Fuck the adtech industry, too. Fuck corporate consolidation and Big Tech. It’s absolutely destroying anyone but clickbait farmers; this problem is bigger than just generative ML.

I’ve seen a few creators say they don’t know how they’re going to continue. They can’t out compete spammers, clicks and views basically make them nothing, no one seeks anything beyond algorithms anymore.

Hence I’ve been throwing more money at Patreon or similar artist subscriptions recently, even if in short bursts.

I buy art directly from artists all the time. It may not be expensive one of a kind paintings, but a shirt directly from the designer of the print is something I’ve done several times this year. A record directly from the band who recorded it is something I’ve done probably a couple dozen times this year. Prints of paintings, posters directly from the artist. These are all things I get fairly regularly.

Am I allowed to complain now?

I’m sorry the economy is fucking you like everyone else, but you’re childishly lashing out at the wrong people.

Even if it was true that people didn’t spend on art anymore, which it isn’t, that’s still an appeal to hipocrisy. You may not have enough leftover money to spend on unique art pieces, which I consider to be a luxury, but you can still critique the emergence of generative, generic art.

What the fuck are you doing about it—other than complaining?

He complained while doing nothing about it.

What an idiot! 🤮

Really? So what?

A lot of people are either poor or simply don’t have a need for art, which is why they don’t buy it. The buyers are the appreciative, non-poor individuals. Before GenAI, artists had a market, they produced work for these buyers, whether for legitimate use or pure appreciation.

Now, GenAI is eroding that market. Legitimate users just use GenAI for “good enough” results, and appreciative buyers lower their standards by flooding themselves with GenAI content.

Meanwhile, the poor folk push back against the normalization of such art which wrecks the art industry. They’re doing what they can.