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

buy.louisck.net

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

#211

Post by lux »

sirclueless wrote: post #115
DaveMebs wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there is any evidence to support the notion that "a lot of people purchased this only to support the experiment." Sure, some folks on a HN thread commented to this effect, but I think that the vast majority of the 111000+ people who bought this probably like Louis CK. I recognize that I don't have any data to support my assertion either, but given the options of "buy this because I like Louis CK" and "b…

Well, almost all of the facebook shares about this that I have seen are exclusively about the novelty and experiment. I didn't see anything that just left it at "Oh, Louis C.K. is awesome. Check out his new thing." So at least anecdotally, a lot of people around me bought this because of novelty and to support this business model instead of because they like standup or Louis CK.

Anecdotally, I've experienced the opposite. I haven't seen a single "hey this is a neat experiment" post (Radiohead's similar album sale on the other hand...), yet I know quite a few pretty dedicated Louis C.K. fans, and remember his show here (Winnipeg) being packed solid. Louis already has the popularity behind him, because he's done the years of paying his dues building that up. That's going to be the majority of sales, with a minority percentage (10-20% I'd wager) buying out of curiosity.

FWIW, I haven't even purchased it yet, because every time I've gone to his site its been down...

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

#212

Post by mikeash »

interlagos wrote: post #208
mikeash wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that one can really compare a written story sold on the internet over a decade ago, before pretty much anybody had a decent reader for such things, with a video being sold online today when literally tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of people own the right equipment for viewing it comfortably.

The comparison is the hype, delivery, and conclusions. After the initial release of the Plant there was much fanfare about its demonstrated validation of a sales model, yet it was a completely atypical example that earned tremendous publicity and enhanced engagement because it was novel.

Sure, The Plant was an experiment with a completely new and novel sales model that ended up falling flat. Meanwhile Louis CK is selling videos online in a world where millions of people buy videos online, but with the barely novel gimmick of selling direct instead of through intermediaries. (Something tons of people have done before, some with great success.) I really don't see the similarity.

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

#213

Post by miles_matthias »

m_for_monkey wrote: post #122

"If anybody stole it, it wasn't many of you." Searching for "louis ck beacon" on The Pirate Bay gives 7 hits, with a total of 886 seeders, 152 leechers. http://thepiratebay.org/search/louis%20ck%20beacon/0/99/0

Unfortunately there isn't a reliable way to know how many people have pirated it.

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

#215

Post by interlagos »

mikeash wrote: post #212
interlagos wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison is the hype, delivery, and conclusions. After the initial release of the Plant there was much fanfare about its demonstrated validation of a sales model, yet it was a completely atypical example that earned tremendous publicity and enhanced engagement because it was novel.

Sure, The Plant was an experiment with a completely new and novel sales model that ended up falling flat. Meanwhile Louis CK is selling videos online in a world where millions of people buy videos online, but with the barely novel gimmick of selling direct instead of through intermediaries. (Something tons of people have done before, some with great success.) I really don't see the similarity.

That barely novel gimmick got it front and center of every social news site. Indeed, why are we even talking about this experiment if it were "barely novel"? This submission and every comment in it is a counterpoint to your claim.

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

#216

Post by djbrowning »

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…

I really believe content distribution has to work this way, so much so that we've created a site (http://momeant.com) that allows you to enjoy content and then "reward" it after the fact. As Louis proved, audiences will support something they find value in, especially if the price is spread across a large volume of people.

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

#217

Post by roguecoder »

citricsquid wrote: post #51
phil wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bunk. 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 th…

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…

Except this worked before the internet too. I have a ton of albums from working folk musicians in cardboard home-made sleeves, with great production values on the music and crap for polish so they'd cost $5. I found most of the bands I listen to from mixed CDs friends made for me. The Grateful Dead got rich off people stealing their music. The Sullivan Show, radio stations, MTV and clubs were letting people listen to music for free before Napster; together they made every big commercial artist in the last sixty years. The new thing the internet adds isn't "free music" or "sell things that are easily pirated for cheap". It's that big-names can do it and we can measure the results.

Where are the glowing articles about how much extra money an artist made after adding DRM to their game, video or music? I don't think torrents wreaked the commercial market; I think they wreaked the bootleg industry (http://books.google.com/books?id=hUyMNhH_l-EC&lpg=PA236&...). The people who says otherwise are self-interested and fail to offer the kind of concrete numbers that reluctant experimenter after reluctant experimenter produces from every creative industry.

I will note that this is the only venue I saw this on; not from my friends or Facebook or Twitter or any of the other "viral" channels. It seems to me like it's already to the point where it is normal. It is working because this approach works, just like it always has.

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

#218

Post by dmbass »

jonnathanson wrote: post #205
onemoreact wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current model does not work for less popular artists, so I have trouble seeing the downside.

I'm anything but an apologist for the current model. But if it disappears, we haven't necessarily made life any better for lesser-known artists. So if we are to remove one of the critical steps to success (i.e., the marketing and promotional spend of traditional labels, publishers, networks, and studios), we should hope that there's a viable replacement. Or we should try to build one. In our haste to cast out the old…

There are lots of examples of artists blowing up without labels (though some subsequently start their own or get signed) in the past few years by distributing their music on the internet for free. See: Pretty Lights, Girl Talk, Odd Future, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, etc. It won't be viable for every artist/band but neither is the music industry of old. You must bring something special because otherwise nobody will care.

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

#219

Post by mikeash »

interlagos wrote: post #215
mikeash wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, The Plant was an experiment with a completely new and novel sales model that ended up falling flat. Meanwhile Louis CK is selling videos online in a world where millions of people buy videos online, but with the barely novel gimmick of selling direct instead of through intermediaries. (Something tons of people have done before, some with great success.) I really don't see the similarity.

That barely novel gimmick got it front and center of every social news site. Indeed, why are we even talking about this experiment if it were "barely novel"? This submission and every comment in it is a counterpoint to your claim.

A fascinating question! I think we're all talking about it because Louis CK is pretty popular.

None of this is a counterpoint to my claim. A counterpoint to my claim would be actually showing that it is novel, e.g. that this experiment contains attributes which have not been seen before.

People have produced and sold videos direct over the internet many times before, so that aspect isn't new. Is there some other aspect to this which I'm missing which is novel?

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

#220

Post by roguecoder »

citricsquid wrote: post #32
lukev wrote: post #28

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.

No, he bought it because it was a better product at a lower price point that currently-available comedy, making the marginal value of the product lower that the marginal cost to him.

If he had bought it and not watched it, he'd have been validating the experiment. As it is, he's just an anecdotal example of someone on the right hand side of the supply-demand curve. Reality validated the experiment, not manipulative consumers (of course, reality has a well-known liberal bias...)

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