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by Charles Hugh Smith
December 04,
2018
from
CharlesHughSmith Website
Spanish
version
What's scarce in a world awash in free content and nearly infinite
entertainment content?
After 3,701 posts (from May 2005 to the present), here are my
observations of the Alternative Media from the muddy trenches...
It's increasingly difficult to make a living creating content
outside
the corporate matrix:
-
the share of
advert revenues paid to content creators/publishers has
declined precipitously
-
shadow banning
has narrowed search
-
social media
exposure and the expansion of free content and competing
subscription-based publishing,
...has made subscription
services an increasingly tough sell.
The most effective ways
to silence critics and skeptics is to,
-
de-monetize their
sites/platforms
-
restrict their
access to the public via 'shadow
banning' and 'search
algorithm adjustments'
The two are related, of
course...
As audiences dwindle, so
do revenues and opportunities to sell subscriptions or promote
patronage.
The corporate media's lumping of all alternative media in with "fake
news" and
troll-farms has intentionally
tarnished all alternative media, as undermining independent
journalism and commentary is an essential part of unifying public
opinion behind "approved" ideologically uniform narratives.
Significant swaths of the public get their "news" and commentary
solely from social media (Facebook
and Twitter, and to a lesser degree, Instagram) or a handful of
corporate media (which included
PBS/NPR).
As these channels
limit/delegitimize alternative media voices, the public's access to
alternative analysis and commentary diminishes even further.
A few quasi-monopolistic corporations have effectively become
gatekeepers: what's approved is allowed to be viewed/heard/read,
what raises eyebrows effectively disappears.
It's become increasingly difficult to make a living writing books.
Advances for established
authors have fallen from $10,000 or $20,000 to $2,500 or $1,000, and
in the academic publishing world, $1,000 may be the entire sum paid
to the author for writing a book.
There are likely multiple
factors at work, but the bottom line is the
Pareto Distribution is visible
in the "long tail" of thousands of content creators who receive very
little in the way of earnings and a handful at the top of the
distribution who capture the lion's share of all royalties and other
income.
What's scarce in a world awash in free content and nearly infinite
entertainment content?
Fresh, independent
insight is eternally scarce, and in a world in which almost everyone
is selling a cover story to secure their spot at the corporate-state
trough (or win the approval of their social-media "tribe"),
authenticity is also scarce.
The economic-financial value of insight and authenticity are
unknown; the market doesn't price these as it does commodities such
as "news".
It's left to individuals
to assess and establish the economic-financial value independent
journalism and commentary.
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