Then who’s making money?
Maybe no one. There is no rule that says someone has to get rich out of every industry. You don't see a lot of agriculture billionaires. Nor airline billionaires. Some industries just kind of suck.
Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
131–140 of 365 posts
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#132While the industry as a whole makes a lot, the majority of individual anime and manga make next to nothing. It’s a few very popular properties that make all the dough. If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many. But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble. As an anime and manga fan, I actually…
> If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. A similar argument was used in favor of perpetuating slavery prior to the civil war. > People just have to accept that means the industry will shrink dramatically. So many things will just never get made. I've accepted that. Now let's pay people fairly for their time and skill. > That also means far fewer people will get to become animators. They’ll h…
>> If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable.
>A similar argument was used in favor of perpetuating slavery prior to the civil war.
I suspect the end result here will actually be fairly comparable to post-slavery agriculture, in that technology will eliminate a lot of these jobs. Tough to imagine that GenAI doesn't have an enormous impact on anime over the next few years.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, there is no such thing as a "fair pay". All of it is driven by demand and supply, always, except when regulations or external factors somehow break things. Second, of course increased costs of production lead to consequences for end users or people who buy the content. We see that all of the time in every industry.
Businesses do not have an inherent right to exist. If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close. Predictions of dire consequences rarely pan out. Fast food employees in Seattle are earning $15-20/+ per hour and prices did not double - in fact they're not significantly higher than in neighboring counties with lower…
Employees also do not have a right to any particular career. That's nice that people have a dream to make anime for a living. I hope they get to realize it. But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want. If you can't make enough money doing a certain job, maybe go get a different job then.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#134It’s only going to get worse with AI now in the mix.
AI is absolutely going to be the end of many inbetweeners, and on one hand that's a good thing because of how exploited they are, but that's kind of a problem too because you need people to have a way to get started in the industry who can develop their skills, learn how production works, then get promoted to doing key animation or move into other roles that get paid better. If we let AI take all the work from the people at the bottom we'll lose a lot of talent that never had a chance to get off the ground or find a place within the industry
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "if we paid people fairly things would be prohibitively expensive" argument is a terrible one, just to note. First, it rarely seems to actually be the case since the requirement that employees be paid fairly mostly just drives away low-value efforts. It's also an attitude that, if taken to its logical extreme, demands society have an underpaid underclass that suffers so the rest of us can have nice things.
While I agree with your argument, it's not as simple as "letting the low value efforts die". If most anime were to stop being produced, most of the animators would also be fired and be unable to continue what is (I assume) their passion and career. The simple fact is that there isn't enough money going into the industry to pay all the animators a fair wage, so either animators get paid less or there are fewer animato…
Vocational awe is a curse. If you have an endless supply of people willing to work pennies then the industry will build itself around paying them pennies. This does not mean that this is the only way you can build an animation industry - just that this is the path Toei and Sunrise took.
The amount of money that goes into the industry is not static. The original linked article specifically cites cases in which members of the production committee (often toy companies like Good Smile[0]) decided to deliberately take less money because they didn't want their control diluted. They're only able to do this because they can fleece animators into working longer for less money rather than having to get more capital in the project.
As for animators having to find new work... good? The current situation is one in which animators pursue their passions, and then have their passions completely take over their life and crush their soul. If they quit en masse, that would be backpressure against productions that want animators to fall on their swords, and production committees that want shit done cheaply.
[0] Who, incidentally, funded Hiroyuki Nishimura's[1] buyout of 4chan in exchange for all those J-List ads the site had.
[1] Former operator of 2channel who got pushed out in an incredibly sketchy way by his website host.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#136When I read things like this, I think back on my experience in games and entertainment. I believe that the more generally prestigious the industry is, the more likely it is to see worker exploitation. Part of your pay is wrapped up in getting to brag that you work in industry X on product Y. Almost by definition, that means young, passionate labor. Industry leaders quickly learn how to exploit the young and passionat…
I don’t think it’s about prestigious as much as it is about passion. People in these industry join and often work there out of genuine passion, which makes them do sacrifices that take years to regret.
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Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#137Just like videogames and movies/tv. There's an infinite, ever refreshing revolving door of fresh meat for the grinder. And people want to be part of it regardless. With such conditions there will never be an increase to pay. It's just the way things will be in these segments - forever!
Just like with movies/tv you can make a lot more progress with unions.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do have free will, but large groups of people are at an extreme negotiating disadvantage versus individuals or small groups that can more easily plan and coordinate -- and who happen to control the resources. This is why we need things like unions and government regulations: Not to unbalance things in favor of workers but to help achieve some amount of balance between owners and employees.
Free will as an individual means that you should be able to make better choices for yourself without having to rely on a hypothetical mafia-style union
Unfortunately, the other side of the negotiating table either already has a mafia-style cartel pushing your wages down[0], or is a monopsony already. Consolidation in one industry means everyone who does business with them either consolidates or has their margins go negative. Unions are just the working-class equivalent.
As for "mafia-style"... I mean, are we calling Hayao Miyazaki a mob boss now?
[0] Remember back in 2010 when Steve Jobs and Larry Page formed a wage fixing cartel?
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s never going to happen unless they unionize. People are not going to voluntarily turn down jobs as a collective everywhere at the same time in mass numbers.
But then by definition, that’s what their labor is worth. Unions can be a stopgap measure, but they can’t correct the underlying market forces. Or at least, I haven’t seen particularly persuasive evidence that unions can do more than make everyone collectively equal, which implies that everyone in X industry would be paid the same, or based on seniority rather than merit. Not my cup of tea, but I’m also privileged no…
That’s exactly what a union is, a way to force the market to deal with a collective and buck wage lowering market forces. It involves putting gatekeeping licensing in place and making that license a legal requirement for any work done by that collective. This prevents rogue independents from depressing wages. With a union you give up some free agency in exchange for higher wages, better work life balance and job stability.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#140I don’t understand why this author completely writes off the possibility of not releasing weekly. Honestly in the era of streaming, who cares about releasing every week? Often I wait until a season is wrapped before watching any of it. As a fan I can’t imagine getting upset at a longer cadence, and at the most slightly annoyed.