apart from NIN who relied on their big-label past, these “new business models” were all gimmicky, silly, one time scenarios that relied on being gimmicky and silly.

if michael is suggesting that more artists continue to whore themselves in new and creative ways such as selling packages that include "foot massages" and "personal assistant" services a-la josh freece or auctioning random shit from their apartment on twitter a-la amanda palmer...that is equally depressing and insulting.

great works shouldn’t need to be fluff sold.

however, if what michael is suggesting is more along the lines of a "pay what you want" scheme then allow me to wonder aloud why WALLMART and AMAZON.COM (for instance) don't adopt this same kind of business model if it's so lucrative? i mean, they could have instituted this YEARS AGO! think of all the profits they've squandered while steadfastly sticking to yesterday's business model!

i hate to believe that the “savior” of tomorrow’s content creators is a series of escalating novelties, the next more degrading than the last, invariably culminating into a web 2.0 “blowjob economy” where the most successful musicians, novelists and filmmakers are the ones with the least shame and most-diminished gag-reflex.

michael says "it works today and it will work in the future".

i say "we'll see".

Ian, thanks for the comments, though I would suggest that you have misread the presentation. Most of these were not "gimmicks," nor were they "one time" things. They were different ways that each artist chose to connect with fans that met with their own style and their own personality.

The point is not to sell gimmicks. The point is to figure out a way to connect with fans, and then offer up something scarce that is worth buying.

I don't see how that's insulting at all. I'd say it's quite empowering if you talk to the artists who are doing it. I've yet to find any of the artists who are successful with these models finding anything at all insulting about this.

And I never said anything about "fluff". Again, I'm not sure where you got that impression. These were just methods of connecting with fans and then offering something beyond just the music to sell.

But if you're so sure that you can just keep selling the music alone, more power to you. I think you'll find that it's more and more difficult if you do not treat your fans well.

As for pay what you want, I've never thought that was a good model, nor have I suggested it is, so I'm also not sure where that claim came from.

Anyway, I would suggest that if you think that connecting with fans is a gimmick and fluff, then you might want to rethink things a bit. Because I'm not suggesting gimmicks or fluff. I'm suggesting a real business model that is actually working quite well.

EDIT: LOL @ michael deleting his reply. i'll leave up my reply to his reply anyway...

Just to be clear, I’m not disagreeing that this is where the industry seems to be headed, I am merely lamenting the fact.

Where we disagree I think is in whether or not this is all a depressing state of affairs for current and future content creators. While you seem to be excited at the prospect, to me it seems more like the slow blossoming of an artistic dystopia.

Artists having to sell “foot massages” to make money from their music is undeniably insulting and is most assuredly “fluff selling”.

Artists having to sell “studio sing-alongs” to make money from their music is undeniably insulting and is most assuredly “fluff selling”.

Artists having to sell random junk from their closets on twitter to make money from their music is undeniably insulting and is most assuredly, unquestionably, irrefutably, undeniably…

“fluff selling”.

Obviously, connecting with fans is a good thing unless of course what you mean by “connecting with fans” is selling them the kinds of things that were previously only available to kids dying from Leukemia through the “make-a-wish” foundation. Now artists are expected to support themselves this way? A couple teenagers with trust funds are going to counterbalance the rest of the freeloaders?

And no, I don’t believe that because these things are working now on an infinitesimal scale for an infinitesimal minority that they will continue to work in the future for the broader swathe of professional artists (that’s assuming the term “professional artist” won’t soon become an oxymoron). If these things were truly viable we would be seeing a mass exodus from the music labels, movie studios, and new york publishing houses – but were not are we? Not even close. The examples are as intermittent as they’ve ever been.

Once file sharing loses the last of its vestigial stigma (god forbid) and EVERYONE starts relying on t-shirts, pay-what-you schemes, and many of the gimmicks (yes gimmicks) you mentioned, I think it is reasonable to assume these things will start to blend together for the general public and lose much of their current novelty in the process. the fallout of which will be a drastic reduction in revenue for all the content industries resulting in having to work much harder to make much less.

There are only so many signed special editions you can make before that’s no longer the selling point it used to be. There are only so many t-shirts people can reasonably be expected to buy in a year. This new “web 2.0” economy doesn’t seem to benefit anyone but the end user. To say (as many do) that all the content creators currently supported by royalties could in the future conceivably be supported by digital busking and selling fluff (or RtB as you call it) is not, in my opinion, a claim even remotely rational.

You say that these things can scale. I see no proof of it. To me it looks like the top tiers of the entertainment pyramid are doomed. No more megastar musicians, no more A-list actors or directors, no more juggernaut authors. I’m trying hard to see this as anything other than the de-evolution it appears to be. And while the self-entitled freeloaders and the innumerable failed or otherwise unmarketable artists might come together to pool their bitterness and exclaim “good riddance” I say it will be a sad thing indeed when uncle bob’s movie mashups are bringing in the same amount of money as tomorrow’s Spielberg.

Dark days ahead…

P.S. you seemed to suggest that a “pay what you want” scheme was viable during your bit on the pay-what-want K-OS concert so that’s where I got that from.

Hmm. I did not delete my comment. I have no idea why Vimeo deleted it, but they wouldn't allow me to log back in for a while either. They've finally re-enabled me to log in, but I'm not sure what happened to my original comment.