[ExI] John's Idea

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] John's Idea

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 7:46 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:


>>... Think about the most spectacular event you personally witnessed in 
> your life... the kinds 
> of stuff that is popular on YouTube, getting enough hits to make money at it.
> I am asking for a reason.  I think the answers will be informative.

>...Hard to pick just one, but perhaps that time I watched a building burning for a while before the fire department arrived.  Would it draw eyes?  You betcha...


Cool the few responses were what I expected: crashes and fires.  In the case of a car crash, the video is valuable because it helps determine who is at fault.  Crime videos, same, helps bag the perps, or provides valuable court evidence.  In the case of fires: burly young firefighter is first on the scene, bashes down the door, emerges with unconscious mother over the shoulder and a coupla babies in the other arm, resuscitation, everyone is fine, bystanders break into applause; hell we all want to see stuff like that, no need to apologize for it.  Wildlife videos are good, but not as valuable; most people don't care all that much about wildlife, even if something educational, rare or wacky happens.

My own spectacular event was a fire.  Riding motorcycle eastbound on Interstate 10 in Arizona, saw huge billowing cloud of black smoke waaaay the hell out in the distance.  As it came closer I realized it was an 18 wheeler on fire, still rolling.  I pulled over, trucker realized his load was burning, he pulled over on the other side, jumped out of his truck just as the fire burned through and huge fireball emerged from his trailer.  He tried to unhitch, but there was already a lot of heat coming off the load.  I was thinking "Jump back in there trucker!"  As if he read my mind, he came to the same conclusion: his trailer and load were already a total loss but his quarter million dollar truck hadn't burned up yet, so he jumped back in and took off down the road with the load burning like a Roman candle, dropping flaming debris along the freeway.  Spectacular?  Bet yer ass.

Had I video recorded that, it would still be the trucker who lost his load and trailer, and possibly his truck, and it would still be me who benefitted from recording the unusual spectacular event.

This all goes back to impacted industries.  Talented porno stars can't make it for having to compete with millions of amateurs who give away their product.  At one time attractive women were paid to pose nude.  Now the pay went to not just zero, it went negative: someone has to pay for the guy running the camera, to create a product with no market value.  You would almost think you could get enough volunteer labor to run those cameras.  Rock stars must compete with free.  Programmers, writers, artists, actors, content providers of all kinds are competing with free, much of it remarkably stiff competition.  Understatment, a lot of free content is better than marketed IP.  

This is the kind of thing I am thinking about when John talks about masses of bitter unemployed.  It isn't future, it is already.

spike