[petterroea]

> The timing wasn’t right. We depended on artists helping us to promote the platform, and they didn’t.

There's a certain arrogance to believing the timing "simply wasn't right". It looks really bad if you try it with any recent controversy:

* "The timing wasn't right to charge people for heated car seats"

* "The timing wasn't right to make Photoshop a subscription service"

* "The timing wasn't right to increase fees"

It's a way of talking yourself away from the fact that what you are making may, inherently, be disliked. The cited survey even seems to have been read as favourably as possible:

> Surveys consistently showed that consumers believed artists deserved payment when AI generated content in their style.

This doesn't mean people want artists style to be generated by AI. It could mean they think it's horrible, but if it happens they should at least be compensated for it. In fact, the quotes survey even says 43% believe companies should ban copying artists styles. I could make the exact opposite argument with the same data:

"Many consumers believe companies should ban copying styles, and this may be a more common opinion than measured as most people have no experience with modern AI tools and therefore no chance to have made an opinion yet. What is known is that the majority believe that if artists were to be copied, they should at least be compensated"

edit: formatting, typo

[raincole]

Making Photoshop a subscription service was an extremely successful business decision, so I'm not sure what the comparison is supposed to mean here.

I say this as someone who switched to Krita and canceled CC subscription.

[danlitt]

"extremely successful business decision" and "inherently disliked" can both be true. Increasing fees quite often works out for the business too, but consumers don't generally like it.

[logifail]

> consumers don't generally like it

I'd prefer looking at what (potential) consumers actually do rather than what they say. "Saying" is a really weak signal.

[NikolaNovak]

Yes, and, op's point stands.

I am one of those people: 1. Absolutely despise the lightroom being subscription and 2. Haven't switched yet.

There are moats and capabilities and friction. Not every vote with your wallet is a ringing endorsement. I have 15 years of lightroom databases over 100k photos so switching is hard. At the same time those are from the time I did a photography side gig, now I don't so monthly cost for no monthly gains really peeves me.

So it absolutely is a successful business decision and it absolutely is widely despised by customer base. Both are true :-)

[SiempreViernes]

Ok mr sceptic, where are your numbers showing consumers buy more of a thing after it becomes more expensive?

[logifail]

Was merely commenting on the observed preference vs stated preference issue (aka "the Say/Do Gap"), not the underlying point about raising prices.

[skeeter2020]

Apple has done pretty well historically walking the line between mass consumer and Veblen good. Without them I don't believe we'd see the same variety of high-end devices, they somehow convinced a lot of people that the price of a phone is a signal of it's value.

[noosphr]

Enshificstion kills companies slowly, then all at once.

[abustamam]

I agree, to an extent. It reminds me of the Simpsons meme[1]: it's the children who are wrong!

But sometimes timing is indeed wrong, not because of anything you did, but just because no one wanted it _yet_. Google Glass from a few years ago comes to mind. Now Meta has a similar idea and it does seem successful, much to society's dismay.

But sometimes it is worth asking, "does the idea actually suck and that's why no one likes it? Or is it actually a good idea that is muddied with other issues that no one likes?"

The article doesn't make it clear that they were that introspective.

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/am-i-so-out-of-touch

[pwillia7]

yeah I agree -- There are countless examples with almost every invention of someone else who got there first but couldn't market it successfully at least partially because of timing.

[skeeter2020]

For most examples you need to squint pretty hard to make them "the same" though. In a world of "x, but for y" these are essentially new inventions, it's only our human brains in hindsight that look for the continuity. It's also an interesting question to ask if you can really seperate the idea from the execution when defining an "invention".

[pwillia7]

fair point

[Terr_]

Speaking in generalities, we underestimate how many things fail due to circumstances like "the market wasn't read for it." (In contrast to the more dramatic and common "all great success stories are due to leaders singularly imbued with unique and ineffable Greatness and Genius.")

[abustamam]

Yeah, ten or so years ago, Google glass flopped spectacularly. Now for whatever reason, Meta Raybans are actually somewhat successful, much to the world's dismay.

