I thought this was a great read, clearly the author has thought through is argument and does a good job of describing his reasoning about the challenges the tech community faces with regard to Hollywood's livelyhood.
The only weakness for me was that it is hard to argue from a point too far removed from the sources of your arguments. Specifically if you are arguing the future of "entertainment" then Hollywood is but a piece, similarly if you argue too closely to the source such as the future of "movies" then technology is but a piece. So finding a place in the spectrum where one point of view and dominate another isn't a very solid way of making your point. :-)
That said, it made me wonder if computer games will go through the 'star' system (clearly some of that has happened with titles like "Sid Meir's Civilization") or if it will be different for programs. At the 'top' (or most diffuse?) point of the spectrum you can take examples from music, books, games, movies, and television as ways people tease dollars from consumers. And following that line of reasoning lead me to thinking about the fundamental question, is it money or is it art?
There are two parallel universes in most entertainment systems, the one that is designed to extract the most money (consumer focused) and the one that is designed to express the artists intent most faithfully (artist focused). The latter occasionally makes a lot of money, the former occasionally makes very little money. The "space" is a blend of the two.
Many of the developers I know are "artists' where they have very strong feelings about how their programs should work, and I believe we see a lot of that here on HN. But I also know engineers who are focused more on the "business" where they write code that makes them the most money, period. And they are often harshly judged in fora such as this one.
So where does that leave us? I think it makes it important to fix the context before we debate, as that affects the persuasiveness of the different points of view. It also suggests that Paul's call to action could be interpreted more literally to be "Work on the 'consumer focused' side of tech for entertainment harder."
If you think of Entertainment as a giant pie of dollars, getting more of those dollars can be achieved either by being better than other players in your wedge, or by increasing the size of your wedge relative to the other players. Looked at in that context, it isn't about "beating" Hollywood so much as making Hollywood less relevant.
The only weakness for me was that it is hard to argue from a point too far removed from the sources of your arguments. Specifically if you are arguing the future of "entertainment" then Hollywood is but a piece, similarly if you argue too closely to the source such as the future of "movies" then technology is but a piece. So finding a place in the spectrum where one point of view and dominate another isn't a very solid way of making your point. :-)
That said, it made me wonder if computer games will go through the 'star' system (clearly some of that has happened with titles like "Sid Meir's Civilization") or if it will be different for programs. At the 'top' (or most diffuse?) point of the spectrum you can take examples from music, books, games, movies, and television as ways people tease dollars from consumers. And following that line of reasoning lead me to thinking about the fundamental question, is it money or is it art?
There are two parallel universes in most entertainment systems, the one that is designed to extract the most money (consumer focused) and the one that is designed to express the artists intent most faithfully (artist focused). The latter occasionally makes a lot of money, the former occasionally makes very little money. The "space" is a blend of the two.
Many of the developers I know are "artists' where they have very strong feelings about how their programs should work, and I believe we see a lot of that here on HN. But I also know engineers who are focused more on the "business" where they write code that makes them the most money, period. And they are often harshly judged in fora such as this one.
So where does that leave us? I think it makes it important to fix the context before we debate, as that affects the persuasiveness of the different points of view. It also suggests that Paul's call to action could be interpreted more literally to be "Work on the 'consumer focused' side of tech for entertainment harder."
If you think of Entertainment as a giant pie of dollars, getting more of those dollars can be achieved either by being better than other players in your wedge, or by increasing the size of your wedge relative to the other players. Looked at in that context, it isn't about "beating" Hollywood so much as making Hollywood less relevant.