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

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

#231

Post by larrys »

jonnathanson wrote: post #186
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'm all for this model. But a major challenge remains, and it's this: Trent Reznor, Radiohead, and even Louis C.K. were all hugely popular and successful before they employed this model. Can the model work for lesser-known artists attempting to capture an audience? In theory, sure. If anything, I could see this model's working out quite well for the proverbial little guy. But first, that little guy faces a big challe…

"quietly worked in the trenches, perfecting their craft, sometimes for decades, before they hit their big breaks. But big breaks were necessary conditions of becoming superstars"

Right and I would add that the model also worked because the supply was constrained on talent by the those offering the break. It's possible that we will hit (and are already hitting) a talent saturation point there is only so much entertainment pie that an individual will pay for or needs to consume. I mean my time reading HN takes away from the time that I used to spend reading other sites.

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

#232

Post by shawnc »

Kind of surprised by the amount of people in this comment thread saying "yes it works for him but no one else". Why operate from this as your default? How sad. Examine this for how it can work for you, or someone else. Examine how it can work for a nobody. A small somebody. A first CD release. A "reunited after 10 years" cd release. Put that effort into how it can be done people!

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

#233

Post by talmand »

Am I the only that finds it odd he spent $32,000 on a website that features small, dark red text on a black background? I had to highlight the text to read it.

Otherwise, I'm glad his experiment worked out for him as in a small way it proves new business models can work if only tried. My question is whether the related industries will learn anything from this?

My guess is no.

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

#234

Post by dodedo »

interlagos wrote: post #204
dodedo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember The Plant. Stephen King made over $700,000 writing a partial novel which he declined to finish not because it didn't turn a profit, but because his download statistics didn't show the opt-in payment ratios he wanted. It's an instructive example of hubris and mis-aligned goals. Stephen wasn't interested in generating a profit. Had he raised the same revenue with half as many readers paying twice as often he…

It is also an instructive example of novelty. His initial experiment was reported very widely, and tens or hundreds of thousands lined up to "prove it could work", putting their dollars to demonstrate it. Once the novelty wore off, the viability of the approach disappeared. The opt-in payment ratios started generously, and rapidly approached zero. Little can be learned from CK's experiment because it was novel -- it…

That's an interesting theory but I'm not convinced it has a factual basis. Maybe readers decided that King's book just sucked and were waiting for it to improve? Neither you nor I can draw a meaningful conclusion on that point.

What can be demonstrated, empirically, is that money can be made without imposing draconian controls.

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

#235

Post by maxmcd »

talmand wrote: post #233

Am I the only that finds it odd he spent $32,000 on a website that features small, dark red text on a black background? I had to highlight the text to read it. Otherwise, I'm glad his experiment worked out for him as in a small way it proves new business models can work if only tried. My question is whether the related industries will learn anything from this? My guess is no.

I was relieved to hear hear he only spent $32,000. He's clearly not heavily involved in the web, and I'm glad he wasn't drawn in by some flashy firm trying to charge him $100,000. It may seem like a lot to anyone on HN that could put something like this together in an afternoon, but I feel he could have done much worse.

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

#236

Post by wmeredith »

jrockway wrote: post #159
jmonegro wrote: post #18

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

It seems pretty inexpensive to me. Designing a site where people can log in, pay actual currency for a file, and download it a few times is not trivial. We may be able to do stuff like this ourselves over the weekend, but Louie can't, and so he had to pay someone to do it. And when you pay for something like this you're paying for things like the company's reputation, support "forever", and the right to say things li…

Your weekend project also doesn't lose you a quarter of a million dollars if it goes down for a few days. There is a big difference between tinkering and building a product.

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

#237

Post by timknauf »

krelian wrote: post #57
citricsquid wrote: post #13

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…

I think the Humble Bundle is a good measure to how these kind of experiments will succeed of fail. People are now starting to "complain" that they are released too often, and I certainly am seeing less and less enthusiasm for each subsequent bungle but there are still making a shitload of money on them, otherwise they would simply stop doing this. Personally, I think that in a (utopian) world where media is easily av…

And, at least for the foreseeable future, there are going to be people for whom it is very difficult to pay for the content rather than pirate it (e.g. kids, teenagers, folks in countries without an online payments infrastructure etc.).

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

#240

Post by teamonkey »

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…

> 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)

This is still marketing. By removing the publisher, which specializes in marketing, we put the burden of publishing duties on the artist.

Note how financially successful, award-winning, prime-time comedian Louis CK is playing the little guy against the publishers, mentioning that he financed it all (much like a publisher would do).

Who knows who he's paying or how much. The role he's playing implies that all the cash goes straight to him, the artist, but did he pay anyone for the production? Does he have a future royalty agreement with an agent or, perhaps, a channel like Comedy Central? Is he paying for advertising, or has he hired a marketing manager/publisher to rustle up publicity? Is he calling in favors to get mentions on news sites (much like a publisher would do)?

I'm not being cynical, just that he's playing the game very well, he's using his fame/brand to leverage sales, and that this distribution method doesn't really change anything except move the same roles elsewhere.

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