I’ll start out with the quote from Fred Wilson [AVC] who states quite simply what I believe is key to what Louis CK’s success in his experiment but I take it one step further:
“Some will say that Louis can do this because he is a star. That is true. And I sure hope other stars will follow his lead and go direct to their fans. They can also go direct to their fans and raise the upfront production costs on Kickstarter. They can use any number of internet services to process the payments (paypal), host the video (vimeo), and get distribution (twitter). This is not that hard.”
Now, Wilson is accurate with this statement. I believe that stardom alone isn’t going to make a work product successful. Here are some things you’ll see on the AVC post that were also fundamental to the success. Louis CK appears to be humble about his cost/benefit analysis and his opportunity cost regarding the production of the experiment.
A couple hundred thousand dollars were spent in creating this, the site, etc. Very difficult to justify until something is reached…
Critical Mass : The minimum amount of fissile material needed to maintain a nuclear chain reaction.
There is a video of what it takes to create a movement. It is a TED talk and is pretty famous for its brevity, humor and profound embodiment of exactly what happens when like minded people form around a single firebrand. Here is a link to the TEDtalk [Link]. This critical mass is the key to creating a movement. They are one in the same really. The key is both is the ignition point, the firebrand, the trend setter.
Another instance of the Anti-DRM, Low Cost, “Experiment” was Minecraft which became a multimillion dollar success because of dyed in the wool fans who fell in love with the 8-bit experience. Probably because they didn’t live through it. Besides that, sites rallied the platform. Sites like Reddit.com were abuzz with news about Minecraft and eventually it did something that all companies seemingly do. They became “real” and started charging real money for marginal benefit (at least in my opinion, but I hardly am a fanatic about anything). Now it is on the iOS, Android and I believe Xbox platforms. But keep in mind, it had a window of opportunity and was ready for it, the people who loved it were vocal and a movement formed. Who the actual firebrand was that started the trend towards making Mojang a success; I don’t know.
Another instance is the Coldplay Pay-What-You-Want model. This too is a critical mass flashpoint of success. Just like Louis CK, the success comes from god-knows how many hours of work done by the artists themselves and perceived to be a success because accounting for their time isn’t really a factor. They did it for the love of the music and the experiment. Others have done the same thing, but I can’t remember them all right now. Nine Inch Nails is probably the next most notable. But this came from years of working within the system, banging their head against the frustration of such and then after reaching critical mass and having the full ability to make such a risk possible; they do it and suddenly people grab hold of this and think…
See… Louis CK [probably the hottest comedian going right now], and Minecraft [a flash mob of online zealotry brought this success], and Coldplay [after years of making standard industry moves] and Nine Inch Nails [ditto]… did it, which means the whole damn system should pivot and follow suit.
I agree. But only because I think DRM is the bane of law abiding consumers and it makes life more difficult for us while doing nothing to prevent “them” [the evil pirates] from doing what they do. I think pirating is stealing, you won’t find a pirate that says otherwise unless they are simply in denial. The cost of these products is too-damn-high because there are so many steps between creator and consumer. The fact remains though, the people who have made these amazing successes are not the typical content creators. Stepping back, you’ll see that everything gets pirated by someone unless its my article here on my site.
Because of protectionism versus the pirates, consumers have to sit through copyright notices and advertisements for other things we already saw in the store as we were picking up the Blu-Ray we purchased. Over the last 20 years, consumers have had their hands slowly tied behind their backs. We can no longer return movies, music or electronics because the stores won’t allow it for anything other than store credit (at a 15% loss) and we can’t try them out because of various reasons [I don't want to put public consumption headphones on my head, they don't have the electronic device I want to try out set up in the store, they wont play the movie and let me sit in the theater in BestBuy for 3 hours while I watch Lord of the Rings].
Anyway, these various examples are the exception, not the rule and shouldn’t be used as the measuring stick. Only those who have reached critical mass and as such have reached stardom will benefit from such displays. Those who do similar within a reasonable amount of time can gain from a halo effect… after that, poof. The smoke and mirrors disappear and reality again takes over.
In the end, removing all of the intermediate steps between consumer and creator will lead to the talented rising to the top without the help of big time marketing, labels, etc. Talent will have to get better as technology is no longer limited to the wealthy labels and legal machines that feed us content now. We are living in interesting times. I think it’s time for the talent to be rewarded for their talent. Good luck to the next person who takes a leap and experiments.