matthewb
@matthewb
I think I have spent at least 10yr directly or indirectly grappling with the unsustainable nature of creative output (music, photography, “content,” whatever) ultimately it’s just a black pill to swallow that most content is not going to be profitable to produce unless you’re top 1% or higher
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Noah Bragg 🔥
@nbragg
Yeah that is tough. And this getting harder with ai. We would all like to make our hobbies our job.
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matthewb
@matthewb
re: the latter, imo the average person does not have enough niche knowledge and expertise to truly command an audience with their “hobby.” but yes the desire is probably universal to some extent.
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Trigs
@trigs
Maybe not command an audience of Matthews, but most ppl don't have your level of appreciation for high level expertise, I would hazard to guess! 😆 Most shit that trends is because of how stupidly entertaining it is, not how accurately it conveys domain expertise. I would go so far as to guess that more people might actually appreciate humble averageness over expertise that makes it seem inaccessible. Maybe what the average person is lacking is simply just the ability to create the content in an interesting way. But it also probably depends greatly on the type of content/hobby.
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matthewb
@matthewb
producing high-quality content requires expertise in subject matter, production, storytelling and writing, the list goes on. that’s part of why there are few content creators for any given niche, if you have some combination of those traits then you are likely gainfully employed and busy. depends on the niche though, obviously skateboarding will be different than repairing cars. I think you’re gesturing more broadly to lowercase “c” content on social apps which yes absolutely does not need to be anything particularly top tier, it’s more about creating relatable and entertaining brain rot. but that’s very different than what I was replying to above which was “making your hobby your job,” a far more serious proposition.
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Trigs
@trigs
Yes, I do agree with most of what you're saying. I also love a good contrarian take, so I'll keep going 🤣 I think we live in a time that has tried to convince everyone that if you're not in the 1%, it's just a "hobby" and you're not actually worth anything. The reality I see is that most ppl could go to a local art exhibit and see a bunch of average shit that ppl they know and care about in their community made and get more value out of it than going to the Louvre and getting yelled at for trying to take a picture. I would never say that the majority of modern music artists are top 1% musicians. They just had the right combination of malleable things for the distribution system to decide they can market it. A potter doesn't have to be in the 1% to sell some bowls at the local market. Increasing accessibility of production & distribution (meaning lowering the bar of expertise required from non-niche skills) might open doors for ppl to be able to experience the value of more average human creativity.
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matthewb
@matthewb
would totally agree that there’s plenty of value from non-“1%” skill/expertise level creators. that’s not really to what I’m referring when I use “top 1%”. I’m simply gesturing to power law dynamics and that the creators with the most distribution (top 1%) are those who will be able to sustainably make that content for a living. the rest (top 5%?) can maybe make it a part-time thing, at best. I mean, even mrbeast’s channel only makes a couple mil per year from youtube monetization, so imagine everyone else further down the curve. it’s peanuts. all that said, with regards to content I’m definitely far more picky than the average viewer and aware of that bias so take my views with a grain of salt. I’m that way about everything and have impossibly high standards that I don’t really expect anyone else to meet. for that reason I ignore most long-form content (and anything else) that I encounter digital or irl unless it’s really great.
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Trigs
@trigs
I understood that to be your perspective and point, so I appreciate you tolerating me taking advantage of the situation to explore the other side of it! ☺️ I very much so believe that we can improve on that power law dynamic, but only if we design with these intentions. When removing percentages from it and thinking of it in terms of individuals and their ability to improve their knowledge of niche interests; the easier we can make it for anyone with above average knowledge to share what they know, the baseline goes up. My hope would be that we can create systems that enable more paths for people to rise to your level of appreciation for quality by making it possible for the top 30 or 40% of ppl to make a living sharing their knowledge, instead of systems designed to funnel value towards this mythical "top 1%". The top 1% is a moving target, but raising the collective knowledge baseline is the real progress to measure, imo.
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