A guy's gotta eat right?
I've noticed an annoying trend over the past few years. It seems like everywhere I turn on the
Internet there's a hand out. I
get that somebody's got to pay for all this stuff but when it comes to online,
we're paying too much.
Either you've got a pay wall in your face when you
try to consume content or you're constantly getting pitched an
"upgrade."
If I go to the online version of a local newspaper more
often than not I'm greeted with a demand to purchase a subscription to see
their content. Yeah, I know, newspapers
have it rough these days what with all those tablets and smartphones floating
around. At some point, however, I start
to question their value when they want me to pay for the same dubious content I can find in the average blog post. (of course I exclude myself...tee hee hee)
For example, my local paper's online extension AZCentral.com now requires a paid
subscription to access more than a few articles on the web.
In the old days I could just pick up a paper when I wanted
it or suffer a few ads to read the same content online. I didn't have to take out a subscription to
get today's hot news story or have a pile of wasted newsprint lying around in
the corner of my house.
Now I have to pay not only for that story but the digital
equivalent of the clutter than comes with it.
You just know that the minute you sign up your inbox is going to be flooded
with pointless garbage until you turn it off in your subscriber "Profile."
So why did all this happen?
Why does it seem that every digital highway now has a toll booth?
The claim is that the ad-supported media model has failed
with the rise of the Internet. Advertisers
have too many choices for their ad dollars these days and have to spread it
around to get their pitch across. That
means declining revenue for traditional media sources or so they claim.
It's the justification behind the rise of
"premium" services like Hulu, Pandora and even TWITCH.TV some of which
still show ads even with a paid subscription.
Yes there are free levels of these services but they're usually a shadow
of their premium counterparts and cluttered with intrusive ads.
The latest entry into the subscription model is Jay-Z's new
"premium" music service, Tidal. It's claiming CD quality audio over the
Internet and exclusive artist tracks to subscribers. There's no pretense here. The service unabashedly demands a minimum of
$9.99 per month for access to a glorified Internet radio station. The argument being, " We're not for
everybody." Meaning people who pay
are somehow of a different caliber than all of those poor people.
Classic marketing trick.
Buy your way into the "in crowd."
The simple premise of the service (minus the marketing fluff) is that starving recording artists (like Jay-Z and Madonna) can make more
money and subscribers can get an exclusive experience with premium-only content.
Hmmm, The last I checked Madonna wasn't eating out of
garbage cans and Jay-Z could use $100 bills to wipe his ass with reckless
abandon.
Ok, here's where this crap has to stop...
At what point do we just admit that the whole
"artist" thing has gone off the rails. Hey, I firmly believe that you have a right
to make a living off of doing what you're best at. You do not, however, have a right to fleece
me to pay for a new coat of paint on your private jet by offering me the artistic equivalent of post-it notes.
And what about all those "little" people like the
engineers, producers and song writers?
You can bet Madonna and Jay-Z aren't hammering out hits in their back
bedroom with an IPad and some old amp. C'mon now, someone
has to make those middle-aged fading vocals sound passable.
One thing is for sure. The people that make these
"artists" sound good aren't flying First Class.
But we must protect those poor, suffering
"artists."
In a country where the top 20% of the population controls
85% of the money, you can't sell me on how my $10 a month to Tidal is helping Main Street. It is,
however, keeping Easy Street paved with gold.
The problem with the current definition of
"Artist" is that it's intermingled with the "business" of
art. It's all about the money and
somehow having one hit song on ITunes entitles you to a lifetime of privileged status.
When art becomes business then the result of all those "artistic"
efforts is nothing more than a "product." Mass produced, packaged and disposable.
Art was never meant to be a commodity. It was meant to be an expression with its
primary reward being the appreciation of the work itself. The great societies of Greece and Rome
recognized this and while they may have "commissioned" great works of
art, they were never meant for resale. Rather the intent was meant to enrich a culture and advance a society.
I can guarantee Krewella will
never do either of those things...
In the context of what Jay-Z considers to be "Art" (aka: products) the great works of a Michelangelo or Beethoven would be held in the same light as a toddler banging on pots while scribbling on the wall with a crayon. All of which would be behind a pay wall.
In that light, today's popular "artists" are
frauds. They produce commodities for no
purpose but their own gain regardless of claims to the contrary.
Art is meant to be shared freely and has no intrinsic value
in a vacuum or behind a toll booth. Which means
what Jay-Z and ITunes sell is not art, it's a product and products don't
deserve such exalted status.
Real art is only sold once in awhile with its value dependent
on a market's interest in that unique article. Copies, on the other hand, are sold in the millions
and their value reflects their status. (aka: fake)
When you pay for streaming content or a newspaper article online with
anything but a few seconds to watch an ad you're attributing excess value to
fake product.
Would you pay millions for a Van Gogh knockoff?
Then why would you pay full price for access to the online
equivalent of a Redbox rental? Does
anything available on Tidal really rise to the level of being art? How exclusive can a work be if it's
distributed like a magazine subscription?
I'll answer that, it's not. Art is given freely, products are sold.
So if popularity isn't enough to bring adequate compensation for your (product) efforts then maybe it's time to look at who's got their hand in your pocket. That or you just suck...
I know, for example, that for all the ads that run on my YouTube
videos I make the princely sum of .001 per view on average.
But then I create content, not "Art" and the market (and YouTube) decides
the worth of my "product."
