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1000 True Fans? Try 100

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Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#111

Post by gligorot »

mikorym wrote: post #106
scandox wrote: post #94

> As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. As a sentence this just fills me with dread. And it's hard to say why because I know, for example, that a writer making a living from selling their books could be said to be "monetizing what they love" OR engaging in the "Passion Economy". But if I was to try and get to the heart of it it's simply that I don't want to monetize what I love. I w…

I share your sentiment. In some way I think eventually you make some compromise between income and passions. If the thing you truly love can make a lot of money then I would say one should do that but reflect on how not to start hating it. Even hobbies require discipline, but you don't see them as forced on you. Career choices to me are more a process of elimination than choosing, especially if you have many things t…

>Career choices to me are more a process of elimination than choosing, especially if you have many things that you are interested in.

I didn't see it this way until now, but when I rewind this is exactly how I came to study CS. Thanks for the insight.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#112

Post by Traster »

giantrobot wrote: post #48

Who in the hell is going to pay another individual $1000 a year to make content? That's more than a year's subscriptions to Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Netflix! One of the root ideas in the True Fans essay was a fan would be willing to spend a day's wage for a year's worth of content from a creator. A large portion of the population at large can pay a day's wage for say 52 hours (a creator spitting out and hour of con…

So what you're saying is this is just a restatement of the original article, but by someone who actually does earn $1k in a single day and so doesn't realise that's not a reasonable amount to spend.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#113

Post by arexxbifs »

mikro2nd wrote: post #98
arexxbifs wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$84 is more than I pay monthly for Spotify, Netflix, the local newspaper, my broadband connection and occasional magazine buys combined. $1000 is more than I spend yearly on my biggest hobby - and that includes air travel and hotel fares. I have a really hard time coming up with any kind of content that'd be worth that much money.

I think the point is that Netflix and your local newspaper don't interact with you, personally in a one-on-one, honest, direct interaction. At an $84/mo subscription level, that's what you're buying. Now this may be because the buyer is a true-believer or whatever, but equally likely because they're now able to drop a name around the dinner table, tell their friends that they're in direct dialogue with a 'name',... S…

Not denying your point, but the wet blob painting is probably considered an investment that is expected to increase in value over time, unlike a Youtube video.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#114

Post by arexxbifs »

scandox wrote: post #94

> As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. As a sentence this just fills me with dread. And it's hard to say why because I know, for example, that a writer making a living from selling their books could be said to be "monetizing what they love" OR engaging in the "Passion Economy". But if I was to try and get to the heart of it it's simply that I don't want to monetize what I love. I w…

I agree, and I also think that the sentiment that turning a passion into a job is somehow beneficial because "you will never work a day in your life" is untrue. As soon as your livelihood depends on something, you will at some point either have to make sacrifices and trade-offs, or you will starve. Creative passion can only blossom when you can do everything exactly the way you want without compromise, which is unlikely to happen as soon as someone else's expectations come into the mix.

You can have a better, more rewarding and fulfilling career, sure. But never expect it not to feel like a chore a lot of the time.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#116

Post by keiferski »

The problem with the "passion economy", which was alluded to in another comment, is that it strengthens the already too-prevalent assumption that everything can and should be monetizable. Markets are useful but they don't need to be involved in every aspect of existence.

Sure, you don’t need to participate in Patreon to make stuff, but the trend seems to be toward relying on consumer market forces to fund culture. Tying the livelihoods of creators to the approval of their fans will lead them to censor themselves and consequently you aren't going to get anything that really pisses people off or challenges them in a countercultural way, at least enough to stop buying your stuff.

The idea of basic income seems like a better path forward, in terms of preserving artistic integrity (i.e. not "make money" or "please your fans" as the motive for making things). Everyone will get enough money to survive, no matter how much your ideas go against the zeitgeist.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#118

Post by ergl »

naniwaduni wrote: post #85
nottorp wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your examples aren't really of whales, because there's an upper limit on how much food/clothes you can get. The whale term was invented by casinos wasn't it? Where there's no upper limit to how much you can lose.

There's an upper limit to the amount that you can consume. There is no upper limit on the amount you can pay.

Sure there is, unless you consider incurring infinite debt a positive thing.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#119

Post by bcrosby95 »

sokoloff wrote: post #95
onion2k wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incredibly annoying thing about this is that there's a really obvious case - software tools. There should be so many cases of people who have written a useful tool and have 100 businesses who pay $1000/year because that tool is the backbone of their $1000 * xxx profit. The fact this doesn't happen very often is a significant failure of the tech industry.

This seems to me like it does happen fairly often. It’s the entire model of JetBrains, RedGate, Sublime, Atlassian, etc.

Yep, and JetBrains has a pricing structure to roughly represent that. Individual license for intellij is $150. Organization license is $500.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#120

Post by dav43 »

dang wrote: post #35
dav43 wrote: post #23

God these guys live in a bubble

" Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " " Don't be snarky. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

i can see my response may have needed a few extra words, however I think referring to my comment in such a fashion is slightly misleading.

I’d hate to think that in this forum, just because a comment is short and succinct - what I thought to be a daily clear response, meaning “the authors live in a bubble of experience and expectations” - it is somehow lesser value that a comment that is long winded and without a clear opinion.

TLDR. I hope HN doesn’t confuse clear and succinct with snarky and sarcastic.

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