The Lack Of A ‘Golden Ticket’ Business Model Doesn’t Mean You Give Up And Go Home http://bit.ly/axLkMF
Kara Swisher goes to meet with Hollywood Executives who are all looking for a Golden Ticket (Willy Wonka reference) so that they can charge the same monopoly rents they did when they (used to be) a monopoly.
Michael Masnick deconstructs Swisher’s reporting and parses it for us. This is a worthwhile read, even if a little long.
From music to movies to television, the biggest minds here still sound perplexed as to what will finally be the golden ticket to carry them through to the inevitable next era of digital distribution.
That single sentence basically describes the problem. These guys are sitting back and waiting for someone to hand them a golden ticket that replicates the old ways of doing things. That’s not how it works. No one gave the buggy whip makers a golden ticket that let them keep their old lines of business going.
The unnamed executives even ask why the customer always gets to be right. Yep, that’s how far removed they are from any sense of commercial reality. The customer is always right because there’s always someone else that will meet the customer need if you don’t. (Where is my “any program, any time, any device for a fair price” service again? There’s a customer demand for it but the old guard won’t deliver.)
Final words:
The role of the disruptor is not to make life easy for the disrupted. Swisher and these execs seem to be confusing the role of certain folks in the legacy industry with the overall entertainment industry itself. As noted, the entertainment industry is thriving. More movies, music and books are being created. More money is being spent. It’s just that it’s going to different players. There’s no reason to “figure out a way to keep talent from being dragged into the future.” The opportunities and wide open path are there. The problem isn’t that tech leaders haven’t made it easy for them. They have. It’s that these guys are so myopically focused on the way they used to make money they don’t realize that the new opportunities are already there and have been embraced widely by others.