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Comment by abe94 | Hacker News Reader

Whats surprisingly missing from this conversation, and only hinted at in the article, is that there a massive new infrastructure for funding "the arts" today that did not exist 20 years ago. Youtube, instagram, and tiktok allow many more people to pursue creative pursuits and find audiences for their work than before. The people who succeed on these platforms may call themselves creators, but a lot of them are artists. IMO the people who refuse to use the new tools, or do so unseriously find it hard to fund themselves.

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I agree, they certainly are artists. Perhaps artists that are good at making content for that particular platform, though. A painter who is dedicated to her craft wouldn’t be able to dedicate as much time getting good at YouTube’s algorithm. How can we support those people?

I don't have any firsthand experience in this subject, so I could be wrong.

However, from my limited understanding of the YT algorithm, it rewards consistency.

If you make at least one new video every week, and each video is "well recieved", i.e. most of the people who click on it finish it, and ideally like it/subscribe to your channel as well, the algorithm will start pushing your stuff on the "recommended" list.

I see what you are saying and agree to a point, but you don't have to become excellent at 10 minute long form youtube videos to sustain yourself, for example you can create 2 minute behind the scenes videos on tiktok instead or simply share images of your paintings on instagram. artists can be creative about building audiences.

Here are some local NYC artists/groups i follow in order of followers:

https://www.instagram.com/secret_riso_club/ https://www.instagram.com/sahanabanana/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/naomi.basu/?hl=en

Working on it! Though the concept is new and fledgling. Free non-profit arts publications aimed at giving exposure to featured emerging artists like your example. Donor funded and aimed at not extracting money from the artist themselves.

And like much of history, artists get a small portion of that money.

Also, a lot of the traditional arts are very hard to monetize. Just ask any animation youtube channel. The biggest fundings are for personalities, not necessarily the art they make nor consume. But I suppose being an influencer is an art in and of itself.

>IMO the people who refuse to use the new tools, or do so unseriously find it hard to fund themselves.

if you're being paid to react to art in an ungenuine way rather than provide your own art, are you still an artist?

Youtube and co. are also big rich people who influence trends. I'm not surprised some people don't want to cease their craft simply to please an algorithm.

When they say "the arts", they generally mean high status arts.

The things young people like rarely fit into that category.

How much do Alphabet, Meta & ByteDance pay these folks?

They don't need to, they help with distribution you can add a link to your work, or patreon.

For a lot of people this is a better alternative than the old gatekeepers of yore, small or local magazine editors and tastemakers who may for whatever reason hold you back

This is not a "framework for funding the arts" as you mentioned earlier. If you're not getting paid, you're just working for free to build the library of those sites. At best, one can think of it like buying an ad. But, you're also at the mercy of an algorithm which may hold you back for whatever reason and also corporate policy that may remove your content for whatever reason.

With respect to the very literal reading of "funding the arts". A number of these platforms do in fact pay you a share of revenue. Youtube, and spotify are both platforms that artists, and new artists are paid on and can use for exposure.

For the other platforms, yes you need to a do a little more work to make it a living, but the broader point is its much easier today for a much wider range of artists to get exposure than it was before, yes there are vagaries of the algorithm and yes some content will not be favoured, that doesnt mean it isnt a better situation today than before

As for "working for free" this is a very reductionist view. The relationship can provide value for both parties, you may disagree about the split of value and who benefits more but there are plenty of artists who have become popular without paying for ads.

I recently read Cory Doctorow's "Chokepoint Capitalism" and William Deresiewicz's "The Death of the Artist" which both decry the sentiment that somehow Big Tech has been a boon for artists.

The reality is that anti-competitive practices in these companies has made them more of an extractive monopoly rather than a market to connect artists and art "consumers." To your point on revenue sharing, both Youtube and Spotify have laughable revenue shares to the point that even well known musicians have to tour nonstop to make ends meet. At what point does "exposure" benefit the artist more than it benefits the platform for having free art?

Those books sound interesting, ill have a look!

I am sympathetic to the idea that the revenue share isn't great, and I also agree that there are anti-competitive practices, and the market would do well with more competition. But i do think its the wrong starting point to believe views or listens on these platforms should be enough to sustain a creative career for most artists.

As you alluded too, even amongst the most well known musicians they make a lot of their income from touring, my perspective here is that these platforms when well used give you exposure, then with a linktree / beacons link an artist can develop a relationship with some of their audience that provides further opportunities to fund themselves.

Its a great question to ask when the "exposure" benefits the artists more, and when it benefits the platform more, i'd personally love to see some quantitative analysis of that. My suspicion is for most small artists with audience sizes of less than 100k people (in the west, the calculus is probably different in the rest of the world) the benefit to the artist is really great. For someone like Taylor swift it benefits the platform more, but at that point she can negotiate directly

>As you alluded too, even amongst the most well known musicians they make a lot of their income from touring, my perspective here is that these platforms when well used give you exposure, then with a linktree / beacons link an artist can develop a relationship with some of their audience that provides further opportunities to fund themselves.

I mean, you repeat the oldest joke in the art industry. "we'll pay you in exposure". While doing nothing that a proper publisher/distributor/producer would do to help give that exposure. Especially on a platform with a perverse incentive to aquire artists instead of foster them. History's been very cruel to this concept and bringing it up these days will simply be seen as a dogwhistle. It more or less only benefits the "golden child" and extracts from everyone else.

In addition, at what point does an Artist stay and artist and instead becomes an entrepreneur who sings on the side as an ad? I feel like this core society has pushed to have artists rely on not their craft, but business acumen to make ends meet is an inherently toxic one develop by... who else? existing businessmen. Then this sentiment of business spreads to your audience as you are called a "sellout". Becuase yes, you are literally selling out merch instead of what audiences value.

It's just a backwards model all around.

>i'd personally love to see some quantitative analysis of that.

if you want to dig around for the rev share, that can help. But from what I've seen: even people well above 100k can struggle to pay rent depending on their location. these platforms incentivize a constant stream of content, which is incompatible with most traditional art.

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