This article does a really good job articulating both my frustration at certain aspects of traditional media and my optimism for its new forms.
Some key pieces:
“The problem for the RO [Read-Only] crowd is that they have it completely backwards. In the age before YouTube, Susan Boyle would have been viewed only by those who actually watched the show (just over 8 million UK viewers). It would have been a water-cooler moment, with people commenting on it. But the fact that it was posted on YouTube and went viral made it a global story, it enhanced the ratings for the show, and in general enhanced ITV’s position with advertisers. But all that the RO crowd can think of is loss revenue from those 100 million clicks.” (from TechnoLlama)
and
“The only sense of entitlement is coming from the old school players – the newspapers and the recording industry – who fail to recognize revolutionary technologies that are changing their markets, and enabling tremendous new opportunities. These old school players seem to feel entitled to their old business models, even as they fail to embrace the new opportunities and fail to provide what consumers clearly desire.”
and
“The only sense of entitlement I’m seeing…[is] in the old industries that refuse to admit that new technologies make things more efficient, and it’s in pretending that all new efficiencies must be illegal or immoral because money can no longer be made via outdated business models.”
I’m pretty sympathetic to the Read-Only guys – I was one while at Godine. But because I care about them, I want them to wake up and get with it, dammit!