this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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The solution is not one many people want to hear: reduce production costs.
Content is expensive to make mostly because the people making it keep demanding more pay for less work. While it is understandable that people want this, this is not sustainable for an economy. When the economy fails, prices go up. Demanding employers pay more will immediately raise prices the same amount the wages increase, effectively leaving employees who got a raise in the same place they were before but eith bigger numbers, and severely damaging the economy at the same time.
A show can be produced on a shoestring budget. Yes, the quality is lower than a million dollar movie. However, that doesn't make the show bad. The X-Files was a great show produced on a tiny budget in its first season with phenomenal writing. Yet in the final season, it had a bigger budget but the writing was awful. In fact, most shows these days have awful writing. And the writers of these shows with bad writing are demanding more pay, yet their writing quality does not indicate they deserve increased pay. Certainly if a writer is outputting great work that should be rewarded, but increasing the pay of writers outputting garbage writing can only lead to more expensive garbage.
Then you get to costume, props, and visual effects. First, the damaged economy from before appears in costumes and props material cost. This is unavoidable. In many cases, I would say that good practical effects are cheaper and more convincing than cheap CG. My solution is simply go back to the way films were made in the 70s and 80s. Ditch the bad CG and go for more practical effects.
Last we have actors. Actors do not need more than 100k per film, and thats for the huge actors. Simple to understand, really. So many actors live opulent, overpaid lives, when they could live more simply, more normally, off of much less.
The above aalso applies to directors, producers, streaming company executives and CEOs.
Fix all these and your show production costs plummet. Now you can offer your streaming service at the same cost or cheaper than before while having a larger profit margin.
Idk why you're leading with writer pay, going into actor pay (most don't make squat) and then execs at the big companies involved are tossed in as an afterthought. Probably why you're getting downvoted.
I am getting downvoted because people cant bother to read beyond one sentence.
Also, I dont care about imaginary internet points.
Dude if writers actually made enough money then it wouldn't be such a huge thing that they get sponsored free lunches during the strike. Thats a fucking meal... However the profit produced on some shows is obscene in comparison. Put 300 mil in and get 500 mil out, thats 200 mil profit... You're getting downvoted because you don't understand the economics of the industry while being overconfident that you do.
Why would a writer make a good story for someone paying them in dogshit and loose change?