31–40 of 291 posts
Is it me or do I find $32,000 for that website a bit too much?
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…
You bought this because it's an experiment, you wanted to validate the experiment.
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…
I read the post, and decided I finally needed to see what the big deal about this video is. I did feel your reaction -- that he won't be hurt if I don't pay for it at this point -- and actually did search for the video on a torrent site.
I found it, but then realized that streaming the video right now is worth the $5. Torrents are a hassle compared to streaming. So I just clicked through to paypal and now it's paused on another tab.
I'm going to watch the video now. Cheers.
FYI I recently posted a RoR app that lets you sell a file with Stripe: https://github.com/2tablespoons/Thylacine
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…
It boils down to saying, "sure, it worked for Louis CK and Radiohead, and Cory Doctorow and Humble Bundle. It worked for Trent Reznor, OK Go, and pretty much everyone funded by Kickstarter...
But it could never work for you."
This stuff doesn't because it's sprinkled with magic experiment dust. It works because the authors are doing good work, they're able to build a fan base, and they're able to make the case to their fans that the way to keep getting new work is to buy it. There's no reason that won't scale out.
Given that a lot of people purchased this only to support "the experiment" (i.e. they might not buy the next time he or someone else does this), does this really demonstrate the success of selling independently?
Yes, he still owns the material and can resell it to Netflix or whoever. Yes, he will continue to earn money from it. But I imagine most of his true fan base will have already purchased it by now, so how many people are there really left to reach?
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see this all become the standard way of distributing content. I think it will eventually happen.
But what does it say that today's most most popular working comedian makes less money selling independently?
EDIT: Based on these numbers, yes, Louis CK will end up making more money this way. But to say he hasn't done any publicity to this point is stretching the truth - he's promoted it all over his Twitter, gone on Reddit, did an interview on NPR, etc. It's not like he just dropped this out of the blue without warning. But my overall point isn't whether it will work out financially for Louis CK (clearly, it will) - it's that the circumstances of this business model work for Louis CK, but not necessarily others following in his footsteps.
EDIT2: Also, it's not as if others going the traditional route wouldn't make money in perpetuity. Maybe Eddie Murphy only got a standard fee for his Raw standup special, but surely he's getting residuals from DVD sales.
Here is the part where this can go off the rails. So the long tail will hit, people will 'discover' him (maybe on his second or third video) and will download this one. There will be many copies out there in circulation. The temptation will be to think "Gee if people couldn't just get one of those copies out there already I would be making even more money!" Completely losing sight of the fact that the videos out there are an agent for discovery and 'tasting' which is bringing more people to his web site.
People sometimes go all green with greed when that happens. Money can do that to people sadly.
That being said, the really cool thing is it adds another 'success' story to Trent Raznor's Radiohead (I don't think they were ever this transparent with the numbers there but I may be wrong) and makes it harder to dismiss the successes as 'anomalous' rather than 'reasonable expectation'. It is the presence of success stories that will get more and more people to move this way.
I wish it wasn't like water eroding a rock though, progress will be rapid when the flood starts but for now it is just a trickle.
$32K for a site that does checkout with PayPal!? That sounds nuts to me, even with over-planning for high traffic. FYI I recently posted a RoR app that lets you sell a file with Stripe: https://github.com/2tablespoons/Thylacine
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
You're proving my entire point. You bought this because it's an experiment, you wanted to validate the experiment.
Is it me or do I find $32,000 for that website a bit too much?
A little on the high side, and possibly not using the latest and greatest platform(s), but I wouldn't say unreasonable.