>He's not "a guy". He's very famous and has his own TV show that he created, starred, wrote and post-produced on his macbook.
So, "a famous guy self publishes on the internet". Does that make it MORE news-worthy? Famous guys have been self-publishing on the internet for a long-long time.
>Also, he's also selling his stuff, without a middleman, DRM-free and with a very decent price.
Like tens of thousands of other artists you mean? They even used to do this pre-internet, e.g. the music tape scene market, or the fanzine market.
I don't get what Louis CK does differently than any other. Famous and non-famous people have done exactly the same things before, from Stephen King and Radiohead to thousands of underground bands...
And if we remove the absolute "no middleman" rule (which is not exactly true in this case, he pays some service for the payment processing for example), and keep it to mean: "no media company/recording company middleman", then any of the tens of thousands of bands/artists that use a "submit to music stores/process payments" middleman TuneCore, CD Baby, etc are doing the same.
What's unique here is the whole package - the personal touch, the cheap product, the honesty and openness. I have never seen anything equivalent on any big-name person/band on the internet. If you have specific examples please share them because the Radiohead experiment was one-off and it has long since ended.
Of course small bands/artists have been doing this - they have no choice. Very few people break away from the comfort of big-business checks once they get there to try stuff on their own. You have to remember he could have lost a ton of money if the original experiment failed, but it did not because people respect it and supported it.
This is news because it proves DRM-free content at a low price can be a worthy endeavor that supports the artist directly - not because someone is selling shit on a website.
I think what batista is referring to is the amount of fanboyism on HN related to these Louis CK threads (and it shows, since his posts are turning grey).
The personal touch thing works because he is a comedian, it isn't anything new and exciting that hasn't been done before. It works for him because he is in comedy. Do you think the AWS homepage should have something like 'Yo dawg, I heard you like EC2, so get up in a m1.xlarge for only $0.08 an hour'? That doesn't work because it is a huge corporation employing thousands of people. The Louis CK site is representing one person, who is in comedy.
These endeavors work for him because he is one of the most popular standup comedians out there and is loved by everyone in the biz, so it is easy for him to go at this alone since he already has the fanbase.
I just hope that everyone isn't assuming that since Louis CK made $200k profit off of his last endeavor that they think they can demand HBO release Game of Thrones online, worldwide the same minute it airs on TV.
I personally have no particular affinity towards Louis C.K. but I can sympathize with disliking fanboyism threads on here. That being said I don't know why you attempt to equate this particular form of marketing to corporations or other non-artistic entities. It makes no sense, as you said. For artists and groups that people like, support and spend money to watch, I don't see why the mechanics of what Louis C.K. is doing wouldn't translate to success assuming a current baseline of supporters. After all if all major comedians did this then that would certainly cause a stir.
I don't believe anyone would make that correlation with shows. It does seem to support, however, that by offering such things at a low-cost (low barrier to entry) that they would tend to be just as successful as the package deals and other ways in which companies like HBO get you to buy them.
I have never seen anything equivalent on any big-name person/band on the internet. If you have specific examples please share them because the Radiohead experiment was one-off and it has long since ended.
batista already mentioned Stephen King.
It was sometime around 2000 and he decided to release a chapter at a time for free while accepting donations. He set some sort of barrier (I think it was 50%) and if the donations/downloads ratio fell below that, he'd stop publishing. After several chapters, the percentage inevitably fell under the 50% and he stopped publishing.
It was a novel (pun intended) experiment but at the time I certainly felt King was being quite antagonistic to the audience with the constant threats to cancel the experiment. And, well, I don't think the book was very good either, although it did go on to be published traditionally later on.
The idea of the e-book was very nascent at the time and there was no real understanding of what formats to use and on what devices (and e-books 10+ years ago were almost entirely for desktop use). If King did the same now using a Louis CK model, it would probably work well but.. heck, King doesn't need to try it because he's already as wealthy as any author should wish to be.
I would think that after achieving a great amount of wealth/success that these people would actually lust after the idea of breaking all requirements from the traditional publishers and work directly with their fans. Obviously need would be helpful, but I don't think need is necessary for success. Want seems to trump need in these cases - which might explain why it doesn't work quite as well for no-name bands/artists.
So, "a famous guy self publishes on the internet". Does that make it MORE news-worthy? Famous guys have been self-publishing on the internet for a long-long time.
>Also, he's also selling his stuff, without a middleman, DRM-free and with a very decent price.
Like tens of thousands of other artists you mean? They even used to do this pre-internet, e.g. the music tape scene market, or the fanzine market.
I don't get what Louis CK does differently than any other. Famous and non-famous people have done exactly the same things before, from Stephen King and Radiohead to thousands of underground bands...
And if we remove the absolute "no middleman" rule (which is not exactly true in this case, he pays some service for the payment processing for example), and keep it to mean: "no media company/recording company middleman", then any of the tens of thousands of bands/artists that use a "submit to music stores/process payments" middleman TuneCore, CD Baby, etc are doing the same.