Live data from Hacker News

Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

buy.louisck.net

21–30 of 291 posts

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#21
post #3

Chrome warns of an SSL error when I try to visit his site, and when I click proceed, I see an OpenDNS page about nameservers failing. And yet, isup.me says it's up. Interesting.

It's down for me, here's a mirror:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&...

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#23
Louis C.K. deserves all credit for showing that you don't need a label, that non-DRM distribution's benefits outweigh its costs, etc.

Yet to me the real lesson is about the remarkable PR he's built for this story around being the "purple cow" and his ability to market to his audience (holding a AMA on Reddit even).

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#24

I really hope people don't turn this into a "Louis CK did it, so you should publish without DRM!". I agree with the anti-drm sentiment a lot of people hold, but this experiment only worked because it's "rare". Every time something like this is done people use it as evidence of the viability of the idea (Radiohead's pay what you want comes to mind too) and that really shouldn't be done. The only reason I heard about t…

Isn't iTunes all DRM-free MP3 these days?

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#26
post #19

I think by releasing the sales figures he actually runs the risk of decreasing sales. I think there is probably a segment of the population that would feel bad about not paying for the video but now that he announced how much money he made their guilt over stealing from a poor artist will subside. It's a bit hard to keep people sympathetic if you've announced that you just made a nice profit. I'm sure at this point h…

You're missing the price aspect: at $5 it's hardly even worth it to torrent it when I can have a zero hassle download experience.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#27

I really hope people don't turn this into a "Louis CK did it, so you should publish without DRM!". I agree with the anti-drm sentiment a lot of people hold, but this experiment only worked because it's "rare". Every time something like this is done people use it as evidence of the viability of the idea (Radiohead's pay what you want comes to mind too) and that really shouldn't be done. The only reason I heard about t…

A proper experiment is repeated, over and over again. Some indie bands are managing to make money from "pay what you wish", and a great many more have been thriving from customers paying for easily-torrented, DRM-free downloads.

Video, on the other hand, has had few other tests of the notion that (most/some/enough) people are willing to pay a reasonable price for a good product, even when they don't have to. Instead, our choices are streaming services (to authorized devices only), or physical artifacts (with five layers of encryption). This is the first digital video purchase where I felt like I truly owned the movie I was buying. Give it time for others to try the experiment and see how they fare.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#28

I really hope people don't turn this into a "Louis CK did it, so you should publish without DRM!". I agree with the anti-drm sentiment a lot of people hold, but this experiment only worked because it's "rare". Every time something like this is done people use it as evidence of the viability of the idea (Radiohead's pay what you want comes to mind too) and that really shouldn't be done. The only reason I heard about t…

Disagree. I've never bought a comedy DVD in my life, because frankly, an hour of humor isn't worth $15 + the overhead of receiving a package and storing a physical artifact in perpetuity.

But $5, I can have it in seconds, and forget about it until I want it again? Different story entirely. So I bought it. I don't think I did it because it was an experiment - if every comedian released stuff like this, I feel like I'd regularly spend money on comedy which now, I frankly don't.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#29

I really hope people don't turn this into a "Louis CK did it, so you should publish without DRM!". I agree with the anti-drm sentiment a lot of people hold, but this experiment only worked because it's "rare". Every time something like this is done people use it as evidence of the viability of the idea (Radiohead's pay what you want comes to mind too) and that really shouldn't be done. The only reason I heard about t…

Isn't iTunes all DRM-free MP3 these days?

To be pedantic: DRM-free AAC and Apple Lossless.

Re: Louis C.K. experiment results: over $500,000 in 4 days

#30

Is it me or do I find $32,000 for that website a bit too much?

Indeed. I thought the same thing, but I suspect he's including a design firm that tested out multiple versions of the site, backend infrastructure to handle potential load, support to handle issues in a timely manner should they come up, and maybe his personal time.
Post reply on HN