alt Hacker NewsI think what the article is missing is that main issue with streaming platform (for music and videos) is that it reshapes completely the business models of the music/movie industry. A CD or DVD was maybe a bad product, but it allows not "TOP" artists/production to still get ROI without needing to be viewed/watched by audience of billions.
The music/movie industry is now way less diverse, because smaller actors cannot live out of it, so only the big players remain and produce stuff that only a very large audience would like but not love (you cannot please everyone whenyou have a 1B audience). Smaller categories in movies and music will just disappear: look at the 2000`s movies like the Ninth gate or some cool thriller, these could not make enough money just with the theater tickets but they could exist thanks to the DVD money. Now with streaming there is not enough revenue to capitalize on second tier movies (not block busters) that would be really loved by a smaller audience.
We have a less fragmented culture so by definition it just slowly looses its richness.
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it’s only less diverse at the top.
go down a couple of layers and various genres of music are experiencing renaissance’s like you would not believe.
pop music has always (mostly) sucked
[EDIT] Bring on the downvotes. You never bothered to explore. If you take what’s given to you by those who are selling, you’re in the seller’s market. Your downvotes are pride to me.
What you are getting at is that discovery platforms do not give attention for free anymore and you are expected to pay for it. In the radio era this was called payola, it was illegal, and people did it anyway because radio was the gatekeeper to financial success in the medium. Payola isn't even restricted to streaming services anymore. For example, Amazon expects you to buy advertising on their own platform if you publish a Kindle book.
The fact that home video would provide a second boost of cash for a production was important, and I do mourn the slow death of physical media. But it is not directly connected to the discoverability problem we have. Even when people were buying CDs and DVDs, you still had to contend with a distribution system that largely had already decided what you could and could not buy. Midlisters still made shit money, because publishers do not actually care about their midlist and they don't want to sell you originality. They want to sell you IP they already own.