When we think about MARVEL, we think about a high-budget studio where hundreds of people tightly control every comic book, movie, and piece of merchandise. And it works. Since the 1960s, this model has created remarkable worlds and characters loved by millions of fans.
But what if we had a better model? The one that gives us 10X more great MARVEL stories and doesn't rely on the taste and financial goals of Disney executives?
I believe we can achieve that if the "next MARVEL" universe operates more like Ethereum, where everyone can develop their own interpretations and adaptations of their favorite stories and make money from them.
And yes, I know what you might be thinking:
- "Disney would never agree to it,"
- "We would see tons of crappy productions,"
- "How do you ensure the people who created the world get paid?",
- "Why the hell do you even link Ethereum and MARVEL?",
- "What do NFTs have to do with it?".
Hold on tight, as we're about to dive deep into the idea of IP Protocols and tackle these concerns head-on.
Let's start with Ethereum/MARVEL analogy.
As we all know, Ethereum is a protocol. And on top of this protocol are apps like Uniswap, MetaMask, and OpenSea that let us interact with it.
What is a protocol? At its essence, it's just a set of rules.
For example, diplomatic protocol explains how to behave around presidents, ambassadors, and senators. Thanks to these rules and standards, government officials don't need to waste energy wondering who speaks first, how they should address each other, and where they must be seated at the table.
Ethereum protocol, on the other hand, explains how you send ETH, how gas fees are calculated, what is the structure of smart contracts and so on. Thanks to these rules and standards, developers don't need to waste energy wondering how they should design their app to ensure it's compatible with Ethereum.
Similarly, MARVEL, Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, and all other worlds protected by IP rights can also be viewed as protocols. And movies, books, and games are apps to interact with these protocols and bring them to life.
To understand this concept better, let's leave MARVEL for a second and get to Star Wars Cinematic Universe, which is less complex and easier to follow.
Star Wars Universe - just like any other protocol - is a pretty small set of rules and standards. And if a producer follows them, a movie, game, or TV series will become Star Wars-ish. Theoretically, even you - as a fan - could follow these rules and create your own Star Wars adventure.
Some of these rules might be hard - e.g., it'd be hard to set up a Star Wars movie in a medieval setting without turning it into a parody. And some might be softer - e.g., you don't need Jedi, Siths & lightsabers to create a Star Wars movie.
Andor is a great example here. In the first Andor's season, they don't even mention a Jedi or a lightsaber. Yet because of the known planets (Coruscant), characters (Palpatine, Mon Mothma), props (TIE Fighters, blasters), and the fight between good vs. evil (Rebellion vs. Empire), we feel that this is Star Wars TV Series indeed.
Of course, to experience Star Wars (or any other Universe), you don't need to study the protocol's set of rules. Just like you don't need to understand how SMTP protocol works to send an e-mail to your mom. You can just watch the movie and enjoy the experience.
So why are these protocols so important?
As we said before, when we watch "Andor", we feel that it's part of the Star Wars Universe. As a consequence, it connects with 30+ years of our "Emotional Value Locked" into this protocol, making the story much more exciting than if it happened in a totally new world.
On top the Andor's plot, we feel satisfaction when we learn the backstory of Cassian Andor, who played a prominent role in Rogue One. It's also intellectually pleasing to connect more dots related to the early days of the rebellion. And learn about the new characters and subtleties of the world we already love. These learnings are collected by fans and updated in Star Wars Wiki called Wookiepedia.
So if movies, books, and games are apps to interact with Star Wars Protocol, then it works in a similar fashion as Ethereum - the more high-quality apps to interact with the protocol, the more valuable the protocol becomes.
Also, protocols like Ethereum get more valuable with an increased number of users and connections between them, known as network effects. And these IP protocols are no different.
If I were the only person in the world who liked Star Wars, it would be a pretty lonely experience. But if I have friends with whom I can discuss the Empire Strikes Back or play SW: Battlefront II, interacting with this world gets far more exciting. It may even become a way to bond with other people - that's why tens of thousands of Star Wars fans attend Universe-related events.
That's also why movie producers created Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks, and more distinct female characters like Rey - they made the Universe more attractive to new people (in this case: kids and women) so that fans can share their affection with more people.
These actions aimed to generate more "Emotional Value Locked" into the protocol, which can be transformed into money by selling apps - movie tickets, games, and merchandise.
