention. Also, many leagues operate with salary caps.

You also mentioned movies, but a lack of competent actors is far from the biggest reason there aren't more movies being produced.

Are you saying there is not an upward trend in sports salaries? They have been skyrocketing for decades and decades.

No, the discussion is about whether if you had a thousand Tom Bradys they could all play quarterback in the NFL.

Plenty of great movies had a ~20 million dollar budget, but few moves with that kind of a budget had high returns.

In terms of movies, studios look a lot like a VC firm with a term sheet from hell. However, plenty of studios died over time and would be making moves today if their past movies where more profitable. Sure, you needs a direct / script / special effects etc, but low budget movies with simple scripts and great actors also work without X00 million dollar budgets. So, their is clearly some wiggle room in terms of number of movies produced per year.

There are also countless starving aspiring actors so I doubt actor supply is your problem

Raw supply may not be the problem, it could be training etc.

Plenty of people are in a move, it takes something else to have the kind of run of a Robert De Niro or Anthony Hopkins. And generally people that have those kind of long runs are significantly more talented that many others.

They also often have family in the business, who presumably pass on more than just a foot in the door.

Acting skill and fame/box office draw are, let's say, not perfectly correlated.

Sure, but my argument does not need perfect correction. I suspect but can't prove that if Arnold had been a better actor his movies would have made more money.

Extend that across all actors and you presumably get more profit without higher costs anywhere which should result in more movies. But, even without more movies higher profits mean actors are simply worth more and collectively would get paid more pushing up compensation for the full range.

Unless you suddenly get more people spending more time in the theater, something depending on other factors than just how good the movies are, it doesn't matter how great the movies are.

If you look at annual and more importantly monthly fluctuations movie quality has a huge impact on ticket sales. https://www.the-numbers.com/market/

So, again it need not be 1:1, but a significant increase in overall sales including for home entertainment can happen because people have options outside of moves like video games.

PS: Major 6 put out 128 movies in 2006, but only 78 in 2013.

I don't see how this is controversial. Maybe we are not at capacity but if thousands of Citizen Kane-level masterpieces were being released in every genre monthly people wouldn't have time to see them all. There is a limit somewhere.

Ahh, ok. To use an analogy I am saying we are far below the laffer curve inflection point so talking about it's limit is not really meaningful.

So yes there is diminishing returns and actor quality would eventually stop being a meaningful constraint. But, again all I am saying is it's currently a meaningful constraint; not that it's always going to be one.

I honestly do not think that is near the main problem. The best actors in the world are wasted when studios are just churning out safe crap for teenagers.

For that to happen, they would have to increase the number of teams. This requires new stadiums/arenas to be built, and expansion teams to be created. This requires rebalancing of conferences and divisions within the league.

It also requires a fanbase.

And, over several decades of the NFL, all of that has happened several times.

Your assuming that every where else follows the socialist model that American sports do i.e. a pre entry closed shop for franchises with no consequences for failure - a premier league footballer has far more incentive to play well to stop his team getting demoted and facing a massive drop in his salary.

You should be required to pass a test on what the word "socialist" means before you're allowed to start throwing it around like this.

I think I have a better idea than you do and your seelioning here BTW the way the NFL etc are set up is very similar state controlled enterprises where run under more socialist regimes British Leyland ICL and so on.

I don't think you do because the NFL is a system where surplus value is captured by the owners of the teams

Most leagues in the U.S. have fairly open methods of getting on the team with the athletic talent required. For the NFL, anyone can pay a tryout fee and walk on to one of (usually) 8 spots. The other 45 are normally used by the veteran players good enough to have a multi-year contract or the new draft picks from college ball.

And the consequence for failure are huge: 90 players start the pre-season, and after training & a few pre-season games, teams have to drop that to 53. 10 extra can be part of a training squad, which represents a 75% pay cut compared to the league minimum for the 53.

I was taking about the teams compare this where the bottom 2 teams from the top flight football get relegated each season - this is like the bottom 2 teams in the nfl get dropped and replaced each year

I don't think athletic ability directly translates to higher revenue. But, their is also showmanship which more closely relates to revenue.

Some players make 50x+ what other players are making. Having linemen make 10 million per year does not involve adding linemen it involves linemen that are worth being paid 10 million / year.

At the same time football has added new teams over time and increased both the number of players and minimum salary significantly from inception.

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