Youtube and the inet revolution

Yesterday I was complaining about the dismal state of affairs in the movie making industry, and today I read this essay from a huge intellectual hero of mine, Juan Cole, and a few things sort of fell into place mentally.

Really - go read the Cole piece, because it will help you frame events that will transpire over the next 30 years.

A small bit;

A grassroots communication system such as cyberspace poses a profound challenge to the forces of hierarchy and hegemony in American society. Now anyone with an internet connection and some interesting ideas can potentially get a hearing from the public.

Kos and his community, in short, are at the center of a discourse revolution. Now persons making a few tens of thousands of dollars a year can be read by hundreds of thousands of readers with no mediation from media moguls. The old joke had been that anyone can own a newspaper, it only takes a million dollars (a really old joke, since it would take much more).

The lack of choke points in cyberspace means that people like Kos can't just be fired. How then to shut them up? Why, you attempt to ruin their reputation, as a way of scaring off readers and supporters. This technique, as Billmon points out, does not usually work very well in cyberspace itself, though it can be effective if the blogger moves into a bricks and mortar institutional environment where big money and chokeholds work again. A political party is such an environment.

Okay.. guess that wasn't a small bit, but do read Cole's post.

So, what does this have to do with Youtube? Well, I've been watching some videos posted to Youtube made by - god knows who. Totally random and anonymous people. Some of these videos are better than the last Woody Allen movie I tried to sit through. The same rules about hegemony and choke points applies not only to the media, but also to music and the movie industry. We're seeing a decline in music sales, and it's become far easier for musicians to simply use the net to distribute their music. If it's good, people will listen and buy it, or go to the live shows. No more will what we get in a music store be determined by marketing thugs. Youtube is showing the same potential in video/movie entertainment. Now, a guy can make his own movie, and post it on the net. If it's good, people will watch it.

The real kicker is technology. It's easier to usurp the print media because words are cheap to make. You just type it on the keyboard. With music, the costs go up, but what might have cost a hundred grand 15 years ago in a professional studio, people can now afford to have in their own houses. Completely digital multi-track recording. It's only a matter of time that the same thing happens in digital movie making. Sure, Joe Schmoe might not be able to make Star Wars level special effects, but it won't be long before dramas and comedies are created by individuals with no big studio backing.

The same model will apply to book publishing and even art. Heck, suppose you have a completely digital canvas on your wall, and you find the perfect image on the internet that would go perfect with your furniture. Toss the artist a couple bucks, and download it into the canvas on the wall, and viola insta-decor, no big middle man markup.

At the end of all this, I see middle man industries crumbling and the emergence of brilliant talent. No more will the rich and powerful control what talent the world is exposed to. It will simply be the most creative and talented rising to the top, and the rest of us plebeians that can enjoy their work for a fraction of what it costs today.

Think of it as class warfare - brought to you by fiber optic cables. But as this is not rocket science, I'm sure the moguls see the writing on the wall. Look for them to attack the freely distributed concept of cyber-space itself. Net neutraility is just the first salvo.