This is also the main thought behind the MARVEL Cinematic Universe. Since 2008 they released 31 films starring different superheroes - cocky Iron Man, virtuous Captain America, funny Guardians of the Galaxy, and over a dozen more. Every fan can find a hero they like.
And then MARVEL connected these worlds (and their fans!) in cross-over Avengers movies, capitalizing on the "Emotional Value Locked" and generating billions of dollars.
That's why Hollywood loves these protocols, also known as "franchises."
And that's also why companies like Disney restrict access to their protocols, contrary to Ethereum, that's fully permissionless. (1)
Both of these ways have their pros and cons.
Most of the most successful IP Protocols have been restricted.
Star Wars, MARVEL, Lord of the Rings, Witcher, Toy Story, Pokemon, Harry Potter, Dragon Ball… The list goes on and on.
You can, of course, create your free fanfic, fanart, or fan wiki. But you can't make money on it. (2) And only those who own Intellectual Property (IP) rights can build bigger apps (movies, books, merch) to interact with these protocols.
Why? Well, there are at least two reasons.
The first one is control.
Remember "Emotional Value Locked"?
Studios act like hawkish brand managers because they fear destroying this emotional capital built for the last 30+ years. Just like an iPhone user might decide to "never buy an iPhone again" if he gets scammed by the app from AppStore, the Star Wars fan might dislike the Universe if he watched a crappy movie produced by amateurs (3).
It's the same reason Nike doesn't let every shoemaker on Earth use their logo - they'd destroy the brand they've been building for over 50 years.
The second reason is money.
If I asked you what's the highest-grossing movie of all time, you'd probably answer "Avatar". But it's not actually true. The highest-grossing movie of all time is "Toy Story 3".
Why haven't you heard about it? Primarily because box office lists consider only revenue generated from ticket sales. And here's the winner is clear: Avatar made $2.9B at the box office vs. Toy Story's $1B.
But when you consider all money generated by the movie, including merchandise - toys, t-shirts, notebooks with logos, etc. - then the scales are tipped. Avatar made around $150M via merchandise, whereas Toy Story made… $10B.
So overall, Toy Story generated around 3.6X more money than Avatar. Of course, only some % of this money went to Disney since they typically license the IP rights to toys & merch companies instead of producing these things themselves. But it shows how important it is for Disney to restrict access to their "Toy Story" protocol.
And when the protocol is established, "Emotional Value Locked" serves as a moat to protect the world from other protocols. Since audiences' minds are already occupied with "Toy Story," it's hard to break in with a new world and new characters unless they're remarkable. So it further protects Disney's business revenue.
To sum up, restricted protocols, when they reach the tipping point, can become machines that produce high-quality content and generate huge amounts of revenue.
So if it works so well, why would you even consider making them permissionless?
Let's compare Disney to Ethereum.
Control here is very loose. You need to comply with the protocol's standards; apart from that, you can build whatever you want. And because of this freedom, the Ethereum ecosystem materialized the worst of Disney's nightmares - hundreds of scams, hacks, and exploits hurt the Ethereum (and crypto's) reputation.
The reputation got damaged to the point where people created websites collecting all web3's failures, and Apple made it hard to introduce crypto-related apps to its AppStore.
When it comes to money… well. Vitalik Buterin and other Ethereum Co-Founders definitely made a lot of money on Ethereum, but there are Ethereum investors, founders & VC funds who made much more. Using Peter Thiel's phrasing - most of the value created wasn't captured by the founders.
So if the results are like this, why would you even make your protocol permissionless?
Of course, there are moral motivations, such as "keeping the Internet open," which I fully agree with.
But even if we put them aside, Ethereum being open led to the creation of many great apps built on top of it. Uniswap, MetaMask, OpenSea, Zapper, Farcaster - all these apps generate value for the protocol. The more great apps there are, the more valuable Ethereum becomes. And none of them need to be created by Ethereum Foundation.
Since you don't need to ask Ethereum Foundation for permission, it's a Wild West - you can make as weird and strange apps as you want. And some of them, like NounsDAO, can counter-intuitively grow into multi-million dollar entities.
This whole process can start a virtuous cycle:
How permissionless design helps to build the protocol's value
And Nouns is a great example of a brand that - contrary to Disney or Nike - is built in a bottom-up manner thanks to its permissionless design.
