[skannamalai]

I was finished HS seventeen years ago, about an hour northeast of where the author was delivering packages. I distinctly remember an English teacher, trying to get us excited about the possibilities of longform print journalism, breathlessly telling the class how some of the best writers in the world work for Sports Illustrated, and that they make "good money."

I feel a sense of loss when the "biodiversity" of what appear to be financially viable careers is declining.

[Waterluvian]

I love a good read as much as I love a good YouTube series. I'm not sure biodiversity is going down. I think it's just becoming (discipline + computers).

The fact that a lot of people are making really good money doing artistic endeavors on the internet suggests that those endeavours are still valued.

I wonder if maybe we don't need as many artists because they reach a global audience now with less friction than ever. Anecdotally: I never would have subscribed to a sports magazine. I'm not into sports. But SBNation's YouTube series on weird sports history has me hooked.

[Meph504]

The volume of people making money, and the amount of money made by people doing artistic endeavors on the internet, when compared to decades past is troublingly lower.

I'm not sure what can be done, but I see an ever increasing number of people loosing benefits from, or loosing their careers entirely.

This isn't all caused by tech, but also by a change in the social contract between companies and and their employees. The idea of you working hard for a company your whole life, and even if your didn't make great pay, you were secure in the idea that you would be taken care of and have a place to work until you got your send off party and a gold watch.

When comparing what was to what is, from the perspective of security, safety, and prosperity of the worker, YouTube is barely on par with a freelance gig.

And I fear that if our country doesn't address these sort of issue very soon, we are going to see suffering in the elderly not known in our country for the last century.

[rlonn]

>The volume of people making money, and the amount of money made by people doing artistic endeavors on the internet, when compared to decades past is troublingly lower.

Would love to see some actual numbers here. My guess would've been that more people are making in aggregate more money off artistic endeavors on the internet, than in past decades. Look at the music industry, whose total value peaked and started falling, but is now back and has exceeded earlier peak, due to internet streaming. Diversity, meanwhile, seem bigger than ever. In the 80's you had a few mega stars raking in all the money whileas now there are millions of small producers each making small amounts. I don't buy this "troubled times" theory. The only trouble is the fact that a lot of former producers are getting replaced, but this is encouraging because if we're in the middle of a shift and the total market isn't shrinking it probably means there is more growth ahead.

[vinceguidry]

My understanding always was that the music industry even in it's heyday only ever allowed a very small number of extremely popular artists to make a real living, everybody else made mostly nothing. The share of wealth extracted by creatives seems to me to be going up while the share extracted by gate keepers is going down.

This can remain true even if the absolute size of the economy is still rising, so it can look like the rich are getting richer while the poor are also getting richer. Inequality is still rising, but the tide is lifting all boats.

[microtherion]

> Look at the music industry, whose total value peaked and started falling, but is now back and has exceeded earlier peak

Would you mind citing your data for this? What I've seen suggests the opposite:

https://www.ifpi.org/news/IFPI-GLOBAL-MUSIC-REPORT-2018

"Despite the recent uplift, revenues for 2017 are still only 68.4% of the market's peak in 1999."

And as far as I can tell, that 68.4% is based on nominal revenue. Inflation adjusted it works out to 2017 revenues being less than 47% of 1999 revenues, if I calculated correctly.

[Nullabillity]

IFPI represents record labels, not musicians.

[Meph504]

I agree my statements should be backed with some solid stats, I'm traveling for holidays and on my mobile so, I won't be able to provide this, my apologies, if you wish to disregard I understand.

But if we are going to compare or discuss this, I don't think the music industry is a fair place to start, as stated that was always a pretty crappy and controlled sector for individuals. With that said, from what I have read streaming as a whole hasn't provided better opportunities to individuals either, but again admittedly I can't cite sources to back up this claim.

But I think if you look at journalism, photography, marketing and advertisement, etc. These have all gone from careers to gigs, none of which provide for a long term path for securing a future.

When you calculate the tradition benefits (medical, dental, vision, retirement) as compensation it's a pretty obvious that the gig economy cost workers a lot, Including the peace of mind of knowing you'll have a career that will be a viable path to retirement.

I like many of us, are pretty isolated from these problems in tech because of demand, but I imagine 30 years ago, a senior writer at sports illustrated did to.

If you aren't concerned from a high level, look at where the money in our economy is going, it's moving away from individuals and into corporate profits, all while corporations are removing long term responsibilities to their workers.

And example of that would be, that almost no one has an active pension system any longer.

This is basically the core thoughts behind my troubled times response.

[asah]

I'm not so sure: the internet has rewarded certain forms of art/craft over others (e.g. easily produced, low cost of goods sold) and it's given them a worldwide audience.

As an example, where food was a poorly paid profession before, there's lots of people making lots of careers in every little aspect of food, because their audience see pictures/video online and either orders for delivery or visits in vacation.

[anilgulecha]

Playing devil's advocate - why 'troublingly' lower?

A career in art isn't guaranteed, unless we reach a post-consumer utopia, where robots do all the work.

Hence, there's a saturation point in how much art is needed to saturate the demand, in an interconnected, digital, global world.

And those that are unable to fit into this saturated point have to find other ways of livelihood.

[Apocryphon]

Perhaps they will learn through code via boot camps and take your job. And then would you have preferred that their discipline- a profession that was not destined to be automated away- have remained viable?

[FrojoS]

I don't know the actual numbers, but one could also argue that diversity and the sheer number of artists could go up, because niches become viable, thanks to a global audience.

[kkarakk]

imo the computer(or rather i'd say the internet) is just to help you find a niche of people who're interested in what you have to say and are willing to pay

magazines/newspapers are used to having huge captive audiences that they can sway. the problem is this breeds suspicion and contempt among the userbase if their interests don't align.

if you are a creator,find your patrons and everything will be fine

[willio58]

I feel that the biodiversity is still there, maybe even growing. It’s just that jobs inevitably become obsolete over time.