Bad timing can be to a number of factors, some can be good, some can be bad.

[codechicago277]

Google Glass looked dorky, Meta Ray-Bans look cool.

[squidbeak]

> What is known is that the majority believe that if artists were to be copied, they should at least be compensated.

I get the emotional side of this argument - artists going hungry while someone else cashes in on their ideas. But compensation is a dangerous premise, because derivative art is an established type of artistic freedom. Artists routinely mimic styles, or work within the bounds of styles established by masters, but they've never been expected to compensate those styles' pioneers. Imagine it as a precedent:

"Your stuff borrows from Warhol? Guess what buddy, you owe the Warhol estate x% of your sale."

Perhaps you're arguing things change when commercial interests are involved? But again, this has never been the case for advertising companies (with their hired artistic guns) or any kind of graphic design leaning on established artistic styles for effect and making a killing in the process.

In the case of AI, even if it has a commercial master, it seems much closer to the borrowing of an ordinary artist. It's a trained entity, with deep understanding of styles, capable of making new works. On top of that, it works under the instruction of a user with their own ideas, whose guidance is crucial in deciding the work's final state. The user is the artist here - like one of the visionaries who delegate the nitty gritty of production to helpers. In this case the helper is leased from the AI company, which is more like an agency supplying those helpers.

All in all it's hard to see how any compensation model wouldn't end up constricting the artistic freedom most of these artists depend on.

[tartoran]

You can’t derive works at scale manually. We’re talking about a machine here.

[rickydroll]

I suggest you look into the history of art, specifically how artists have operated studios or "factories" where apprentices produced replicas of the master's work. Modern artists have numbered prints, where they reproduce their work at scale to as a revenue source. Sol Lewitt produced instructions for his art, and people reproduce them as public murals all over the place. see: https://massmoca.org/event/sol-lewitt-a-wall-drawing-retrosp...

[squidbeak]

The 'machine' existed long before the AI companies in university art studies, galleries and republication, and the scale came from the graduates or ordinary acolytes borrowing wholesale the ideas and techniques they admired. Scale shouldn't alter the principle. Once there's a right to compensation established for derivation, you have to explain why it doesn't apply to the millions of artists making a living from exactly that.

[codemog]

It’s not arrogant to be firm in your beliefs. You’re not arrogant for believing the timing is never right. You may even be 100% right, but you don’t have to belittle or put down the other side. In this case, they already lost, what more do you want?

[petterroea]

How is it not arrogant to be firm in your belief, even if signals say otherwise? If I believe it is OK not to shower, and everyone around me complains about it, is it not arrogant of me to ignore the signals because "they just don't understand yet"?

I think a much more useful question is whether some arrogance is necessary to succeed. I personally think it is. But we are discussing a post mortem here, and the author is (in my opinion) clearly beating around the bush and using "the time wasn't right" to hide what may be uncomfortable truths.

Is a post mortem valuable if it doesn't address these face first? I am not the one with all the answers here, but what I am used to in mature tech teams is that the uncomfortable parts are usually the most important in any post mortem.

There are plenty of stories about companies that failed because the timing was wrong, and then see another company succeed in their place later on. That doesn't mean failure simply means "the timing was wrong" - you are putting a lot of weight on society adjusting to your belief. Consider that venture capital often invests in hundreds of founders like this, betting that at least one of them wasn't wrong. That's not statistically in your favor.

It is OK (in fact it is valuable) to fail and conclude that your signals may have been wrong. There's a reason some venture capital funds prefer investing in people who have failed before.

[codemog]

Personally, I don’t know how you can say the timing was never right and will never be right at any point in the future. That frankly seems impossible, unless it was something like a B2B SaaS that gouges out your eyeballs, but I guess we’ll agree to disagree.

[wolvesechoes]

> It’s not arrogant to be firm in your beliefs

I mean, if you keep ignoring stuff that undermines your beliefs that's the definition of arrogance.

[antonvs]

If your beliefs are in conflict with reality, then holding them firmly may indeed be arrogant.