The Louis CK Experiment was Great, but this approach is not sustainable
startupdispatch.com
startupdispatch.com
Well, I'd certainly be more willing to pull out my credit card for a $5 charge than I am for a $20 charge, which means it'd still be more successful with me than it is on the shelves at Walmart. And since I've never purchased a comedy DVD from anyone but threw down $5 without hesitation for Louis CK's special, it's infinitely more successful than the physical model in my case already.
How often would I do that? No idea. Depends how many comedians I really wanted to support, how often they put stuff out, and how my finances were looking at the time. But all three of those factors equally impact their chances at my money in "the real, physical world" (which is an utterly stupid phrase in this context, btw - he made $250,000 very real dollars in 4 days), and I'm still more likely to spend $5 than $20.
The only variable here is exposure. Can Louis (or other people who want to try the same) reach enough people using non-corporate-media methods to make up the difference between a $5 sale and a $20 sale, or can't they? Obviously a brand new talent isn't going to have the success with it that Louis CK does, but a brand new talent, with the rarest exception, isn't getting shelf space at Walmart either.
This strikes me as a lot of doom and gloom over nothing. He paid for production costs with ticket sales for the live show. He made back his money on putting the thing online more or less instantly. Will it work for everyone? Of course not, nothing works for everyone. But I bet it'll work for him again the next time he does it.
Popularity doesn't factor, in my opinion. We have to evaluate the business model by itself. Everyone in the entertainment industry -- from movies, to music, to video games, to books -- generates content, presses it to a disc or otherwise physically produces it, sticks it on a truck, ships it to shelves everywhere in America, and sells it for the exact same price. A sea of different cover arts and $20 price tags. And when they don't move they slash it down to $10 and unceremoniously stick you in an unorganized bargain bin to make room for the next $20 crop.
That is what spurs these kind of experiments, ultimately. Just try something different. We've got different communication channels now, different distribution methods, different payment methods. I think we do real damage to ourselves if we dismiss them off hand and say, "Well, they were already popular, so of course it worked." We completely dismiss that their experiment and their new model actually did work in a very real way, it generated real money, because people already liked them? That's absurd.
The author seems to assume that content owners aren't out to screw the talent and pay fair royalties, etc. This isn't the case. What we can learn here is that the Internet levels the playing field a bit. Contrary to what the author would have you think, all kinds of bands are making more money selling music directly to their audience than they ever could being jerked around by a record label. Yes, they aren't making as much money as a well established act, but they weren't going to anyway.
Would I buy a $5 special every two weeks? No, but I wasn't going to buy a $20 special every 8 weeks, either, and Louis made $250,000 PROFIT in FOUR DAYS. He doesn't need to do this every two weeks or every month or even every six months (nor could he; he edits it all himself). Would I pay $5 every year for a new special from Louis CK? I certainly would.
Now, I guess the more logical way to interpret what the author wrote is "what if, between all the comedians, these things were dropping every 2 weeks?", but that's no different than what you have now, except it's physical media, a higher price, and a slightly more spread out timeline. In both cases, people will buy the stuff from the people they really like and want to support, and prioritize their spending along those lines.
Though actually I would argue that if 4 comedians get $5 out of me, that's better for all 4 of them (assuming I'm part of a larger audience) than if one of them got some cut of $20.
However there are plenty of people experimenting like Louie C K is up and down the spectrum. I buy lots of stuff from people who are doing their own thing. To pick some random smaller examples - http://www.dgmlive.com - King Crimson and Robert Fripp, Matt Stevens http://www.mattstevensguitar.com and Richard Skelton http://www.sustain-release.co.uk/
Do they make megabucks? of course not but they are making a living.
The question actually is - are they getting more return for their work than if they used more traditional channels and I think all would argue that they are.
Not only is this approach sustainable - it's going to become essential for all but the most mainstream. Louie CK and Radio head possibly suggest that even the more mainstream will do better doing it on their own terms.
As they would have sold less if they'd gone the DVD route, they'll sell less in this route too. The only question is whether they come out of it as well.