Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

buy.louisck.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 291 posts

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

#101

Post by backprojection »

nettdata wrote: post #90
nettdata wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the early days of the internet, I was the IT Manager at Nettwerk Records. We went out of our way to put complete, high quality MP3's of every song we owned the rights to online, for free, because we were willing to let the music stand on its own. We believed that it was worth giving potential new fans the chance to hear what they were (hopefully) buying, and that really was the case. We had so much obscure mu…

Forgot to mention that the underlying concept was that it was more profitable, in the long run, to make a fan than it was to make a sale.

So why was this not more widely adopted? I mean, if you want to convince a corporation to adopt some business model, all yo have to do is show it's more profitable. Or is that naive?

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

#103

Post by [deleted] »

nl wrote: post #64
citricsquid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it works for those specific groups is because of their fan base. Do you think that if Britney Spears tomorrow launched a similar "DRM free pay what you want" sale that and the "viral" element (news articles about how edgy it is) didn't exist she would have the success that these people have? She would outsell all her other releases because "whoa DRM free this is incredible!"? I don't think so, her average…

The reason it works for those specific groups is because of their fan base. That's exactly the point. I think you are trying to argue that people outside Loius CK's fanbase bought this because of the desire to prove people wrong . You might be correct in part, but that isn't the whole story. Do you think that if Britney Spears tomorrow launched a similar "DRM free pay what you want" sale that and the "viral" element…

[deleted]

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

#104

Post by citricsquid »

nl wrote: post #64
citricsquid wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it works for those specific groups is because of their fan base. Do you think that if Britney Spears tomorrow launched a similar "DRM free pay what you want" sale that and the "viral" element (news articles about how edgy it is) didn't exist she would have the success that these people have? She would outsell all her other releases because "whoa DRM free this is incredible!"? I don't think so, her average…

The reason it works for those specific groups is because of their fan base. That's exactly the point. I think you are trying to argue that people outside Loius CK's fanbase bought this because of the desire to prove people wrong . You might be correct in part, but that isn't the whole story. Do you think that if Britney Spears tomorrow launched a similar "DRM free pay what you want" sale that and the "viral" element…

That's completely irrelevant.

Imagine there is a time when releasing music/video or any other form of media is done independently without a label and without DRM. Will people who release stuff in this way be hailed heroes and make sales because of of how they're selling? of course not. That's what is happening here with Louis CK. If the standard for publication and sale of media was what he was doing here we wouldn't even be having this conversation because nobody would be talking about it.

What Lil Wayne did has no relevance to my point.

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

#105

Post by seanalltogether »

natep wrote: post #98
seanalltogether wrote: post #71

Can anyone comment on the $170,000 cost to produce the video? He says he edited it himself so that pricetag must cover only the recording side of it. Is this cost a reflection of the price that large studios normally pay, or would he have gotten this rate from a smaller shop as well?

My interpretation is that this was the cost of the cameras, cameramen, and venue (tickets, box office, ushers, sound setup, soundboard, lights, spotlights, advertisements). Basically, all the costs associated with getting people in the seats and the show on film (or whatever the cameras record to)

Yeah maybe. I think the numbers are a bit weird then. He talks about making a profit of 200k, but then admits that ticket sales largely covered production costs, so is his total revenue around 750k with profits closer to 500k?

I wonder if HBO or CC paid for the special, whether he would still get 100% of ticket sales.

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

#106

Post by sliverstorm »

backprojection wrote: post #101
nettdata wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgot to mention that the underlying concept was that it was more profitable, in the long run, to make a fan than it was to make a sale.

So why was this not more widely adopted? I mean, if you want to convince a corporation to adopt some business model, all yo have to do is show it's more profitable. Or is that naive?

How do you demonstrate that a fan is more profitable with something more than speculation? In a way that can still be charted in a PowerPoint for the suits to see?

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

#107

Post by steve-howard »

nettdata wrote: post #90
nettdata wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the early days of the internet, I was the IT Manager at Nettwerk Records. We went out of our way to put complete, high quality MP3's of every song we owned the rights to online, for free, because we were willing to let the music stand on its own. We believed that it was worth giving potential new fans the chance to hear what they were (hopefully) buying, and that really was the case. We had so much obscure mu…

Forgot to mention that the underlying concept was that it was more profitable, in the long run, to make a fan than it was to make a sale.

The entire M.O. of the modern music industry is to shatter our preconceptions of just how short-sighted somebody can possibly be.

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

#108

Post by sliverstorm »

rkudeshi wrote: post #36

Devil's advocate: In the post, he himself says he would've earned more by doing a show for HBO/Comedy Central/other (also note that he mentions, but doesn't factor in the cost of his own time in putting this all together). 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…

You'd need to know what conglomerates pay him. If the differential is not large, I could see the difference residing in the costs he paid. HBO doesn't have to develop a new website from scratch every time, and they probably have in-house production, reducing cost.

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

#110

Post by TechNewb »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

I'm glad he made some money on it. His mind will be blown when the 'long tail' kicks in (people buying this video 3 years from now, still). He mentions "This [$200,000] is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video." Here is the part where this can go off the rails. So the long tail will hit, peopl…

It will be interesting to see the analytics of the sale in a long term model, and see if there is a long tail, or if it's just a stubby tail. Like many, I hope that it is long. But this is currently on a single website, and not through a major distribution channel (one of the initial appeals). If he gets the content onto other services, then I imagine the tail would be longer. He should get it on Netflix, etc, if a true long tail is desired.
Post reply on HN