Most people who own Noun NFT want its brand to be as valuable as possible. So they create different art pieces and memes with Nouns Glasses to make Nouns more popular. And they got to the point where these Glasses became a part of a Super Bowl ad.
This cycle is, of course, hard to set up. For one Ethereum and one Nouns we have hundreds of failed projects. But if you succeed, your protocol is generated bottom-up: by people for people. I believe you can achieve the same thing with the next MARVEL and Star Wars, where fans will create new movies, stories, and games.
But we need one more ingredient not to get overwhelmed with crap.
If you have ever touched a new iPhone, you know that without any apps installed, it's not too useful - it's just a toy. But although we all take for granted that thousands of developers compete in building the next great iOS app, it wasn't always that way.
In the early days of the iPhone, you could only use apps made by Apple, just like you can only watch Star Wars movies made by Disney. Back then, these apps were limited to iTunes, Google Maps, e-mail, and a browser. And many people (myself included) discarded iPhone as a "cool but expensive gadget."
A year later, the App Store was launched, opening the iPhone to thousands of developers around the world. Opening the floodgates resulted in many crappy apps, with "fart apps" getting some recognition in pop culture. But in a few years, we got Instagram, Uber, WhatsApp, Tinder & 1000's other apps that became a must-have for millions of people. And these apps, of course, increased the value of the iPhone and let Apple take its 30% cut from every in-app purchase.
So, on the one hand, Apple remains open to apps created by other people - everyone can submit their iOS app and try to reach over 1.5B iPhone users. But Apple also controls what apps get distributed via AppStore, so they mitigate the risk of getting flooded by crap. This dual model makes AppStore one of the most efficient cash cows ever designed.
I believe Disney could use a similar model for Star Wars (and other worlds). We would still have big-budget movies, games, and comic books produced by Disney. But in DisneyStore, we could find also smaller, fan-made productions that would let creators earn recognition and money.
And this model is not weird. We all know Amazon for its Amazon Basics and seamless delivery. But 59% of their products are sold by third-party sellers who are merchants that just handle production, pricing, and delivery themselves. Amazon is just a way to get in front of new customers.
I don't think Disney would take such a risk, though.
So that's why I think the "next MARVEL" will start as an NFT Collection where people - just like in Nouns - create the world in a bottom-up manner. This model would address the biggest problems faced by Disney, Warner Bros., Netflix, and all other prominent IP creators. What are these problems?
Read IP Protocols Part II here.
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PS2: I'm also writing a serialized cyberpunk novel called Cael Mux. The idea of this "choose your own adventure" story is to explore the boundaries of IP Protocols.
You can read Chapter 1 here.
(1) But wait, can we even call Star Wars a protocol if protocols are supposed to be open and permissionless like SMTP or Internet Protocol? I'd argue that we can. Access to some protocols - like Twitter or Skype - can be restricted, and in a tech context, we typically call them platforms then. But I stick to the word protocol because locking a protocol in a cage by a single entity doesn't necessarily change its protocol-ish nature. Fiction worlds are examples of protocols that are hard to break.
(2) I've heard there is a phrase among the US copyright lawyers - "Don't fuck with the Mouse", that highlights the tenacity of Disney's lawyers. According to Reddit, sometimes these Mickey Mouse lawyers are called Nazguls.
(3) As we know from Episodes 7-9, centralized control over content isn't enough to guarantee that the Star Wars brand won't deteriorate, but at least it gives Disney team some agency.
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thinking about this a lot recently https://warpcast.com/jacob/0x9446b071
It’s a fascinating phenomenon! And I think why books like The Celestine Prophecy are classified as fiction. One day, insights from this become common knowledge. That lesson clicked for me when I read that book many years ago. Ideas and building things land in the same category I think. Timing/version is everything.
fiction related to enduring time spend or looking in a different direction w that word??
adding fiction to the repertoire of ways to express a point of view and/or belief.
Been early, can confirm
so early
Yes. Being early and being late are both being there at the wrong time.
