Lifeboats

Ryan Broderick, back in August:

Really what this is all going to boil down to is intentionality. Do you want an audience that will intentionally watch your shows and actually go see your movies in theaters? Or do you want to make audiovisual stimuli that people mindlessly stare at?

And further developed a few days later:

A decade-plus of tech companies weaseling their way into entertainment — first with user-generated content, then with streaming, and now with AI — has basically bifurcated the industry. There are now two kinds of TV shows, movies, songs, and books, ones that are meant to be actively enjoyed and ones that are meant to be passively consumed. And the debate that’s going to rage across the next five years or so is about which side is more lucrative.

This assessment seems clear and correct to me, and is a useful north star for those of us invested in entertainment because we enjoy the work rather than a desire to cash out. Microdramas, despite their numbers, have failed to produce any sort of cultural moment primarily because they’re consumed passively - and as a result are uniquely vulnerable to AI automation. Amid all the uncertainty around what an economically sustainable career making entertainment might look like, it’s worth remembering that some lifeboats are leakier than others.