Scott Timberg's book Culture Crash makes a case that the transformation of our culture right now is killing artists' ability to make a living making art. He cites a number of reasons, but in the end it boils down to the fact that with so much free culture/art available, people are increasingly unwilling to pay for the art they use, thus making it economically unviable for artists to make their … [Read more...]
What a week. First there was the Slate piece that declared classical music dead. Then spiked decided that pop music was over. Why is it that people keep wanting to kill off great swaths of our culture? These are only the latest in a long series of articles declaring the end of orchestras, of Netflix, TV, the demise of book stores, movie theatres, publishing, video games, the English language, … [Read more...]
If I built the best-ever VCR, would you rush out to buy it? Of course not. Even though my VCR might be the most excellent VCR, no one cares about VCRs anymore. Being excellent at something no one cares about doesn't get you very far. What was excellent yesterday doesn't necessarily matter today. If I'm all about apples and you bring me oranges, I don't care how good the oranges are. So when … [Read more...]