That's why so many countries are investing in fiction, specially sci fi, as a way to promote innovation Specially true for China, that invests tons in grants for distribution and creation of scifi for near future technologies I work with a script writer that does consulting in this for the Chilean gov too
Or unless it's an essay outlining the future :) When I first published my IP Protocols (linkrel) essay, no one seemed to care. But now I see more projects focused on this subject. https://kanfa.macbudkowski.com/ip-protocols-part-1
Or you may simply need to educate the market to correct misconceptions.
being too early or too late, yep, can be wrong
Good project 😀
this is one of the most interesting projects in the space of ip protocols
Where can I find more information about it? Don’t have any clue
This essay is a good intro :) And if you want to learn more about IP Protocols in general, I wrote a 3-part essay introducing the concept: https://kanfa.macbudkowski.com/ip-protocols-part-1
Story Protocol is dear to my heart — you could describe it as a hyperstructure for making composable creative works. The terms of securing rights on a work are clear and preserve attribution, so any downstream monetization can trickle upstream properly. https://twitter.com/StoryProtocol/status/1699411637244158037
Now we're talking! Thx for the heads up on this @eddy, gonna get my head around the protocol design here...if anything needed an update, it's the IP related "jelly" of yester-year Connecting this project's design to the ideas laid out in your fabulous "Protocol Design" lecture at CSS will be a good mental exercise.
This reminds me a little bit of Adim, which @smc90 talked about on her podcast a while back.
There are definitely some overlaps — there is much to improve in how we create and reward media production — but their target users and initial focuses are totally different. They'll probably end up drifting even further apart as they search for PMF.
Can you recall the title of that episode Taylor?
Decentralized Creativity & Collaboration https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/web3-with-a16z-crypto/id1622312549?i=1000567796018
Excited to use it!
Could you share a bit how does such valuation and investment size is reached? it is some quality of the industry, that requires a pool of liquidity to purchase up existing IPs to bootstrap the protocol or something else? Curious to know if you are eligible to share, thank you!
is Seung-yoon Lee on Farcaster? I would like to invite him on web3galaxybrain.com
Great to see it happening. When I spent a few weeks nerding on bottom-up IP creation (linkrel) I thought the value could be accrued via NFTs but a separate tool is even better. Fingers crossed! https://kanfa.macbudkowski.com/ip-protocols-part-1
I think I've never done it here before so... AMA!
most memorable / fav kiwi link? (could be posted by you or someone else)
Hard to name one but these were memorable: "Obvious to you, amazing to others", submitted by @rafi https://sive.rs/obvious "Pirate culture", submitted by @timdaub.eth https://essays.eth.id/pirate-culture "Geeks, MOPs, Sociopaths", submitted by @philipliao.eth https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths,
My favorite link from the ones I submitted is this @vgr essay: https://venkatesh-rao.gitbook.io/summer-of-protocols/
Ah these are some real gems! Thanks for sharing 🫡
What’s the most impactful lesson from web3 talks?
Oh damn, that's a hard one since there were so many... For me, it was the realization that right now is the best moment to build things in web3. Tech is mature. Zero bull market noise. Community is still small and you can access anyone. Very little competition from non-speculative projects. Entrepreneur's dream.
Small market makes it hard for entrepreneurs. Few ways to make money.
How do you think about the utility of Hyperkiwification?
The most obvious value proposition would be: "You don't need to spend years building your social media & newsletter audience to reach thousands of people". Later we might add other utility like e.g., posting job offers or ability to set up your own "subreddit" :)
What crypto podcasts are under rated?
web3 talks :) But jokes aside, I've always really enjoyed 'web3 with a16z'. The depth they go into and Sonal's ability to make the conversation easy to understand by non-expert is unmatched. (But I might not be the best source of alpha since I don't listen to crypto podcasts too much)
Not a recommendation for a podcast per se, but this single episode from Good Game is already in GOAT contention for me. Basically the story of how Tensor dethroned MagicEden on Solana (I don’t believe they copied Blur, iiuc it was convergent evolution to serve a similar market) https://overcast.fm/+7xiceHSvo
what motivates you to work on kiwi and other projects?
I want web3 to happen ASAP. So all I do: - podcasts with web3 founders where they share their know-how, - educational content (like this one https://macbudkowski.com/how-to-explain-web3-products/), - kiwi, where builders can learn about top ideas in the space, is aimed towards helping founders fulfill this goal.
🫡
What’s your view on postmodernism?
tl;dr I think that: 1) Deconstruction is valuable since it helps understand the reality around us. 2) It's valuable to take into account social & historical POV. 3) That being said, thinking that everything is relative make people not only unhappy but also ineffective since we need rules of a thumb to operate.
You're new to building in web3, list the top 5 areas of greatest interest/opportunity?
