@Daojoan
Maybe we could interest you in our new and improved Piracy Plus service at a cost of nothing.
@oblomov

@gimulnautti @Daojoan Funnily enough I was explaining the internet of the 1990s to my First Born yesterday.

Like how fast Altavista was and how easy it was to find useful stuff.

Also about companies with an idea who managed to secure venture capitalist funding, implemented the idea, built up the user base with no clear plan as to how to fund the company when their seed cash pile ran out.

And there were twenty other companies with the same idea.

Then, the dotcom bubble burst.

@Daojoan I have to post this again.

The Ensh*ttificator

Digital products and services keep getting worse. In the new report Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future, the Norwegian Consumer Council has delved into enshittification and how to resist it. The report shows how this phenomenon affects both consumers and society at large, but that it is possible to turn the tide. Read more on: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/breakingfree The movie is produced by NewsLab: https://www.newslab.no/ Script & direction: August Jorfald Photographer: Alexander Herlev Christoffersen The Norwegian Consumer Council is an independent, governmentally funded organisation that advocates for consumer’s rights. It should be easy for consumers to make sustainable choices every day. Consumers have the right to be protected against exploitation – both financially and digitally. To ensure this, we work to provide easy access to information, enforceable rights, and sufficient redress options when something goes wrong. #internet #news #consumer

Vimeo (vimeo.com)

@Haste @Daojoan A few years ago MicroSoft patented an idea where a smart TV, IIRC via a camera mounted facing the audience could count the number of viewers in front of the TV.

Then the TV would inform the company providing the content if the number of people watching was high enough to classify it as a public viewing event rather than just a family watching a film at home.

Thus the fee due for the viewing of the film could then be adjusted accordingly.

#enshittification

@Daojoan what is actually contributing to the price

@Daojoan hold up, why would the price increase that high?

@deFractal
This sounds like something @ajroach42 might have thoughts on getting the ball rolling on, maybe
@joe @Npars01 @Daojoan

@Daojoan

"Can no longer be shared with people you live with"

Actually, wait, any person in view of your TV screen must have their own subscription. No free riders period.

@kitkat_blue @Daojoan Arrr!

@Daojoan
Please use our no opt-out AI that will customise your flow and recommend new titles for you. This is a free service of course

@chocobo13 @deFractal @joe @Npars01 @Daojoan

Hey! Thanks for tagging me in.

I don't want to come in and ramble a bunch if that's not what you're after, but this is something of a Hobby Horse of mine, so I absolutely can if you want. Just say the word.

I've talked about this basic idea a lot over the years under the hashtags #DIYTV or #DIYMEDIA or #CommunityMedia and used my musings in those spaces to justify starting a television network ( #NETV or #NewEllijayTelevision )

To your point, there are ~three issues at play:
- Collective Action is hard
- Making TV is expensive
- TV is usually made as a profit-making endeavor.

Your suggestion to solve problem two runs smack long into problem one, but if we can solve problem one, it provides a decent path towards solving problem two.

I would make the argument, though, that problem two (Making TV is Expensive) is a conceit we've been forced to accept and not a universal truth, and part of what makes problem two seem like a problem is problem three!

To put another way: If you're not concerned about turning a multi-million dollar profit from the production of your television program, it can be done much more cheaply.

I'd love to see a model that works like this:
- Groups of people get together and make television programs
- They distribute those programs to individuals and independent television networks who pay directly for them (funding future productions)
- They are then funded through a small amount of hyper-local advertising and/or direct support.

In the very earliest days of TV, this is how it worked. every region had local shows that only aired in that region, unless they proved popular enough to get picked up for syndication. Yes, these were often just wrestling matches or the local picking circle or whatever, but it was home grown and home produced media that *Could* be picked up and syndicated across the country.

That's where MST3K came from, it's where Captain Z-Ro came from. It's where WCW and the WWF/WWE started.

It used to be that producing television was expensive because a broadcast license is expensive, and editing video requires complicated specialized equipment and cameras are expensive and special effects are expensive and .... ultimately the people in that equation were at the very bottom of the expense list for most of the history of television.

TV stars didn't start booking big paychecks until the 80s or so, and most still don't. (The day rate for being on a Dropout streaming program is higher than the day rate for being on Law and Order for example.)

Today, we don't need a broadcast license. I can deploy a website and a roku app and my only ongoing cost is the server that's running it. $40/month if I don't do tricks to make it cheaper.

I don't need specialized and complicated equipment. I need a laptop, or even just a cellphone. I don't need wildly expensive cameras, I need any standard consumer camera, or again just a cell phone (and when I say that I frequently get pushback that something shot on a cell phone won't look as good as a hollywood film and 1) so the fuck what, and 2) Multiple major Hollywood directors have shot entire features on cellphones, and 3) if you really care that much, a fully pro camera can be had on the used market for like $1k if you're crafty.)

Special effects ... will consume as much money as you're willing to spend on them, but can be done as cheaply as you're willing to get away with.

The cost for an indie production should be in people. Paying the actors, the writers, the crew, the costumers, etc.

It takes a lot of people to make good television, but it doesn't have to be nearly as expensive (or Brutal) as the hollywood system.

(That was a lot, sorry. Happy to talk more about it if you'd like.)

@oclsc @Daojoan yeah. Totally. Libraries have a lot of wonderful... well, everything. From events and books to tools. With all the stuff going on and all of us stretched thin, I find myself focusing on just several things, and one of them - supporting our libraries: using their services, donating money, buying merch and books from the friends of the library, voting "yes" to support library budgets. I am certain: reading makes us better humans.

@Daojoan Small note: they would say "the price has been updated to $24.99", they will never use the word "increase".