If you control the market, and have a direct way of influencing what the law considers the market, that is by definition not a competitive (and/or mostly free) market.
The name for this scenario is known as "Hobson's Choice"[0].
Also, the word for a market where you have only a couple of buyers (all colluding with each other) is called a monopsony.
It isn't. The market says it's worth a lot. But the vast majority of that "a lot" doesn't go to the actual creators. It goes to middlemen.
Unfortunately, the only fix for that, from the creators' point of view, is for them to own the middlemen themselves. But creators generally have neither the time nor the desire to do that, and doing it detracts from their ability to create.
No, customers aren't saying that. Customers are just saying that the final packaged, delivered product they receive (today a better description would be the overall service channel through which they receive the products) is worth what they pay for it. They aren't paying the various contributors separately so their payments say nothing about how much they think those individual contributions are worth.
Nobody is offering them the unpackaged raw product, at least not for creators that work through the big media companies, so it's impossible to know whether they would pay for it if it were offered by the big media companies, and if so, how much they would pay. Some creators do sell direct to customers over the Internet, or make a living through Patreon contributions or something similar, so the package the big media companies are selling is not the only thing customers are buying.
However, it's certainly true that the big media companies do have advantages that they are making full use of. As I said in my original post in this subthread, the only way for creators who don't like the small cut they are getting from the big media companies and want more of the profit for themselves is to do their own distribution instead of doing it through the big media companies. Some are doing that, as I said above, but not many.
The market’s got nothing to do with it. The music industry is a cartel. Look at the profit margins of the big 3 music companies: that’s a lowball on what the market says the art is worth, but it’s not making it back to the artists.
I think one of the reasons so many creatives feel cheated is there's far too much creativity, so the marginal value of more is low. In that situation of overabundance, some other step in the value chain will deliver most of the value, and reap the reward. This feels like exploitation, but it's just the market telling creatives they need to be producing something else.
How does a market determine cultural value. What is the value of a priceless family heirloom? What is the value of human connections? How do you communicate these thoughts without first assuming that markets correctly assign value?
In this case, it’s postulated the biggest single factor is a monopsony.
The problem with collective bargaining is that it either involves unmanageable transaction costs, or an unmanageable principal-agent problem. Either every single creator has to be directly involved in the bargaining, which can't realistically be done, or the creators have to empower some small subset of them as bargaining agents, which means the rest of the creators get screwed by those agents.
Yet their compensation is very different. It should be obvious to most that what you are paid is nothing about value or efforts or risk.
See how easy it is to argue for the other side, that argument is so compelling that communists tend to focus more on robots over workers and keeping wages low than capitalist countries do.
Wherever the supply and demand curves intersect.
Otherwise, society is less efficient in allocating resources.
And good luck surviving off the scraps you get for streaming fees
Have you tried to reach customers these days to promote your art?
We shouldn't. Art has historically been vastly overvalued and I like that its perceived/demanded value has been sharply declining over the past several decades and especially now with the advent of "AI".
I'm sorry if anyone reading this is an artist and I just twisted your pantaloons, but artists don't serve any valuable role in society. Artists exist strictly because society can afford to waste surplus time and resources on frivolous occupations, art is an intangible luxury.
- John Adams, 2nd US President
In point of fact, artisans and musicians were considered a fairly lower class as a mere trade within the medieval time period outside of a few rockstars such as Beethoven and Liszt (later in the 18th and 19th centuries).
Before the printing press, a poet was valued and valuable; today, the feeling of valuation remains, but instead of each village of 160 looking after their own poets and bards, it's a power-law distribution where Taylor Swift and J. K. Rowling are worth hundreds of millions to billions while the person at the end of the top 100 best-seller lists absolutely needs a second job.
No.
When push comes to shove and society can't afford luxuries for one reason or another, they are among the first things thrown out for a greater (valuable) cause with no tangible losses sustained.
I assume then that you don't listen to any music, don't watch TV or movies, don't read any books, don't have any pictures on your walls, live in a concrete box with no artistic design applied, and so on? In other words, that you get no value from art in any form?
No value I could not do without, no.
Art is a luxury, it's not strictly necessary for living. As such, the real inherent value of art will always be extremely low.
