Quite the contrary, the world you envision isn't nice to think about at all. It's impractical, inefficient, wildly haphazard, and, worse than that, would produce the exact opposite of what you're looking for. The profit motive might not be aesthetically pleasing to you but it provides the vibrant indie marketplace we see today.
My inspiration for the idea was VicScreen[1], an Australian Victorian state government agency that funds film and interactive media projects. In the past they have funded half of a project's development budget but I'm unsure of their procedures as of now. Cult of the Lamb[2] was partially subsidised by VicScreen as an example. There is a selection process but the money comes with few strings attached, mainly attribution.
> The profit motive might not be aesthetically pleasing to you but it provides the vibrant indie marketplace we see today.
At what cost? My main point, ignoring my objectionable proposal is that video games could use better patronage from actors that aren't entirely profit driven. Having spoken to indie developers myself, there is a palpable constant stress living proposal to proposal with their business hanging in the balance at all times. That may very well be the nature of the market and some might say, so be it. I feel removing that stress to perform would probably offer better results, but who knows.
I am idealistic and I don't think art should be subject to the same conditions as the average business because the inherent value proposal is intangible and varies wildly to all that experience it.
Art is a sort of enjoyable endeavour for the artist and I certainly wish I would be paid to paint or make a videogame - but the world has way too much art being produced and it doesn't need another one - so I can keep writing crap react app for 300k and my soul or make a game for 50k (or go indie and likely starve).
In particular I think fiat currency and inflation drives the industry to stupid investments trying to follow trends and make money before your cash loses value - and those stupid investments turn into bad work practices. It's no chance work quality keeps going down (we're on a downhill spiral in every sector, from construction to tech, if you ask me what I've seen in the past 20y).
Art, being the antithesis of working badly, dumbed down significant (modern art anyone?) and become just a vessel to store value, more than something good made by masters.
Something intangible like a game license, despite still being art, is caught between two fires and turns into the one hit the most.
Basic income won't solve anything, it will just make everything more expensive and will shift even more money into the hands of the government.
Until we get rid of governments (likely with a painful crash, after we collapse on our own, after a 50 years slow decline) the situation is not going to improve in any way.
Nice to see you taking the eco option. Without governments to provide health care, security and infrastructure the world population is sure to decline drastically and then the biosphere will rebuild itself.
yawn another libertarian blaming things on too much government.
I could sure use some more government right now cracking down on industries with oligopolies that feel no threat of consequence for completely undermining the quality of their products while raising prices.
Who says way too much art is being made? There are a dizzying array of video games outs there but there is still clearly plenty room for more.
The problem is the exploitive way we set up these industries. Right now we have most of the big game companies seemingly poised to try to fire all the bulk of their artists/employees in favor of ai and it goes going to fail spectacularly but the damage to human workers in the industry will be long lasting all the same.
...you think people primarily create indie games because of profit motive?
That seems to me to betray a deep misunderstanding of the nature of human creativity.
Games are an art medium. Humans will always create art, no matter what tangible rewards are possible.
Instituting a universal basic income, such that people can quit their soul-sucking jobs and still make enough money to pay for food, shelter, heat, etc, will absolutely create a huge boom in art of all kinds. That includes indie games.
I just confirmed - this book was my first purchase on Amazon. May 24th, 1999. I had just decided to go from undeclared to EECS at Cal and wanted to take a crash course in hardware. I read the book over the summer and never turned back.
These laws are not made to be coherent or actually help people. They are made to curry favor with a particular base. It creates all these super strange situations where it's impossible to know what the rules will be. These nonsensical laws meant to target specific people and/or companies will be the norm going forward.
To top this all off, our ability to "put the domestic economy first" through policy is non-existent. Any attempt to fix this "problem", that you accurately described as a problem only because it's socially unacceptable, would end up harming us in some way. There is a mountain of evidence over the last century to back this up, we just refuse to listen.
This isn't textbook Baader–Meinhof, but after 4 decades of never consciously hearing about this fruit I've now encountered it three times in one week: [1] on the allowed low fodmap diet, [2] in the lyrics of a jungle book song, and [3] this article. My family is now on a mission to find one and taste test.
That doesn't seem like a problem - that seems like a feature. Maybe "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" just stuck with me, but a just society doesn't sacrifice the prosperity of a few for the "greater good".
"Justice" is difficult enough to define that many books have been written about the topic. Personally I don't find it just to let a small number of individuals transfer wealth from future generations to their current self.
Pre-uber it was common at McCarren Airport (Las Vegas) that taxis would intentially take you the wrong way to spike their fare. Those who knew would have to demand the driver to not take the tunnel, and even then they would argue with you. There is no reason not to think that this was common everywhere.
Why do you think TNC drivers don't do this, especially when the company is incentivized to ignore it? Pro tip: if the driver's phone isn't visible from the rear passenger seat, pull up the route on your phone and watch them like a hawk.
The uber/lyft driver subreddits and web forums used to be full of stories of drivers bragging about intentionally taking the 'long way'. Drivers bragged about how the often strange and dynamic routing used by Waze and Google Maps made it very easy to take a random turn that adds miles to the trip (or lots of traffic, preferable if the driver has a hybrid) and how they could just dismiss the customer's questions with "oh, I don't know, I'm just following the app" (except for the purposeful wrong/missed turn.)
I used to take Uber/Lyft occasionally and I'd always pull up the route on my own phone because I'd frequently catch my driver starting to make an unexplainable turn, or intentionally choose a very high-congestion route instead of a faster arterial road.
If you don't know the city well, it's easy to miss the driver purposefully making one accidental wrong turn that ends up adding significantly to the fare.
The difference in my city is that if your taxi driver did this, you could complain to the police unit overseeing taxis.
Now? You complain to Uber and they give you a discount or correction if you're lucky and haven't been too much of a squeaky wheel.
In some places (I don't think it's everywhere) Uber charges/pays the estimated fare from before the trip regardless of the route actually taken, I believe. In theory that makes it harder to do the thing being described, but it also obviously means a driver who gets stuck in traffic on the route uber says they should take is gonna get screwed.
There is plenty of reason - while I heard rumors of it, I never experienced it. Also, in most locales taxis make a significant bonus from the 'flag drop', the start of a ride. Prolonging rides isn't as profitable as finding new ones.
Facebook Kids Messenger is decent (for all the reasons you mentioned), however, I am pessimistic about it being genuinely appealing to kids. It's staying alive because middle-aged parents are forcing it on their children - they are the consume and decision-maker. My experience is once kids are allowed to make their own decisions they quickly move away from it.
Of course once kids are allowed to make their own decisions, the main value of FKM is gone. (parental controls and such)
So it isn't the best example, and it isn't really facebook per se but more of a separate product, but still.... it is squarely aimed at kids that aren't old enough to make decisions for themselves, by design.
