You have to hand it to writers.
First, they strike. Then, when they realize that media moguls are media moguls for a reason, they start to scheme ways of forcing media companies to the table. A general piece of advice: telling someone off and mocking them in public is actually not the best way to achieve that objective. But I digress. We’ll leave that for another day.
As time passes by, some of them get together and hatch a plan to raise money and launch a company. Great. I love that entrepreneurial side in them.
There’s only one problem:
If the status quo is that writers are enslaved to media moguls, by seeking to raise $30M means, then writers are really no more independent than before as they would overnight become enslaved to venture capitalists, institutional investors, etc. instead of being beholden to media moguls.
Now, what is worst, dealing with a VC or a media mogul? That’s for another post, on another day… but the piece of advice I have for all of these writers and companies is yes, there is a way to be successful creating good quality content for the Web (and we’re actually doing it already), but the first mistake is avoiding boneheaded moves like raising a ton of money and becoming subservient to investors who really do not have the same goals and agenda as you do.
Ultimately, I think many of these writers will lose their shirts, autonomy and control because they’ll befriend the first VC that will invest in their project. Sadly, the writers will remain at the bottom end of the pyramid. I’m not passing judgment here (I’m a writer myself in many ways). Broadly speaking though, content and eventually advertising continues to shift online, who wins the end game however probably won’t be writers, once again.
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