Sterling Proffer

What artists really need, writes Amy Whitaker in Art Thinking, “is not to be paid to make the things they already know how to make, but to somehow find space inside their financials to play and take risks to develop the next thing.”

Upon reaching an equilibrium between free and paid content, creators and communities face another dilemma. Their revenue correlates directly with how much content they can produce. But reapplying that method forever would mean constantly increasing content output until every waking hour was devoted to production. Beyond sounding exhausting, studies... See more

Search engines, social networks, content platforms, publications with influence, word of mouth—none of them work unless people engage and amplify. That “amplification” looks very different from channel to channel, of course. In word of mouth, it’s literally whether someone talks or types about you. With publications, it’s whether their editor(s) ch... See more

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.