1k True Fans? Try 100 (2020)
Immanuel Kant once formulated the categorical imperative … something is moral if it can work universally and be sustainable.<p>How about economically? Is it sustainable to have every artist supported by 100 true fans? Maybe. It means enough people have disposable income to spend $1000 a year on something, and that every artist finds a niche. Those artists who already got 100 fans would drop out of the marketplace, leaving the others until everyone found a dance partner (like with dating).<p>Viewed more broadly, though, this would go heavily against the Pareto principle, where some artists simply achieve escape velocity and get to a different level because they never leave the market, while most artists do not produce anything that people would really pay to consume, even if they discovered it over and over. It is like polygamy starving many young men of mates, and polygamy goes hand in hand with war.<p>I think a much more sustainable model is a UBI that isn’t truly “unconditional” but a gated community where successful artists and their patrons voluntarily agree to redistribute some wealth to new artists that keep showing progress in their craft. Crypto can be done to redistribute this wealth.<p>But that would mean there would be quotas on who can join as a new struggling artist and get the UBI subsidy, since it’s free money for any scammer, especially globally it could pay for a lot more where cost of living is small. People would try to make 10 accounts.<p>It is essentially voluntary socialism online. And one major problem with libertarian socialism and why it can’t solve poverty is that people don’t want to let in too many others into their subsidy program that pays non-market rates for what could be art no one wants. So yes the workers own the factory collectively and work 2 hour days but they do hazing for new people. That’s what countries do with immigration and fraternities do on college campuses.