You're quibbling. If you aren't doing without it, then it has value.
> Art is a luxury, it's not strictly necessary for living.
Neither is the conversation we're having now, nor the medium in which we are having it. Yet I don't think anyone would say the Internet, or even this website, has no value.
The vast majority of the wealth currently on this planet is "not strictly necessary for living". But "living" is more than just bare subsistence. People value quality of life, and art is a major contribution to many people's quality of life. That's why people are willing to pay significant amounts of money for it.
I never said there is no value, I'm saying art has low value compared to actually tangible, important things and that it has been overvalued to an extreme until recent decades when more supply (more artists) and better efficiency (digital technologies, "AI") finally started to slash perceived value.
>Neither is the conversation we're having now, nor the medium in which we are having it. Yet I don't think anyone would say the Internet, or even this website, has no value.
Plenty of people think the internet as it exists today is actually a net negative for humanity, let alone low value. While I don't agree to that extent, I do agree with a general notion that the internet is overvalued. Though not quite to what art has been, since the internet is still a communication tool with practical purposes.
You said "artists don't serve any valuable role in society".
> Plenty of people think the internet as it exists today is actually a net negative for humanity
I've never seen anyone say that. To me it's obviously false; the Internet has enabled huge wealth creation.
Just because artists don't serve any valuable role doesn't mean they have no value. A cheap keyboard or a free piece of software isn't valuable, but they nonetheless have some value.
>I've never seen anyone say that. To me it's obviously false; the Internet has enabled huge wealth creation.
Most of the sentiment is based around the ever increasingly "cable TV" nature of the internet as well as the scientifically demonstrated negative effects of social media.
I find your use of language here very confusing.
> the ever increasingly "cable TV" nature of the internet
But you don't have to use those particular Internet channels in order to use the Internet. The Internet carries lots of other traffic. One of the nice things about the Internet as compared with previous communication media is how easy it is to just ignore what you don't like.
> as well as the scientifically demonstrated negative effects of social media
Those effects have been around as long as humans have, and pandering to the worst instincts of people has always been a way for cheap grifters to gain money and notoriety. But it only works because people choose to give in to those worst instincts. You can't fix human nature by discarding useful tools because some people misuse them.
"Valuable" as in how most people use the word: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/valuable
>2
>a : having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities; valuable friendships
>b : of great use or service; valuable advice
Artists do not provide valuable work, but doesn't mean their work has no value. Not providing valuable work simply means their work is of (very) low value.
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>But you don't have to use those particular Internet channels in order to use the Internet.
There has been a substantial centralization and consolidation of the internet to varying degrees and for better or worse, both on the front and backends. The frontend centralization in particular is not being received well in recent times.
>Those effects have been around as long as humans have, ... You can't fix human nature by discarding useful tools because some people misuse them.
I agree.
I don't know about "most". The very first meaning (1 a) in your reference is "having monetary value", which is how I have been using the word.
> Artists do not provide valuable work...their work is of (very) low value
Maybe not in your subjective judgment (and both of the definitions you cited for "valuable" are subjective), but other people's subjective judgment might differ from yours. Many people pay significant sums of money for the work of artists. Maybe that doesn't make the art "valuable" in your eyes, but it apparently does in theirs.
In any case, if you're going to talk about "society" as a whole, you can't just help yourself to your subjective judgment. The definition I just cited above of "valuable" is objective: people pay money for it. And people do pay money--in many cases significant sums, as I noted above--for art in our society, so I don't think you can say artists "do not provide valuable work" for society as a whole.
Yes, if push comes to shove, people will stop buying art before they will stop buying, say, food, clothing, and shelter. But in such a hypothetical, society is much poorer, so people are forced to focus on bare subsistence. But I don't think anyone would say such a society had a lot of valuable things in it--indeed, it's precisely the fact that such a society doesn't have a lot of valuable things in it that makes it poor. A rich society has many more valuable things in it than just what is needed for bare subsistence; that's what makes it rich. And people generally prefer a rich society to a poor one. Art is one of those valuable things that people in rich societies like to have. Not everyone, but people's tastes differ, and one of the nice things about rich societies is that it's much easier for people to satisfy their particular tastes, even if they're not common.
