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Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

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Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#111

Post by ASalazarMX »

rayiner wrote: post #28

The quote from Nilay Patel's Vox article hits on one of my pet peeves. > Nilay Patel wrote in Vox: > "Taylor makes a nice little argument in favor of paying for music. 'Music is art,' she says, 'and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.' > This is an impressively-constructed syllogism. It is also deeply, deeply wrong.... On the internet, there’s no scarcit…

> On the internet, there’s no scarcity: there’s an endless amount of everything available to everyone.

This got me thinking: in a post-scarcity civilization, what would people do? Probably invent new ways to create artificial scarcity.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#112

Post by remram »

eindiran wrote: post #96
michaelt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would anyone pay for a Taylor Swift subscription if that meant she could relax and produce music as she sees fit? I have a (completely speculative) theory that the "support the artist to keep creating the work they're giving away for free" model has a ceiling when artists become visibly a lot richer than their fans. After all, what kind of sucker would charitably donate to a multimillionaire's private jet running c…

Even if this is true, the ceiling is very high. Look at the current top earners on Patreon, with a known per month figure: https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators * Chapo Trap House, 3 hosts - 170k/month * The Tim Dillon Show, 1 host - 121k/month * AdeptusSteve (I couldn't figure out how many people, possibly 1 guy making some sort of porn game?) - 103k/month * Flagrant 2, 2 hosts - 98k/month * Tiny Meat Gang, 2…

How much of that is really charitable? Patreon allows creators to lock access to some content behind a set monthly amount, which makes the transaction more like a regular subscription than a donation. How many of those top earners use that feature?

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#113

Post by runarberg »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #101
eindiran wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if this is true, the ceiling is very high. Look at the current top earners on Patreon, with a known per month figure: https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators * Chapo Trap House, 3 hosts - 170k/month * The Tim Dillon Show, 1 host - 121k/month * AdeptusSteve (I couldn't figure out how many people, possibly 1 guy making some sort of porn game?) - 103k/month * Flagrant 2, 2 hosts - 98k/month * Tiny Meat Gang, 2…

Part of me finds it ironic that so many leftist podcasts rake in big bucks on Patreon.

Why? Do socialists not deserve to earn the value of their work?

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#114

Post by Supermancho »

michalu wrote: post #55
rayiner wrote: post #28

The quote from Nilay Patel's Vox article hits on one of my pet peeves. > Nilay Patel wrote in Vox: > "Taylor makes a nice little argument in favor of paying for music. 'Music is art,' she says, 'and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.' > This is an impressively-constructed syllogism. It is also deeply, deeply wrong.... On the internet, there’s no scarcit…

That may be right but her music is neither art nor important or rare (there are hundreds of pop songs that sound like carbon copy) ... people pay for junk food and they also pay for junk entertainment. Taylor Swift, for the worth of her work, is obviously beyond overpaid. That statement is just hypocrisy.

> there are hundreds of pop songs that sound like carbon copy

ie 4-chord songs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#115

Post by elliekelly »

paul7986 wrote: post #36
johnwheeler wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the exact same thing. I think Taylor’s real error was in saying anything at all. When someone rich and famous (or even just famous) makes a case for making money, no matter how sound, they open themselves up for attack. I’m not saying they’re wrong to do so, just that the populace isn’t inclined to understand.

So some people believed in her and gave her a chance... backed her with their money ..invested in her and she re-pays them by attacking them and their investment. I used to be a fan of her and her persona but now comes off as spoiled and unappreciative!

People “attack” (read: criticize) their investors publicly all the time. Do you have a problem with all criticism of investors? Because that seems silly. Certainly they aren’t all above criticism. And contract disputes and negotiations play out in the public eye every single day.

And if you aren’t opposed to the WhatsApp or Instagram founders criticizing Facebook but you are opposed to Taylor Swift criticizing various stakeholders in the music industry you might ask yourself why you’re holding Taylor Swift to a different standard.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#116

Post by kin »

The thing is, Taylor's version sounds completely different. Did Ben Thompson actually look at streaming numbers? All her fans didn't flock to the new version. They listened to it, but it's so different that the old version is still consistently streamed likely by the same fans.

Further, the new version isn't on some new platform or anything. It's not like Taylor Swift asked fans to fork extra money to listen to "Taylor's version" so nothing is really proven here regarding Taylor's so called power. In terms of accessibility, the tracks exist side by side with the original on Spotify.

The idea of NFTs is incredibly appealing to artists because the technology could allow for artists to sell music that can only be played by some client if the NFT for a track or album was authentic. Ultimately this is bad for consumers and you bet your bottom dollar that some new form of music piracy will be born if music tried to go this direction.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#117

Post by criddell »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #111
rayiner wrote: post #28

The quote from Nilay Patel's Vox article hits on one of my pet peeves. > Nilay Patel wrote in Vox: > "Taylor makes a nice little argument in favor of paying for music. 'Music is art,' she says, 'and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.' > This is an impressively-constructed syllogism. It is also deeply, deeply wrong.... On the internet, there’s no scarcit…

> On the internet, there’s no scarcity: there’s an endless amount of everything available to everyone. This got me thinking: in a post-scarcity civilization, what would people do? Probably invent new ways to create artificial scarcity.

Non-fungible tokens are one way to create artificial scarcity.

However, just because something isn't scarce any more doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Lots of people want to support artists whose work is important to them. Platforms like Patreon may be much more important in the future.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#118

Post by oh_sigh »

rayiner wrote: post #28

The quote from Nilay Patel's Vox article hits on one of my pet peeves. > Nilay Patel wrote in Vox: > "Taylor makes a nice little argument in favor of paying for music. 'Music is art,' she says, 'and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.' > This is an impressively-constructed syllogism. It is also deeply, deeply wrong.... On the internet, there’s no scarcit…

I don't think Patel was saying that there are an endless amount of copies of Swift's music on the internet. He was saying that there is an endless selection of music available, which you agree with in your second paragraph.

And that hurts Swift's point - if music implies art, and art implies important and rare, and important and rare implies valuable, and valuable implies it should be paid for - that doesn't explain why so much music is not paid for. It also doesn't explain why some people create music for free.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#119

Post by bombcar »

ppod wrote: post #102
bombcar wrote: post #87

Nobody ever bought any music "to support the publisher" - the middle man is just that, the middle man.

The middle man is a load balancer for risk. The middleman makes a bunch of artists moderately rich, and they lose money on most of them and make money on some of them. They take on the risk of letting an unproven artist spend a few years doing something that could turn out to generate little money, and in return they get a big share of the ones that do make money. Now, thanks to the internet, the ones that do make it…

In theory things like YouTube and Patreon could provide that gap - but not sure it actually will.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#120

Post by [deleted] »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #101
eindiran wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if this is true, the ceiling is very high. Look at the current top earners on Patreon, with a known per month figure: https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators * Chapo Trap House, 3 hosts - 170k/month * The Tim Dillon Show, 1 host - 121k/month * AdeptusSteve (I couldn't figure out how many people, possibly 1 guy making some sort of porn game?) - 103k/month * Flagrant 2, 2 hosts - 98k/month * Tiny Meat Gang, 2…

Part of me finds it ironic that so many leftist podcasts rake in big bucks on Patreon.

[deleted]
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