When The Long Tail was published, it changed the way that people look at markets. We now know that for every mega-successful brand, there are tens of thousands of niche products appealing to small groups.
For every Radiohead, there’s a Yowie or a Shaggs.
For every Steven Colbert, there’s an Eric Andre — and for every Eric, there’s a Let’s Paint!
The same applies to other fields — McDonald’s vs. Cook Out, Fortnite/PUBG Streamers vs. Mario Bros. Streamers, you get the idea.
More Niches Over Time
It feels like we used to have way less niches. With music, the whole idea of independent “DIY” bands wasn’t a thing until the 1970s when the scenes of NYC punk (Sonic Youth) and DC punk (Black Flag / Minor Threat / etc) emerged, trailblazing independent touring paths across the country.
Nowadays, we’ve gone from a few important indie labels like Sub Pop and Dischord to an entire world of indie artists uploading their own records to Bandcamp and Soundcloud.
The same seems true with TV, right? We went from three major channels to cable to the world of YouTube. Each time, the niches are able to sustain themselves on smaller and smaller groups of people, leading to even more niches.
Now when you want to watch sports, you don’t just watch the sports network — you watch your favorite sports YouTuber who happens to also like tattoos and heavy metal, just like you. Your niche is there for the enjoying.
Will we keep going down this path? What is the next step?
Artificial Intelligence Powered Individualized Niches
Here’s a weird/scary example: AI-powered niches.
Now you don’t need a real group of people to agree with you about a common interest. You can have the computer generate it for you, artificially.
If I want to hear 20 years of evolution in the non-existent genre of Polka Death Metal, I can ask the computer to “synthesize two decades of content and culture around the hypothetical genre of PolkaDeath” — then, two seconds later, a fictionalized “DeathPolka” wiki is in front of me.
Furthermore, with futuristic technology, the computer can actually synthesize the music itself, creating a logical progression of Death Polka music over the course of 20 years. The early stuff is raw and poorly recorded, and by the end it is all intricate and conceptual, executed with skill.
If computers can do this in other areas — like generating a new 9 season sitcom to fill your craving for “more cartoons like Bojack Horseman” and so on — we could potentially each live in our own world of media, enjoying content created to exactly match our tastes.
The Only Problem
Have you ever loved a song that nobody else knew about? Something super obscure?
As time goes on, does your love for that song feel as strong as the love for a more popular group? For me, when I can’t discuss a work of art with anybody else, it is less magical after a while. Part of the fun isn’t just experiencing the work — it’s sharing that experience.
By having our own unique content designed by computers, we would lose the communal experience of art. I suspect this would be unsatisfying.
In the end, as long as there is a distinguishable difference between human and machine consciousness, I suspect that people will want man-made art. Art and the idea of “meaningfulness” are tied together — while computers still feel cold and artificial.
Even if your computer can auto-generate pleasant sounds (or harsh metal, or fat beats, etc etc) — if it’s not human, and if it lacks the narrative of a real human artist, it may not catch on.
Who knows though. It seems like humankind is always able to adapt faster and more radically to a new technology than we’d expect. I mean, we are trying to colonize mars right now.
One thing seems clear to me: We are entering a world of increasingly empowered, and often smaller, niches. Here’s hoping that this trend develops in a positive way (more independence and agency for a variety of artists), and not in a negative computers-replace-all-humans kind of way.
Disclaimer: An earlier version of this post appeared on my blog on Steemit.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://selfscroll.com/will-robots-create-our-entertainment-in-the-future/