Pop culture has become an oligopoly
The pop <i>music</i> industry has seen at least three disruptions to its controlling gatekeepers since the 1950s (1956-60, ~2000 with Napster, and presently with Spotify and YouTube), but each time a dominant hegenomy re-emerges. I doubt this time will be different, though the brief renaissance will doubtless be appreciated.<p>Charles Perrow wrote of this in the mid-1980s:<p><i>After the critical period from about 1956 to 1960, when tastes were unfrozen, competition was intense, and demand soared, consolidation appeared. The number of firms stabilized at about forty. New corporate entries appeared, such as MGM and Warner Brothers, sensing, one supposes, the opportunity that vastly expanding sales indicated. Some independents grew large. The eight-firm concentration ratio also stabilized (though not yet the four-firm ratio). The market became sluggish, however, as the early stars died, were forced into retirement because of legal problems, or in the notable case of Elvis Presley, were drafted by an impinging environment. Near the end of this period the majors decided that the new sounds were not a fad and began to buy up the contracts of established artists and successfully picked and promoted new ones, notably The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. A new generation (e.g., The Beatles) appeared from 1964 to 1969, and sales again soared.(<p></i>But now the concentration ratios soared also. From 1962 to 1973, the four-firm ratio went from 25 to 51 percent; the eight-firm ratio from 46 to 81 percent, almost back to the pre-1955 levels. The number of different firms having hits declined from forty-six to only sixteen. Six of the eight giants were diversified conglomerates, some of which led in the earlier period; one was a new independent, the other a product of of mergers.*<p><i>How did they do it? The major companies asserted “increasing central control over the creative process”[352] through deliberate creation and extensive promotion of new groups, long-range contracts for groups, and reduced autonomy for producers. In addition, legal and illegal promotion costs (drug payola to disc jockeys, for example) rose in the competitive race and now exceeded the resources of small independents. Finally, the majors “have also moved to regain a controlling position in record distribution by buying chains of retail stores.”[353] The diversity is still greater than it had been in the past, and may remain high, but it is ominous that the majors have all the segments covered. As an executive said, “Columbia Records will have a major entry into whatever new area is broached by the vagaries of public tastes.” But for a concentrated industry, the “vagaries of public tastes” are not economical; it is preferable to stabilize and consolidate them. This would be possible through further control over the creative process and marketing.</i><p>Charles Perrow, <i>Complex organizations : a critical essay</i>, 1972, 1985. pp. 186--187.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;complex-organizations-a-critical-essay&#x2F;oclc&#x2F;970445475&amp;referer=brief_results" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.worldcat.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;complex-organizations-a-criti...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;search.php?query=Complex+organizations+:+a+critical+essay+Charles+Perrow" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;search.php?query=Complex+organizations+:...</a><p>The dynamics, actors, and economics remind me strongly of the software &#x2F; high-tech industry, though with much weaker coupling and different lock-in mechanics.<p>I&#x27;ve just been having a conversation with a friend who points out a quote from Herbert Simon (polymath economist, psychologist, mathemetician, artificial intelligence pioneer, and more):<p><i>“in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”</i><p>My friend&#x27;s observation:<p><i>[I&#x27;m thinking about how the] boom&#x2F;bust cycles of the 1800s were caused by land value boom&#x2F;bust cycles and how inflation is too many quatloos chasing a finite supply of dinguses…now wondering if there is a corollary of this in attention, as a finite amount of attention is chased by an expanding supply of &quot;content.&quot; Gresham&#x27;s Law comes into play on the quality but what to do about the quantity of media available in the same fixed 86,400 seconds per day? </i><p>My response in part:<p>1. This is what the limbic &#x2F; emotional system seems to have evolved around. That itself is in major part common at least amongst all mammals, and other life forms --- birds and reptiles show at least fear&#x2F;anger responses, and for birds affection.