1) Multi-sig with 10X easier UX than Safe (could be just a Safe protocol client) 2) Pfp collection with real storytelling and distinct characters 3) Gas.app-like Farcaster client 4) Masked ball chat - you post anon, but people know you're one of the "invited" 5) IP Protocols app to disrupt the movie industry
on 1) have you ever seen party.app? onchain group wallet, consumer UX, scales to any number of members, supports delegation, social features, etc.
these are some v cool ideas, thanks for sharing. honestly hadn't considered most of them #5 could be super interesting given the rise of the creator economy #2 i believe josie bellinini & crew do a really good job at via cyberbrokers or at least the best ive seen so far
If you would like to launch your next project and you need to choose the right blockchain (or l2) for your long term project, what will be the most important considerations you will take? And what mistakes would you be sure to avoid?
If I wasn't working on Kiwi, I'd probably work on something in the realm of IP Protocols (textrel: https://kanfa.macbudkowski.com/ip-protocols-part-1) I'd be probably be torn between Zora chain (helps with distributing NFTs to art collectors) and Optimism (seem to have the best sentiment rn among L2s/alt L1s).
I think at this stage it makes sense to choose the chain based on the people you want to reach. If you want to run an art project, you don't do it on Avalanche. If you do DeFi, you don't build on Tezos. Most chains ofc want to become multidimensional so they'd try to convince you to build on them via grants
Why and how did you decide to work on kiwi?
I wanted to build web3 HackerNews for some time because I felt I got some interesting ideas, but they didn't get enough distribution since I had few Twitter followers. Then I discovered that @timdaub.eth started building a Kiwi app, so I started contributing and quickly went full-time.
interesting https://twitter.com/Azuki/status/1673993161662959617
Even more interesting https://twitter.com/remilionaire/status/1673786652664143874?s=46&t=OtICbdMek97oQKoDmWn5Mw
that poster seems to relish tearing down projects "ahead" of their own, as if the NFT space was zero-sum
Definitely the case for their posts, though to that point, the hollow extractive schemes that much of the “big” collections play is pretty much zero sum shit and will be the death of the entire space if we don’t start giving them all the shit they deserve and kick them out of here.
Fr
the 40 million to we hear you… apology pipeline
and we wonder why crypto seems like a scam to people... it is
I read the thread and thought "Oh, that's a nice sincere post". And then I read the comments ☠
I think it's healthy tbh... communities are starting to realize simply releasing more PFPs is not a sustainable way for a community to make money
The comments make perfect sense to me, I think they f*** up. I might be biased but IMO the only sensible way to make money as a pfp collection is IP Protocols: https://paragraph.xyz/@kanfa/ip-protocols-part-1
Onboarding more people by whitelisting existing holders at 2e each 🙃 🤡
Have you ever had an idea that you're super excited about, but you know you're not the right person to bring it to life? Not fun.
I think a lot of that has to do with conceptions around ownership wrt “idea”. When I used to make music with a friend of mine we often got hung up on whose idea a melody or chord progression was. It was getting in the way of creating so we reframed it as “the idea that came through me”.
Hippy-ish sorta but promoted flow of creation. For example, if you say “I have idea XYZ and here’s what I think it’ll take to make that happen”, it gets the germ of the idea out there. Maybe someone will pick it up and run with it. Even if you don’t get IP/credits/royalties, the idea still manifests
Love it
Man, the "it's doing it through me" reframing is so profoundly right. That's totally beautiful! You say that in the context of working with someone else, and freeing up the "ownership" block - but even in solo acts of creation, I think this "getting out of your own way" type mental move is super helpful.
I love it. What was the "me" that was doing/creating this anyway? Certainly now your actual me...just some language based process that's having a "me" experience within mind. And that "me" ain't really creating anything 🫠. DEEPER you is! Love this @morereese
Now we're getting into philosophy of the mind.
Interesting I like this framing of a language based process having a “me” experience…
Yes for sure. And I think that’s a real thing. This a perfect cast for someone to jump in and say, “There’s no such thing as not being the right person. Be confident and you’ll make happen.” But being honest with your abilities, interests, time you’re willing to commit to fill current gaps is important.
But! With all that said, why don’t you think you’re the right person?
I know my experience and strengths cultivated so far. As an investor I know what I'd look for in a founder to back for the project...and it's definitely not me. :)
On a related sort of vibe... having ideas is sort of easy. Having "good ideas" is way less easy ...but "good" comes from the refinement of taking the idea and "making" with it - and that grinding, cruel, contact with reality polishes it into something decent. <riffing> - great generative question @benersing !
