Comment by zachware | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zachware | Hacker News Reader

This is fundamentally a distribution problem. It's not dissimilar to retail or other industries with the design-produce-distribute-market chain.

A journalist (creator), produces a product (manufacturer), a newspaper/magazine distributed it (distribution) and a publisher creates the allure that makes you want to trust that brand (marketing). All that stuff was hard and expensive 15 years ago and consumers didn't have the tools to find the creator and the creator didn't have the tools to distribute.

A bunch of bundled industries are falling apart with the unbundling but in almost all cases there remains a creator that the mass population is now "capable" of finding. And the tools that allow for cheap distribution are basically free.

What's lacking is the arbitrage of the distribution platform's earning power to pay steady wages to journalists.

The worst thing that happened to journalism was no-paywall outlets. It convinced people that content is free. It's as if we buy toothpaste at CVS for $3 and on Amazon it's free just because it's on the internet. At a certain point you start to devalue ALL toothpaste rather than just devaluing crap toothpaste because Amazon makes it easier for you to buy toothpaste you like.

Today I can follow a journalist's work. I can follow a specific topic. But I have yet to figure out that doing that work costs money. So no matter the paywall model, it's gonne be hard for consumers to fund it.

> but in almost all cases there remains a creator that the mass population is now "capable" of finding.

I don't think that is true with local news.

At our city council meetings, you see two news outlets:

* The local paper had a reporter who would sit through the whole damn thing.

* The local TV news, who would show up, get some clips of the meeting, a few sound bites with different people, and then pack up and leave in order to get the segment produced for the 10 o'clock news.

Now, the paper is going through bankruptcy and the person doing the city council beat has left.

I'm not sure anyone will sit through the whole meeting to cover it all.

Boston has a long-time independent hyperlocal reporter, Adam Gaffin ("https://universalhub.com/"), who actually sits through not only city council meetings, but even liquor licensing board hearings and zoning hearings.

Gaffin was an early "tech" industry reporter, IIRC, and involved pretty early in the Internet. He invested many years in building a hyperlocal news following, and apparently now makes a modest living off of ads and donations.

Gaffin's is impressive for a one-person operation, but of course his coverage isn't complete, and a major city really needs at least tens of sharp journalists covering the basics. Unfortunately, although the two main local papers (Boston Globe, Boston Herald) are soldiering on thus far, they're in financial trouble, and have been sold and under new management since their heydays.

Yeah, and as you write, Boston is a major city. If it's struggling, think about all the towns with 50K, 100K, or 200K...

Theoretically if a creator exists, they could be found. The unique issue to news is that the mass perceived value is zero. Either a market doesn't exist b/c of the perceived value or a marketplace doesn't exist to facilitate the trade.

It's interesting you brought this up, because it's the same thing that happened to the music industry with piracy. A decade of rampant piracy changed the mindset of the consumer to value music at $0.

Almost all of the musicians I know that were able to make a living without a major label, before 2000, all could no longer make a living. It really hurt the independent artist and only made musicians more reliant on big labels.

The same thing would have happened to the software, but many companies moved to SAAS.

> Almost all of the musicians I know that were able to make a living without a major label, before 2000, all could no longer make a living.

Just to verify, your assertion is that no major label musicians could make a living after 2000, but some (what amount approximately?) that were with non-major labels (or does this mean independent artist run endeavors?) were able to make a living?

If not please clarify specifically identifying and ranking each group with references.

Thank you very much in advance my friend.

"Just to verify, your assertion is that no major label musicians could make a living after 2000"

I missed a word there. I meant no independent artist I know could make a living on their music after 2000 (I'm not even talking about getting rich..just being able to make their rent). After Napster, many people either demanded that it was free or would just download it and not pay the artist. Since they aren't signed with a big label, making money at live shows was pretty much non-existent.

Piracy isn't about stealing a car. It's about destroying value in an entire product/piece of art. Far worse than stealing a physical item.

"Thank you very much in advance my friend."

Just look at things like Spotify: Most artists are getting fractions of pennies per/play and only the very famous ones are actually making anything. There have been many articles on HN about this. You can find them yourself.

And yet, there seems to be more new music being produced, catering to every taste, creating new genres, than ever before.

On the other hand I doubt more of them are making a living off it. To clarify I’m aware that music and arts in general have always been professions that can only be sustainable for the very few, most dedicated talents - yet I imagine it has become worse in the age of being paid fractions of a cent per play.

Hard to say. At the same time, artists have more global reach, greater ability to engage with fans and build a dedicated base, options like crowdfunding and Patreon, etc.

I see two big differences between music and news. The first one is that good music stays good. The second one is that bad music doesn't pose any democratic problem.

This oversimplifies the complex eco system that newspapers had. Content of a typical dozen page newspaper was headlines, minor news, infotainment, utility and ads. The minor news work by a journalist was heavily subsidized by other sections. In other words, a journalist sitting in city council meetings and doing reporting is unlikely to find revenue by himself to fund even meager life style. If newspapers were to completely fall apart, I would expect around 70% of journalists go extinct due to loss of ecosystem.

I agree. My point is that the bundling balanced the ROI equation in a way that unbundled things don't. Theoretically this isn't an issue if the market has some sense of value for the unbundled thing...think HBO which is a mid-flight experiment.

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