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athelindThe frightening side of change: why syndicates don't like Scott Kurtz and Keen
Last week, The Websnark had a lot of intersting things to say about the nattering and grommishing of syndicated cartoonists about various webcomics making inroads into the newspapers without going through the syndicates.
Replace "newspaper syndicate" with "record label", or replace "web comics" with "open-source software", or perform any number of substitutions. This is a microcosm. The established interests see the Internet, the Web and Digital Media as a threat to The Way They Do Things. And they're right. The Second-Wave Economy is centered around middlemen and distributors. Technologies that allow creators to reach their market efficiently are indeed a threat to those who rely on inefficiency to rake in profits.
Last week, The Websnark had a lot of intersting things to say about the nattering and grommishing of syndicated cartoonists about various webcomics making inroads into the newspapers without going through the syndicates.
Replace "newspaper syndicate" with "record label", or replace "web comics" with "open-source software", or perform any number of substitutions. This is a microcosm. The established interests see the Internet, the Web and Digital Media as a threat to The Way They Do Things. And they're right. The Second-Wave Economy is centered around middlemen and distributors. Technologies that allow creators to reach their market efficiently are indeed a threat to those who rely on inefficiency to rake in profits.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 11:57 am (UTC)talented putz, but still a putz.
(one dragon's opinion, ymmv)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 12:31 pm (UTC)I dropped his strip after the plagiarism debacle a few years ago. By all accounts, he never apologized to anyone.
And by all accounts, he just gets putzier.
Still, the Keen guys are by and large decent folks, trying something gutsy.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-03 02:02 pm (UTC)Yes, the keen guys are very cool with what they're trying.