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Manifestos and Monopolies

stratechery.com

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#41

The author lost me here: "it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless" No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number o…

Most of the interesting content I read is produced by amateurs. Amateur writers, that is. They're professionals in whatever domain they happen to be writing about - food blogs written by chefs, programming blogs written by software engineers, startup blogs written by VCs & entrepreneurs, hardware blogs written by electrical engineers, gaming screencasts produced by gamers, political blogs written by political science professors.

I think that what the Internet revealed is that being able to write well takes a back seat to knowing information worth writing about. Content over form, in other words. In the old days, you needed dedicated reporters who would go ask the actual experts their opinions on events because most people could not hold down two jobs, and an industrial company is not going to also operate a printing press. Now, with the ease & reach of publishing becoming so much greater, it becomes much easier to publish on your nights and weekends, as a way of getting your name out in the field. I actually view mainstream media as "low quality" now, because when you compare any piece with the blog of the experts actually quoted in it, you see just how many omissions and distortions appear in it.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an articulation of the general versus the specific. He's saying the general idea underpinning Zuckerberg's manifesto is concerning. He's just personally okay given it's specifically Zuckerberg manning the helm. (Separately, he says Facebook is in a good economic position. That's a separate train of thought from the manifesto discussion.)

I have no idea how you guys are getting the impression I'm ok with Zuckerberg's stated goals here. I think I was pretty clear on that point at least!

No, your essay is not very clear, nor convincing. Wechat is much better positioned to do what Zuck wants to do re: social infrastructure. Given the downwards spiral of the US and European economies, a long short on FB seems more propitious.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an articulation of the general versus the specific. He's saying the general idea underpinning Zuckerberg's manifesto is concerning. He's just personally okay given it's specifically Zuckerberg manning the helm. (Separately, he says Facebook is in a good economic position. That's a separate train of thought from the manifesto discussion.)

I have no idea how you guys are getting the impression I'm ok with Zuckerberg's stated goals here. I think I was pretty clear on that point at least!

Also Thiel as an obvious hand inside the ZuckPuppet.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your Facebook feed is worthless, it's your fault. Either you have nobody you care about or you like worthless stuff. I'm connected with family and friends, I'm following interesting people and liked interesting pages. My newsfeed is full of great content, from people I care about or page with content I want to read/watch.

Perhaps worthless is extreme. But its not nearly as interesting as insta/snap

I try to keep all my Content(tm) feeds not-too-interesting. Anything more is anxiety inducing these days.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#45

The author lost me here: "it is a reflection of the fundamental reality that the supply of content (and increasingly goods) is infinite, and thus worthless" No, the supply of worthless content is infinite. The supply of interesting content provided by professionals with the backgrounds necessary to provide such content is not. This is why you still see the majority of journalistic content provided by a small number o…

Most of the interesting content I read is produced by amateurs. Amateur writers , that is. They're professionals in whatever domain they happen to be writing about - food blogs written by chefs, programming blogs written by software engineers, startup blogs written by VCs & entrepreneurs, hardware blogs written by electrical engineers, gaming screencasts produced by gamers, political blogs written by political scienc…

Experts in a professional fields have been writing books for hundreds of years. How is anything fundamentally different now? The shortened cycle?

Experts in various fields have written guest columns for newspapers since before the U.S. declared independence.

Tabloid and marginally amateur newspapers previously outnumbered the established publications. When new towns and cities were formed in the American Frontier, often a printing press was brought with the first businesses.

Your argument appears to follow from the premise that "MSM is bad" and then seeks justification in a just-so story of the old days that isn't accurate.

I'm not defending modern journalism's accuracy. I'm disputing your assertion that the consolidated journalism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are the default. On the contrary, they are abnormal with respect to the rest of American history.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#46
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but production distribution. It still costs money to produce something of value, whether it's an article in a magazine or an album. The fact that it costs virtually nothing to reproduce an album or distribute it digitally does not negate the investment it took to produce it. And the fact remains that Facebook and Google, among many others, profited handsomely from this confusion.

> Yes, but production distribution Compare with the second paragraph: "The reality is that Facebook is one of the most powerful companies the tech industry — and arguably, the world — has ever seen. True, everything posted on Facebook is put there for free, either by individuals or professional content creators; and true, Facebook isn’t really irreplaceable when it comes to the generation of economic value; and it is…

Thanks for the replies.

I think that we're going to see how this all shakes out soon enough, and it will probably be one of the business stories of the 21st century.

If the current model is sustainable, then it will continue. I personally think that too much value is being captured on the distribution side, that the content creators are wise to it, and that you're going to see a continual shift in power back to the content creators as they become more and more creative in how they withhold content from free-rider distribution/access platforms that they view as a net negative to their bottom line.

Re: Manifestos and Monopolies

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, but that doesn't mean that it's still easy to produce the final work. If anyone can do it, then it's obviously not valuable. Take "Stranger Things" on Netflix, for example. I normally hate sci-fi, but this was one heck of a great season 1 for a series. Did it take a lot less in terms of technical know-how/costs to produce than it would have taken in the 80's ? Sure, no doubt. But, it still is a very uniqu…

> But, it still is a very unique cultural work that is definitely more valuable than something created by another group of people with access to the exact same technology, but producing something of lesser value Human cultural value != market-value. This is what I'm getting at. What was the incremental cost to you to watch each episode? How much did you pay to watch ET? Buy a Twin Peaks box-set? > The secret sauce is…

Good conversation, thank you.

Of course, there is good, free content everywhere, but it is normally in the form of endeavors that don't take a lot of time or are hobbies. As soon as something starts to take more than X amount of hours per week, it has to either start bringing in revenue or it has to stop growing. In other words, there is no limit to the breadth of the content that can be available for free, but there are hard financial limits to the depth of the content that can be available for free.

Re: Netflix: I think Netflix is a good example of a distribution platform that is in a more symbiotic relationship with its content creators. The content creators get the eyeballs for their work and, more importantly, get paid, while Netflix takes their cut. However, this is also changing as Netflix becomes both content creator and distribution platform. As to being able to purchase Netflix content elsewhere, I think it all comes down to the extra revenue vs. possible loss of subscription revenue. For now I think the equation is tilted towards the latter, hence you won't see that content elsewhere. My understanding is that other content creators are getting more than a little nervous about the Netflix-branded content, so they might start playing hardball.

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