They Won’t Get Fooled Again! Or Will They?

How The Tech Bros have consistently tricked The Studios

We are now witnessing the fourth time that the tech companies have hoodwinked the traditional media companies. Will they ever learn?

The first time was a stealth operation. The tech companies let the traditional studios believe they controlled everything needed to stay in power. Since The Studios were not permitted to own the creators of culture – the artists who created both the product and the value --- they thought they just needed to control the capital and means of distribution.  But they completely misunderstood what capital and distribution was. The Tech Bros lapped them over and over in capital until they could (and have now started to) buy The Studios outright. And when it came to distribution, The Studios were still thinking the old way and didn’t see the Tech Bros had tunneled into everyone’s home positioning them to move the movies from the theatres and putting them primarily on the TV set.

The second time was a sleight of hand manipulation. The Tech Bros made The Studios believe streaming was just a new revenue stream when it really was about stalling The Studios until they could never catch up to their devious plan. Movies and series were the gateway drug that enabled the Tech Bros to own the true golden goose – the one that The Studios somehow overlooked. The Tech Bros licensed until they could build their own widget operation. They knew the real treasure was to be found in the direct relationship with the customer, the one that exposed their emotional responses provided they had the key – and that was content, what we once called movies and series. The tech companies used the entertainment business to facilitate the data mining, behavior modification, and preference tuning that is our new reality.  Marrying entertainment with the internet allows the harvesting and manipulation of our tastes and preferences. We are trained to like what we get and learn to stop trying to get what we once liked. Once the Tech Bros had that under control, they could get The Studios to agree to virtually anything. And they did.

The Tech Companies third victory over The Studios was convincing them that the full-on pivot to streaming made sense – even though it was only a partially thought-out plan for any of them. The audience acquisition business is based on delivering a cadence of product at a consistent quality in an environment people trust, and that ain’t cheap. The Tech Bros got Wall St and the banks to fund the boondoggle on bundles of cheap money and soon everyone’s pockets were full; so what if they destroyed a wonderful thing in the process? When you consider how their friends engineered the destruction of the planet and the systemic oppression and outright denial of equal rights for large groups of people, who is going to care much about the dismantling of the entertainment industry anyways?

When are they going to learn? This fourth time is where we are now.  The tech companies have tricked their friends at the studios is something other than it truly is. But it is a cloud that cloaks a fog.  First off, it is not a strike that is going on or that is to blame for anything. The strike is but a result of the AMPTC’s manipulation of power. I won’t call them “producers” and neither should anyone else. There was no choice. Labor had to strike because the AMPTC offered them no choice. Labor is not to blame for all the lost jobs or money. The AMPTC is. This is about the AMPTC’s devastating display of greed and overreach. They try to trick us all into thinking the difficult position we find ourselves in is the result of a labor action, but is truly a manipulation of power.  They are trying to fool us, but they are also fooling each other.

The AMPTC is made up of two sides who should be enemies. How much more are The Studios going to take? Shouldn’t three strikes mean you are out and not going to play on the same team anymore? How many times will The Olds be fooled by The Newbies? The Tech Bros have tricked The Studios now for fourth time. The Studios have been tricked into