I mean, it is the fundamental problem of art/science/knowledge.
It costs money/stability to create. That money often comes from either the wealthy or the state.The wealthy CAN be good but means you are catering to a specific audience and the problems can range from “We aren’t going to talk about the BDS movement because our fans like xboxes” to “We aren’t going to talk about the multiple wars and genocides facebook have supported because zuckface pays for our electricity”.
As for the state? Under a just government, that is awesome. Moving on.
As for us individually? Probably the biggest thing we, as individuals, can do is to actually permit-list websites that we like/trust on the adblocker. Ads are a genuinely awesome way to generate “passive” income which goes a long way towards keeping said lights on.
But also? If you have the cash, consider actually subscribing to news/media outlets you like. Get a newspaper subscription. Look at the independent media outlets and pay for a month or three every so often. Because the broader the subscriber/patron base, the less temptation/need there is to cater to the whales.
This. There are a lot of plays I’ve seen recordings of where all I can think at the end is “I wonder how different it would be if their target demo wasn’t the upper middle class?” I remain convinced that if “Rent” wasn’t geared towards that demo Mimi would not have lived, for instance.
We can say “Do what you want, your audience will follow” all we want, but while some forms of art do well as passion projects (not to say you shouldn’t pay your artists, you should, but not the point), journalism is not. It takes a lot of consistent time focussing on it, and you can’t do that on your nights, and weekends off.
I mean, it is the fundamental problem of art/science/knowledge.
It costs money/stability to create. That money often comes from either the wealthy or the state.The wealthy CAN be good but means you are catering to a specific audience and the problems can range from “We aren’t going to talk about the BDS movement because our fans like xboxes” to “We aren’t going to talk about the multiple wars and genocides facebook have supported because zuckface pays for our electricity”.
As for the state? Under a just government, that is awesome. Moving on.
As for us individually? Probably the biggest thing we, as individuals, can do is to actually permit-list websites that we like/trust on the adblocker. Ads are a genuinely awesome way to generate “passive” income which goes a long way towards keeping said lights on.
But also? If you have the cash, consider actually subscribing to news/media outlets you like. Get a newspaper subscription. Look at the independent media outlets and pay for a month or three every so often. Because the broader the subscriber/patron base, the less temptation/need there is to cater to the whales.
This. There are a lot of plays I’ve seen recordings of where all I can think at the end is “I wonder how different it would be if their target demo wasn’t the upper middle class?” I remain convinced that if “Rent” wasn’t geared towards that demo Mimi would not have lived, for instance.
We can say “Do what you want, your audience will follow” all we want, but while some forms of art do well as passion projects (not to say you shouldn’t pay your artists, you should, but not the point), journalism is not. It takes a lot of consistent time focussing on it, and you can’t do that on your nights, and weekends off.