The Content Democracy
The Content Democracy

Even well-meaning gatekeepers slow innovation. When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there’s no expert gatekeeper ready to say “that will never work!” And guess what – many of those improbable ideas do work, and society is the beneficiary of that diversity. - Jeff Bezos

The rise of the digital exclusive isn’t just about getting more content from existing content creators like Justin Timberlake, it has led to a massive democratization in the content economy where more people can now afford to create a real career from professional content creation by going digital. The low-cost of listing content for sale and distributing it in digital marketplaces has led to a crumbling of the model where gatekeepers in music, books curate content that they think is going to be successful. This has been replaced by self-publishing where content is listed for sale at minimal cost by the content creator themselves and is screened only for profanity and copyright infringement. Self-publishing has kick-started a whole new revolution that has begun to re-define the content economy. Online self-publishing has started to move clearly from the ameteur column (unpaid) into a new professional column where artists are rewarded handsomely for their digital work.

Apple started this tradition back in 2003 with the iTunes Store by allowing independent artists to list themselves on iTunes and receive a share of each purchase. It has continued this trend to this day, where an artist can publish to Apple’s music, movie, book stores just by creating an account with Apple. Amazon continued this tradition with the very successful Kindle Direct Publishing program and has given an audience and a career to a whole new group of authors that were previously rejected by the gatekeepers of the physical era.

“Because of Kindle Direct Publishing, I earn more royalties in one month than I ever did in a year of writing for a traditional house. I have gone from worrying about if I will be able to pay the bills – and there were many months when I couldn’t – to finally having real savings, even thinking about a vacation; something I haven’t done in years… Amazon has allowed me to really spread my wings. Prior, I was boxed into a genre, yet I had all of these other books I wanted to write. Now I can do just that. I manage my career. I feel as if I finally have a partner in Amazon. They understand this business and have changed the face of publishing for the good of the writer and the reader, putting choices back into our hands.” That’s A. K. Alexander, author of Daddy’s Home, one of the top 100 best-selling Kindle books in March.

The new digital content marketplaces is essentially user-curated. Digital billboards in the iTunes music store and Kindle Store automatically sort content by popularity/downloads and not via paid listings. This leads to further democratization where the best content is more likely to win. The feedback loop between the content consumer and creator is much tighter without un-elected representatives (gatekeepers) deciding what content should and shouldn’t get published. This is the promise of the content democracy.

Self-Funding
The cost of building a technology startup has dropped steeply over the last decade with the introduction of services like Amazon’s AWS, and Google’s AppEngine. It is cheaper than ever to create software and distribute it and this has led to what can only be described as the cambrian explosion of technology startups over the last decade. A similar thing is happening in the world of content. It is cheaper than ever to be a content producer. The ever decreasing costs of professional content production hardware , software and content distribution are allowing more people to go independent and to self-fund the content they want to create and distribute.

Consumer-Funding
Content creators have always had to take a leap of faith when pouring days, months, even years in producing content that they don’t know is going to be market-accepted. Wouldn’t it be great to not have to go through that emotional struggle? To know before the content is fully made, whether people would be willing to pay to read, watch or listen to the content you are creating. This is the promise of services like services like Indiegogo and Kickstarter that allow you to reach out to your current and future fans to commit the financing necessary to create and publish the content in exchange for a “preview” and publisher credits. While this is in the nascent stage, it is provoking to think about the possibility that stars like Justin Bieber could bypass record-labels when producing his next music video and go directly to the fans instead.

Content Democracy comes in two halves. Part one is to broaden the franchise of content creation and make it possible for more people to participate. The rise of digital content distribution and digital content consumption has done exactly this. Part two is to perfect the democracy by eliminating the dependence on intermediaries. The self-reliance championed by consumer-funded initiatives allow us to fund content that is out of reach of unelected representatives like record companies. The content democracy grows more perfect everyday.