>>87187488>If the free market decides art isn't a real profession anymore, then it isn't a real profession anymoreYes, that's exactly the point. People will produce what sells. If good stuff doesn't sell, they'll stop making that professionally, and will move to shit stuff that does bring in a profit. These things are directly correlated. Someone has to pay for the content, at some point.
The money has to come from somewhere.
If it doesn't come from producing content, that person will make if from a different job, meaning that instead of producing content full time they can do it as a hobby, during some chunk of their leftover free time, when they feel like it, and in whatever quality they feel like pushing out. This will naturally lead to a decline in quality and amount of content, because usually in order to get really good at something, be it animating or storytelling or drawing, you need to sink in a lot of hours to practice it, and if it's not your livelihood, you're going to put a lot of hours instead in becoming professional in the profession that will actually pay your bills and buy you a home, meaning you'll maybe never reach a truly "professional" level in your hobby craft.
Can you imagine, for example, if online webcomics were the entirety of the comics industry? Sure, there's great stuff being done for free. Like Lackadaisy Cats. But I'd like content to be released on a bit tighter schedule than what, a page per month?
