You raise good points. Society would benefit through the re-aligning of incentives
If this was done and it was done like with royalties, it represents a form of long-term income for people who create things of value and put them on the web and similarly discourages people from creating “the next clickbait hot take” that will typically have no lasting value and has no net benefit to society. The pro-social incentives are better aligned there.
Think of it like music (pre-Napster). Musicians either (1) wanted to make pop music that will get played to a large audience so they collect larger royalties or (2) if they can’t go for mainstream pop they try to find or create a niche audience and dominate there.
I’m not sure if you’re an old like me. But it makes me think of this KMFDM track, Fairy, on their album Xtort. In 1997 playing that in one of your friends car discmans was this crazy experience of “Oh my god I can’t believe they put that on an album!” But by comparison to most of the web now, it’s so tame that it’s boring.
When incentives are aligned you’re more likely to get more people trying to make an album like Abby Road, and a few people following the strategy to make albums like Xtort. The artists like KMFDM will be around but, will be in the counter-culture margins where they’re still both cool and profitable. There is no mechanism to incubate a real counter-culture anymore—anything that’s cool that gets created gets discovered and becomes part of the mush that is the completely permeable borderless Internet. It’s like when someone has a broken jaw an has to eat through a straw, so they just blend what could be a four course meal in to a shake.
When incentives are misaligned like they are now, art and creativity are mistaken for or replaced by vice and base pleasures. I’m not a prude, vice and base pleasures have their place, but there’s good reasons why you shouldn’t have chocolate cake and cocaine for breakfast.
Thanks.
You raise good points. Society would benefit through the re-aligning of incentives
If this was done and it was done like with royalties, it represents a form of long-term income for people who create things of value and put them on the web and similarly discourages people from creating “the next clickbait hot take” that will typically have no lasting value and has no net benefit to society. The pro-social incentives are better aligned there.
Think of it like music (pre-Napster). Musicians either (1) wanted to make pop music that will get played to a large audience so they collect larger royalties or (2) if they can’t go for mainstream pop they try to find or create a niche audience and dominate there.
I’m not sure if you’re an old like me. But it makes me think of this KMFDM track, Fairy, on their album Xtort. In 1997 playing that in one of your friends car discmans was this crazy experience of “Oh my god I can’t believe they put that on an album!” But by comparison to most of the web now, it’s so tame that it’s boring.
When incentives are aligned you’re more likely to get more people trying to make an album like Abby Road, and a few people following the strategy to make albums like Xtort. The artists like KMFDM will be around but, will be in the counter-culture margins where they’re still both cool and profitable. There is no mechanism to incubate a real counter-culture anymore—anything that’s cool that gets created gets discovered and becomes part of the mush that is the completely permeable borderless Internet. It’s like when someone has a broken jaw an has to eat through a straw, so they just blend what could be a four course meal in to a shake.
When incentives are misaligned like they are now, art and creativity are mistaken for or replaced by vice and base pleasures. I’m not a prude, vice and base pleasures have their place, but there’s good reasons why you shouldn’t have chocolate cake and cocaine for breakfast.