The State of the Culture (2023)
But what we really need is a robust indie environment—in which many arts and culture businesses flourish and present their diverse offerings.
I posted this on Mastodon because my commentary is only toot-length, but:
The above article contains great sentiment, but we’ve been saying this, in almost exactly the same way, since at least 2001.
I went hunting through my blog for all the posts I’ve made basically saying the same thing. After all, I founded Integration Research in 2003 to explore these very same concepts. I couldn’t find a specific post that said the exact same thing, because it is one of the constant themes of this entire blog. For example this 2016 post describing what we were working on in 2003:
Technology tools for creatives are more numerous than they have ever been, and show no signs of suffering a reduction in demand. While digital distribution has disrupted the cultural economy, independent artists have embraced the web and leveraged every tool at their disposal to great effect; even many who were not groomed within the “old” system have been able to expand their audience towards a more economically sustainable ends. And new platforms have emerged: YouTube is the dominant cultural platform of the present day. Leanpub and similar online publishing tools are better than anything I ever dreamed up.