[HN Gopher] It's getting harder for small studios to compete wit...
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       It's getting harder for small studios to compete with big tech
       (2020)
        
       Author : kvee
       Score  : 64 points
       Date   : 2021-03-20 11:10 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.itsnicethat.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.itsnicethat.com)
        
       | williesleg wrote:
       | Yeah and google has their goons in Los Angeles getting rid of the
       | homeless. WTF big tech? And why isn't there graffiti and homeless
       | in Disneyland in california? California is all graffiti and
       | homeless, why is disney not inclusive?
        
       | smoldesu wrote:
       | I think the writing is on the wall for a "free" internet. We've
       | been given 20 years to decentralize the internet, and we really
       | only divided the crowd to competing platforms (many of which have
       | overlapping userbases). There's a great argument to be made that
       | the internet is already decentralized, but the majority of users
       | are too afraid to step outside their social media bubble. Our
       | idea of "exploring the internet" has been reduced to an infinite
       | social Turing machine where we're too addicted to leave. We've
       | come to the point where most Twitter and Facebook users won't
       | even try to defend their usage of their respective platforms,
       | which is a signal that something needs to change. The computing
       | industry is at a boiling point: transistor density is stagnating,
       | capitalism is roaring, the greatest digital mysteries are being
       | solved, and the average person is feeling increasingly oppressed
       | online.
       | 
       | I have hope for the future of the web, just remove the goddamn
       | cookies from your website and I'll take your bid for an equitable
       | digital future seriously.
        
         | philipkglass wrote:
         | I run my own site with no ads, analytics, or conscious SEO.
         | It's nearing 20 years old now. It's significantly cheaper and
         | easier to run now than it was when I started. The direct
         | hosting cost is less than a standard Netflix subscription.
         | 
         | The site still shows up on the front page of Google results for
         | the (admittedly niche, non-commercial) topics it covers well.
         | It still scratches the personal itch I set out to satisfy. If I
         | wanted to make money from it, I would consider it a disaster.
         | But I never set out to make money. I set out to discuss
         | something that I found interesting and meet like-minded people
         | who shared that interest. In that regard it has been a smashing
         | success.
         | 
         | There are still enough people like me -- writing to share their
         | interests with the world, expecting payment only in the form of
         | reader engagement -- that I could read their writings all day,
         | every day and never run out. Facebook doesn't threaten my own
         | site any more than McDonald's threatens my own cooking.
        
       | naringas wrote:
       | This seems to be by design. (or at least a consequence of
       | economic incentives which are politically defined and individual
       | but enacted by the selfish behavior of individuals (specially
       | compnay-size "individuals").
       | 
       | rant-on: the individual potentializing power of software (which
       | necessitates open-source-style collaboration) goes against the
       | centralizing power of empires.
       | 
       | thus, the economic incentives (softly but relentlessly) lead us
       | all into a situation of increasing complexity (google-scale
       | practices for all) which make for ever more complicated software.
       | combined with a lack of incentives towards simplifying this
       | complexity (which is very difficult) lands us in a situation in
       | which software only gets more complex requiring ever larger
       | groups of engineers to be able to handle them. this also happens
       | to law practice, specially in common law systems. /rant-off
        
         | andrewjl wrote:
         | What is an example of something that, in your view, would
         | simplify this complexity?
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | That's because your art has to be significantly better than my
       | friend's art to be worth my time. One's child's scribble > one's
       | friend's Instagram story > a blockbuster > art from arbitrary
       | stranger.
       | 
       | Social proximity and art skill are both valuable to me. In the
       | past, because of the inability to see the best in the world, we
       | settled for that valley where someone has no social proximity and
       | middling skill.
       | 
       | Now I can see high fidelity zero proximity high skill whenever I
       | want and I can see high proximity low skill whenever I want. The
       | middling valley is no longer useful to me.
       | 
       | Be awesome or be close. You're competing with Kanye and the
       | people I love most.
        
       | king_magic wrote:
       | Maybe it has something to do with the limited commercial and/or
       | artistic value these interactive design studios bring to the
       | world? The examples in this article all pretty much look like
       | college students' mediocre digital art projects.
       | 
       | Cute and all, but I look at these and think... _" who really
       | cares enough to pay what you likely charge for these?"_
        
         | skrebbel wrote:
         | I don't know, one of their projects got over 1000 upvotes on HN
         | yesterday. If you feel like that's a mediocre student art
         | project then fine but seems to me that not everybody shares
         | your taste and judgment.
         | 
         | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26518290)
        
           | king_magic wrote:
           | Yeah I mean, look, I saw that. I don't think it's
           | particularly clever or interesting. As a programming project,
           | I'd consider it mediocre at best. As an art project? More
           | like a joke - at best. But to each their own, I guess?
        
