>I rarely "stumble" over great new content by accident, either because of a friend (or an algorithm) recommending it.
It's a bit funny because I feel that might be the difference between a child and an adult and how they consume content. or perhaps the difference between pre-internet and post internet.
Children do indeed stereotypically "watch anything you put in front of them". But they will still develop favorites and find things they dont like. For my millenial generation, Something like Spongebob wasn't just something that stuck because of the nostalgia of 10 year olds. The humor was simply very witty or very surreal, or just very funnny and managed to even scale to adult humor you'd miss until you re-watched it later (I'll spare you the entire video essay of "there will Never Ever be another cartoon like Spongebob Squarepants")
But all that shifted in adulthood. I'm anenthusiast who will keep tabs on media news, vibes of the people on social media and what they find, group to like-minded friends who give recommendaions, etc. The last time I simply "stumbled" into some unexpected piece of media was... well, kind of Puss and Boots 2. But that was simply because I liked the first film and then the sequel decided to deliver one of the best, tightly paced stories in over 15 years. Before that would have probably been Roblox way back in 2010, over a decade before it became this empire of gaming (and the talk of child exploitation and harassment).
>Streaming digital media changed that "hunt", for better or worse. The pain is still there. What changed is everyone thinking all good music must come not only gratis but also "effortless". Some app or magic gadget that will one day take the pain out of finding good content. If it only knows my taste well enough. It doesn't work like that.
indeed. I mostly agree and have some small reservations. All that old media was already vetted through multiple rounds of pitches and had some budget thrown at it for it to launch. The internet definitely changed that aspect to where I could technically pick up Audacity today and publish a song on Spotify next week. It truly is "effortless" in that sense if shipping is your goal.
But I think any craftman in any domain knows that there's a difference between shipping something and shipping a GOOD something. That's something many would never understand, as they never put that kind of effort into something. Or maybe understand in one industry but gets blinded by when they look at another.