<p>2. I&#x27;ve argued that in a world where there&#x27;s an overload of information, _cheap and no-regret information discarding_ is an essential property. Some time after concluding that, a podcast guest mentioned the idea that random sampling in statistical methodology is less about choosing what to _include_ as what to _exclude_, which ... seems to follow a parallel path. Random selection isn&#x27;t a bad option, and is at least unbiased. Stratified sampling may give more appropriate focus to more probabalistically relevant information. I&#x27;m thinking here of the eye and both its various regions of sensitivity, as well as its ability to shift focus rapidly. The sense of touch and its varying sensitivity across the body --- highest on hands (especially fingers), feet, lips, tongue, and genitals is another. Audio perception is far less focused, by contrast.<p>3. One of the useful elements of economics is that it gives a framework for considering behaviours under shifting costs. So with information -&gt; abundant &amp; attention -&gt; scarce, we&#x27;re shifting the relative costs of information (or perhaps better, &quot;distraction&quot;, or &quot;stimuli&quot;), and attention. There&#x27;s the additional factor that _value of stimuli is difficult (costly) to assess._<p>- Traditionally, trust, and specifically _institutional reputational trust_ was a key factor. That gives a long-term, slow-moving value which can be assessed. It does of course have and introduce its own problems, but at least reduces the transactional costs of information assessment.<p>- Shifts to biases and tribalistic behaviour are probable.<p>- Similarly, &quot;shoot the messenger&quot;, which seems to become more prevalent in high-stimulus environments. (Messengers may themselve often be direc threats, as with disease vectors, say.)<p>- Structural and process reforms. Highly-structured information _at the very least_ reduces the processing costs and&#x2F;or increases the complexity of information which can be conveyed for any given cost.<p>- Attention may shift to better-regulated platforms or sources. There are information streams we don&#x27;t follow biologically for their lack of signal &#x2F; excess of noise, and&#x2F;or energetic costs of filtering. That may be entire channels, or selecting bandwidth within channels.<p>As Adam Mastroianni notes, there are other patterns to how the industry responds:<p>- Serials (television) and sequels &#x2F; cinematic universes become preferred over original works.  Audiences can re-attach to familiar characters and landscapes, in which a new (though predictable) narrative develops.<p>- &quot;Brand familiarity&quot; follows similar trends, particularly with publishing.  For a time this played out through serial publication --- books were produced, and financed, by publishing chapters individually through magazines.  Many of those magazines themselves grew with the birth of mechanised transportation, mass production, and the need for advertising-driven marketing which the magazines supplied, <i>while also</i> serving as advertisements for their own product:  books.  Many of the magazines were organs of book publishers.  See Hamilton Holt&#x27;s excellent <i>Commercialism and Journalism</i> (1909) for background on the origins of the magazine publishing industry: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;commercialismjou00holtuoft" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;commercialismjou00holtuoft</a><p>- Marshall Poe, founder and editor of the New Books Network podcast has spoken of how books, especially academic monographs, are a difficult product to crack and market.  In particular, &quot;people don&#x27;t like to read very much&quot;.  His podcast&#x27;s long-form interviews with authors provide both a shorter entry point:  an hour or so, perhaps experienced during a commute or household chores; and a different format, audio rather than written content, far easier for most people to process.  Poe&#x27;s comments should be in this interview, on his own network.  <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newbooksnetwork.com&#x2F;marshall-poe" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;newbooksnetwork.com&#x2F;marshall-poe</a><p>On the &quot;not liking to read&quot; bit, my suspicion is that highly literate people strongly overestimate population average literacy, and the rate of low or no literacy, even in advanced countries: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nces.ed.gov&#x2F;pubs2019&#x2F;2019179&#x2F;index.asp" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nces.ed.gov&#x2F;pubs2019&#x2F;2019179&#x2F;index.asp</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=29734146" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=29734146</a><p>The &quot;content problem&quot; has several legs:  creation, production, curation, marketing, and distribution.  Where costs of creation, production, and distribution fall (as they have), costs of curation (whether centralised or distributed) and marketing increase.  We&#x27;re seeing a shift in just that direction.