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I disagree with the premise that there is a correlation between production cost and quality.

Good writers and actors don't usually work for free. Just because there are lots of expensive things that don't really improve quality doesn't mean quality isn't still expensive.

Unless you're suggesting that television shows should all be made on a "work for a share of profits" or "work for free to get recognition" basis (i.e., like a start-up or an open-source project respectively). I don't really see most people being able to do that, though.

tv/movie writing seems to have some potential to crowdsourcing/open-sourcing.so at least this part can become cheap.

Have you read any of the "colloborative fiction" websites out there? They're generally awful.

one form of crowd sourcing is based on prizes , similar to the netflix prize. from what i read , prize based competitions can achieve great results in many areas , with relatively cheap price.

Youtube seems to be going to this direction.

For example, if you look for the latest hits on Youtube, you will see that most of them started posting videos there, for free.

And the quality doesn't compare, that's the point.

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