Also time/context dependent, or no?
"contextual" - totally!!! I think most of creativity is about finding the write perspective to view the scene. Alan Kay put better: "context is worth 80 IQ points"
This feeling is something that excites me about angel investing or someday being a VC. There's so many opportunities to improve the world through innovation I'd like to support but am not the right person to bring to fruition.
*cough* If courtyard is open to individual checks, you know where to find me ;)
As a non-builder, I’m quite used to this feeling The key is reframing “bring to life” Can you write about it? Inspire others to take action?
To be honest I’ve almost never met at idea that I’m super excited that I didn’t feel like I didn’t feel capable of bringing it into existence Fuck it we ball
That's awesome!
Team up with the right people
That's certainly part of it.
frequently 🙂
Yea. Every time it involves creating something social / community. Technically I feel confident I can create any idea with enough time/study. It’s the engagement part that I’m lacking.
All the time. One day though.
What if there was a way to get more great Star Wars stories? I think I know how to do it. Last shameless plug of my IP Protocols essay and May the 4th be with you! https://paragraph.xyz/@kanfa/ip-protocols-part-1
What would you say about a protocol that was not permissionless? One you had to apply to build on to keep the quality of data high and within the scope of the intended purpose.
permissioned protocols are all rubbish
Exclusivity is underrated.
Sometimes I feel like this too. I wonder if there are examples where a permissionless protocol failed because the use cases got too broad and the purpose became lost.
Its too early to writeoff protocols imo; while it may struggle to provide monetary flows, the dissecrtion of the data / tooling could be valuable for future iterations. More data points through open building and radical iteration.
I call these 'restricted protocols' and IP worlds like MARVEL or Star Wars work this way :) (text rel) https://paragraph.xyz/@kanfa/ip-protocols-part-1
Funny how you just wrote this yesterday and I’m thinking about it today. So are saying the process looks something like: everyone is open to creating Marvel branded content, but it must get approved by Marvel to get into the MarvelStore. Only once the content is there can the creators sell it as officially Marvel.
Yes! Netflix is experimenting with this on a small scale - you can design fan-made Stranger Things merch and sell it if you give Netflix a cut: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/stranger+things
@mosaicnetwork endorse @macbudkowski for their understanding of protocols, ability to explain them in understandable terms, and apply the concept to new applications
Endorsement received 🫡. You can view your endorsement by visiting the link in our bio.
BTW Skype is an example of a restricted protocol - specs has not been public and all apps built on top of it are closed-source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_protocol
Can't figure out how to send a DM on the web, so I will ask my question here. Trying to figure out how to login to mosaic on the web, and connect a wallet. There are a lot of wallet types on desktop list but no metamask, or any that I recognize?
The current version of Walletconnect I’m using is a pain but that will change very soon. For now, click connect in the web and you’ll see the QR code. Open your wallet on mobile and select the option to scan a QR code. For MetaMask, it’s the top-right icon. Scan and it will connect
Are you saying that mosaic only works on mobile. I am trying to use it on the web. I don't have it installed on mobile and would rather void it.
(direct link this time) Star Wars, MARVEL & LoTR are protocols, and books/apps/movies are apps that interact with them. It can change how we design fiction worlds so that fans can co-create their favorite stories in a Nouns-like way. Part I of the IP Protocols series: https://paragraph.xyz/@kanfa/ip-protocols-part-1
are hollywood writers really going on strike as GPT-4 and AI-generated screenplay / video production / etc. is right at our fingertips? does anyone know the TLDR? otherwise yikes 🫠🫠🫠
AFAIK (family member works in TV) it's related to streaming royalties
As @matthew & @jacky have pointed out it’s lack of streaming cut which the unions laughed at during the last strike during 07/08 (even though younger members warned the union) So once again the folks in Hollywood are a decade behind. No thought as to AI & impact. But I have and it’s a big piece of @moviepitches
AFAIK writers are battling lower incomes from transition to streaming - Streaming has reduced seasons from 20+ to 8-12 episodes - Streaming has disrupted traditional royalty model when writers get paid for reruns
I'd also add that bottom-up world creation where fans write the stories might also be around the corner :) https://paragraph.xyz/@kanfa/ip-protocols-part-1