[ghaff]

>But The Long Tail wasn’t necessarily about the long tail being bigger than head. It was that long tail was viable at all.

Anderson's point was somewhat different as I recall. It wasn't that individual long tail content is necessarily financially viable for its creators. (Which seems mostly true even if there are some breakouts who wouldn't have existed at least in the same form 25 years ago.) It's that long tail content in aggregate could be financially viable for distributors and other sellers--which seems at least somewhat true.

With a hindsight lens, you could argue that the long tail was about profiting off the labor of free and low-paid content creation--although a somewhat counterargument is that consumers get a lot of value too and much of the content is stuff that would never have seen the light of day at least beyond a tiny circle of friends and fans in past times.

[hamburglar]

> [the point was] that long tail content in aggregate could be financially viable for distributors and other sellers--which seems at least somewhat true.

Bandcamp has always been pretty transparent about their sales numbers and they are at $200 million annually now. They are about as “long tail” as it gets.

[ghaff]

Yes, Bandcamp is a pretty good example of a fairly pure long tail aggregator. They're a private company but they seem to be modestly profitable. Which I guess can be glass half full or half empty depending on your perspective. i.e. you can make money for yourself and for at least some long tail artists, but it's not blockbuster returns.

[hamburglar]

I think I’m really done with the idea of success being a unicorn company. Bandcamp profitably supports something like 100 employees and makes thousands of indie musicians a significant amount of money. That feels like a smashing success to me. I don’t need a private island.

[galaxyLogic]

I think what happened is that since YouTube makes its business with advertisements which are "free" for the users, users get accustomed to the idea that content should be free. That lowers the quality of the music because why invest more in quality than what is needed to provide free convent.

If nobody is paying for it except with their eye-balls how much should you expect to profit, and thus how much should you invest in producing your content? Not much hence quality goes down and everybody suffers from poor cultural offerings.

[JKCalhoun]

> It's that long tail content in aggregate could be financially viable for distributors and other sellers--which seems at least somewhat true

I don't disagree with that point, rather I never cared that the long tail would be "financially viable for distributors". In fact, I suppose I prefer that it is not viable for them.

Long live the long tail!

[ghaff]

Well, if it weren't financially viable for the distributors, the long tail wouldn't really be accessible beyond mostly local audiences--as was the case before the mid 90s or so.

If long tail content isn't financially viable for YouTube, then YouTube either doesn't exist, charges for hosting, or gatekeeps.