       | williesleg wrote:
       | I don't understand why disney has no graffiti or homeless in any
       | of their movies. They're not real.
        
       | chrisseaton wrote:
       | The title and article use the word 'studio' about ten times
       | before explaining what they mean by it - 'an interactive design
       | studio' - so the kind of studio where people are doing
       | interactive art.
        
         | cecja wrote:
         | Motion Graphics, Animation, Advertising. In the last ten years
         | a lot of small studios popped up because the technology and
         | gear was getting cheaper and cheaper. Now most of the smaller
         | studios can do a lot of grunt work or advertising but are not
         | getting invites on bidings on "real" vfx work because the new
         | technologies got expensive again... it's basically a cycle that
         | follows an diffusion curve.
        
       | intrasight wrote:
       | Should be re-titled "It's getting harder for artists to compete
       | with TikTok for user attention". That is if you even want to have
       | "harder" in the title since that concept was just mentioned in
       | one sentence in a long article.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | qrbLPHiKpiux wrote:
       | > We use cookies on It's Nice That to analyse and measure
       | activity across the website, provide content from third parties
       | and assist with our marketing efforts. Please be aware that your
       | experience may be disrupted until you accept cookies.
       | 
       | WHY!!! ???
        
         | faeyanpiraat wrote:
         | To make you and me bounce instantly, thats why!
        
         | iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
         | Additionally, their cookie consent is straight out of that
         | caricature that was posted on HN yesterday. After deselecting
         | all the ways they want to track you, the default choice at the
         | bottom is "allow all cookies". This kind of scummy behavior
         | needs to stop.
        
         | greggyb wrote:
         | There's a check box next to the cookies. When you click it, an
         | 'X' fills the box. You could convince me that either state of
         | the box accepts cookies and the other declines.
        
         | kjakm wrote:
         | You can click 'manage settings' and disable the analytics
         | cookie (which seems to be the only one enabled be default
         | unless you click 'accept all'.
        
           | qrbLPHiKpiux wrote:
           | I didn't read it becaus of this. I didn't want to accept any
           | cookies.
        
       | kjakm wrote:
       | Sounds like they actually mean competing for people's attention
       | rather than competing on an economic level. When people are
       | essentially addicted to TikTok + Instagram they don't have time
       | to interact with the fun projects the studio creates. Interesting
       | idea. For aybody producing anything, it's almost essential these
       | days to have a presence on social media and trying to get viewers
       | off the social media to your website is exceedinlgly diffificult.
        
         | an_opabinia wrote:
         | Yeah, but also most people don't try anything new in their
         | lives at all ever.
         | 
         | The real next level of the expanding brain meme is, "don't make
         | things for enthusiasts, make stuff for people who try new
         | things."
        
         | nxc18 wrote:
         | To be fair, much of the content on TikTok is more creative,
         | more profound, or both. I see serious media criticism,
         | commentary on the perspective of black Americans facing the
         | threat of police brutality, lighthearted media
         | criticism/parody, music and music history analysis, behind-the-
         | scenes looks at a variety of unfamiliar professions, and so
         | much more.
         | 
         | And this studio seems to produce high-effort, low-impact
         | content pointing out that Google isn't incentivized to tell
         | children they've drawn penises or that people like popping
         | balloons.
         | 
         | The victimhood complex is a tired look, the studio should try
         | putting their content on TikTok, the artistic constraints might
         | help them be more creative and original.
        
           | devoutsalsa wrote:
           | TikTok has some great stuff. I prefer YouTube on most days,
           | which also has some great stuff.
        
         | chrisseaton wrote:
         | > the fun projects the studio creates
         | 
         | What actually are they creating?
         | 
         | I'm finding it hard to see some concrete examples. Do they mean
         | the abstract videos and Flash-style games on this page? Yeah...
         | I can see how most working people don't have time for that kind
         | of stuff. But I don't see Big Tech doing these things either so
         | where's the competition they're talking about? It's not like
         | Google have an absurdist Flash-game division do they?
        
           | spullara wrote:
           | I think the point is that all entertainment competes with all
           | other entertainment for attention. And it is a zero-sum game.
        
       | probably_bug wrote:
       | These are the guys behind https://clickclickclick.click
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-20 23:01 UTC)