Comment by tivert
14 days ago
> Sounds a bit pessimistic.
And legitimately so.
> It has never been that easy to create music, videogames, produce videos, comics, and distribute them. Nowadays basically anyone can do it, so the amount of content available is gigantic.
And they all compete in one giant global marketplace, which often undermines the viability of "local productions."
There's probably some counter-intuitive principle that infinite choice has a homogenizing effect. It's probably because people generally lazy, but historically have lived in environments with more barriers to that laziness that kept it in check (e.g. no one's becoming a solo game playing hikikomori in 1800, because they'd quickly become bored out of their minds). In the past local culture was unavoidable and required no special effort, because of travel and communication barriers. How the travel and communication barriers are gone, which means local culture requires special effort to maintain, and the lazy will hook into the homogenized culture that requires less effort.
> On top of that there are still countless communities, free or any monetized algorithms, thanks to forums and things like discord.
IIRC, forums have been dying off for a decade or more.
I have this occasional daydream of two internets, one global (the one we all know and love), and one local, where you can only see content from within a 10 mile radius.
Like local and long-distance phone calls
> no one's becoming a solo game playing hikikomori in 1800
John Bentinck, fifth Duke of Portland? He had England's biggest ballroom built, and a billiard room with multiple billiard tables, but never threw a party, hated meeting people, and lived underground. He had all the above ground rooms in Welbeck Abbey painted bright pink, with a toilet in the corner of each one. Any workman who acknowledged he existed was dismissed.
> IIRC, forums have been dying off for a decade or more.
And they'll keep "dying off" for many more decades.