Once upon a time, some years ago (10 roughly) I was asked to make some short videos that were designed to start debates amongst students at a University in California. There were, surprisingly, no complaints about my accent. One of these dealt with the "information highway" with some analogies about little cars and the distraction caused by social banter.

I had presumed that this online banter would eventually take over from more qualified discussion and distract from the attention that should be paid to more valued cultural pursuits. This would then, I presumed, lead to a lack of sufficient measurable interest in "high culture". This would have the consequence eventually of a difficulty justifying investment, for example, in the Arts.

After all, what is the point of spending on culture when not so many people seem to value it. It is a typically "bean-counter" attitude to culture that is so annoying to argue against.

The video is here (but the above basically explains it).



The whole online defence of culture, or more accurately the justification of the expense of cultural preservation has indeed become a real mess in so many areas. The cuts in grants necessary to just preserve materials, should future generations eventually see how they should benefit from the experience of past creations, has led to a fight for even a small percentage of what is necessary to do the job well. It becomes easier to just knock something down after it has been neglected to a point of disrepair as the ability of people to be actually heard over the incessant din of fake-news and trivial content leads to a non-caring "it will pass" mentality.

In any case, now to the Piggy-Back Business Plans that are not totally unrelated to the above. They too are a symptom of the business habits of modern society.

Here is an example: The supermarket is a warehouse of goods where the customer has been fooled into giving up the notion of good personal service like it was in the old days. This has been under the pretence of cheaper products and efficiency of service. The last generation to remember the old shops passes and nobody these days objects to be used as warehouse pickers. They simply don't remember the shops that had personal advice and provision of quality products.

Manufacturers had a hard job when introducing products to the marketplace. They would have to explain and show and guarantee and advertise. Viral marketing didn't exist. Not wanting right now to go into the difficulties of presenting innovation to an unaware market, I just want to note that supermarkets manage to bypass many of these costly necessities as they only very rarely do anything but represent already established and known products.

You can't just invent scouring-powder and deliver it cheaply. It needs branding and a the building of customer trust and respect and someone has to show the customers that it isn't something you put on top of cakes. It costs money to do this.

The supermarkets however, take respected brands and put them on the shelves to be recognised by customers and picked and paid for, and at a discounted price. This lasts well, for a while.

Should a specific product show continued sales and demand, it becomes a target for copying.

The supermarket will take the investment in the established brand to attract the customers and sneak a similar product of their own branding onto the shelf next to it. It may be in similar packaging, just with a different label.

Take scouring-powder as an example - one day there is only "VAMAJIX" on the shelf, and then, after a few months, an own brand "ALDL's OWN" cheapr and cheerful. Outselling the known brand like the cuckoo, it is for a while a seemingly good deal. Eventually it finally kicks the legacy product totally off the shelf. Subsequent competition-free incarnations can be even more inferior, in smaller packages and with bigger profit margins. It has unfairly benefitted from the popularity and good work done by the original product and, nobody cares. Supermarkets are where brands go to die.

So, where does this rather far-fetched analogy touch the entertainment industry?

Streaming services that charge subscriptions do so having planted as bait wonderful amounts of branded quality product on the screen-shelves in order to attract subscribers. Sooner or later it is gradually (or rather suddenly) replaced by varying quality own brand productions. Some superb, some less so. You can't find the Oscar™ winners amongst the growing mass of better or less-good productions that are made specifically for the captive audiences of the streaming platforms. The cuckoo products have the subscribers hooked.

It will be interesting to see where this ends up.

Whether the piggy-backing on bait quality product becomes seen as immoral? I doubt it. Whether Hollywood production values will disappear just like the manufacturer of a "VAMAJIX" as they can no longer compete with the amazing amounts of financing available for the newer formats.

So, there is the analogy : Streaming Services as the supermarkets of the online content providers? Are they not the place where movies go to be crowded out by "content".

The real observation is that all of the new services are successful only through having piggy-backed off an at one time established and replaceable format. These business plans offer "Product B" as a better and more profitable "Product A". "B" can however only exist because of the education spend and market preparation of "A".

What is disappearing is the incentive to develop new products! Many innovative companies have to fail. They know they can only start small and they see that they have the additional overhead of education and marketing. The larger corporations, the cuckoos and vultures, wait for them to spend and educate before stepping into an established market.



©2019 Anthony G Morris - which, these days, is a statement of futility in itself :-)