Yes, people pay money for art (including me), but the pricing has been steadily falling due to increasing supply (more artists) and efficiency (digital technologies). "AI" in particular is likely going to slash the perceived value lower than humanity has ever seen by making the creation of art dramatically more democratic, thereby reflecting the low real value better.
I consume a lot of art just like most other people, and also realize that I probably pay far too much for it all too because art just doesn't serve any of life's needs other than perhaps killing boredom and flaunting social status.
The average price has because the increase in supply (which, as you say, is being dramatically facilitated by digital technologies and will be even more so by AI) drastically increases the variability in quality.
I think your categorical statements don't take into account that large variability.
> art just doesn't serve any of life's needs
I have already explained why I disagree with this. I think your concept of what has value is too narrow. I don't disagree that there is much "art" produced that has little or no value--and I don't spend any money on it. But that doesn't mean I think all art has little or no value. Some works of art--the ones I've spent significant money on--have had a great deal of value for me, and for many other people.
Edit: Found it. The Principles of Art by Robin George Collingwood
Attempts to use central planning instead have been universally disastrous
Nobody mentioned central planning except you.
So far, we haven’t been able to find a way to concentrate power without corruption. The lesson is: only give the government as much control as necessary, never more.
In a system that is more socialist, the people forfeit their power to the party. Super easy for one party to dominate in these systems so votes mean little and you enter a doom loop of inefficiency caused by corruption.
In a system that is more capitalistic and consumer-based, the people retain a good amount of their power through purchasing choices. It is also tough for any one political party to take complete control, so the people also retain power through votes.
When corporations take over the central planning, what forces should counteract? Before you say 'market forces', you have to address the present case, where three music owners control 60-70% of the market on terms favorable to them rather than to customers or creators.
The real issue for creatives is there is too much competition. Too much to choose from. Supply up, demand is largely constant.
Don't buy their product, buy from someone else.
The complaints here are from people who want to keep using a convenient platform, just insist it produce something different. Or, they are complaining that consumers are happy with that platform instead of what they think the consumers should be happy with.
The problem in any market economy that underlies most complaints is the realization that you have been judged to not be valuable. You are producing creative things, but people don't want them. It's maddening especially if you're entitled. At risk of Godwin, one might call this the Hitler problem.
No it isn't. It's the nature of about 30% of people, who can't be happy without knowing that someone else is worse off. Many of the characteristics that you ascribe to stupidity are actually examples of selfishness, and you're leveraging the existence thereof to rationalize your own selfishness.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
Your wealth likely derives from a mixture of raw talent, hard work, luck, and preferential attachment, and imho wealth and fitness (in the technical sense) are poorly correlated in modern society.
The real problem is the 70% who can’t be happy knowing that others are better off than them.
(It’s actually not 70% most don’t care but anybody who says eat the rich is the problematic person)
https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/qa-how-pandemic-savings-are-...
Consider the recent phenomenon of 'shrinkflation', where consumers are sold a lower volume of a commodity product for the same price they were paying previously. I find this interesting because it's not a pure supply-and-demand situation where the price of a bulk good changes and you get less product in a box or bottle; companies have to invest money in changing packaging and retooling their production lines. In other words, they choose to spend money on concealing the change in value proposition, whereas if cost inflation was the only economic factor they'd keep selling the same product but raise the price.
This is a disturbing viewpoint to see on HN.
We already went down this path (a few times) and it resulted in >100 million deaths in the 20th century.
Preferential attachment is a well-documented economic phenomenon, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_attachment
In our system, capital tends to concentrate and flow to people who are good stewards of it.
Many of the rich train their children to provide value and allocate capital efficiently. This is somehow a bad thing?
The comment I responded to was the typical collage freshman “eat the rich” bs which is rooted in communistic ideation. Those ideas are generally worthless and go down a shitty path for both the individual and society. Those ideas result in misery literally every time we try them.
The comment I responded to was the typical collage freshman “eat the rich” bs which is rooted in communistic ideation.
Then you should have directed your remarks to the person who wrote that instead of to me.
Why should non-creatives go along with this?