HuffPo Cheats
Ain’t that America.
Arianna Huffington cashes out and goes on a victory lap, basking in the media’s adoration of her win, jealous while they’re anointing her, and it turns out she made her money the old fashioned way. By cheating.
This is after marrying a rich gay guy and divorcing him.
They already admit no one reads the blogs.
The real reason the HuffPo was so valuable was not the minimal, original paid-for content, but Google. Yes, the HuffPo gamed the system, to get good results in Google so their often inane articles would get viewed and they could charge for advertising.
And ignorant Tim Armstrong of AOL, who’s lauded in every article as AOL slips down a greased pole, is snookered and overpays and makes her queen of his domain even though this is like making a promotion man PD of a radio station after he has paid for all his label’s records to get airplay.
Is it human nature? Why does everyone want to game the system?
Give John Mellencamp credit. He may be an asshole, but he’s not dishonest. He actually wrote those songs. Didn’t steal them, he made it the old-fashioned way.
Oh sure, he was influenced by other tracks and helped by the label, but now when it’s all said and done he can still go on the road and make money because what he produced has intrinsic value, unlike the Huffington Post, which could decline and disappear overnight like MySpace.
And Facebook is no different. Facebook survives because of your content, not because of anything intrinsic contributed by Mark Zuckerberg and his team. If everybody woke up tomorrow and moved their content elsewhere, Facebook would be toast.
Then again, did Zuckerberg cheat, stealing the idea from the Winklevoss twins?
Microsoft cheated. They charged manufacturers for each and every computer whether it contained Windows or not. They were ultimately adjudged monopolists, but Bill Gates is still lionized as a genius, even though he didn’t even invent the OS the company sold but bought it from another company.
And you wonder why I’m skeptical when these artists want to get in bed with corporations?
Why would you attach your blood, sweat and tears to the work of duplicitous people who believe gaming the system is the way of life.
And it turns out sports are only marginally better. Not only is there drug usage, but stealing of signs and illicit videotaping. At least when musicians do drugs they don’t hide it.
And let’s not get started on politicians…
We all need someone to believe in. And our last best hope is the artists. Even though the big bad labels and other intermediaries are doing their best to convince those who create to play by the rules of radio, as corrupt an industry as exists, and television, which is in the broadcasting business, bland and focus-grouped, when art, when done right, is pure and niche and unobstructed by the viewpoint of those who don’t make it.
Stop listening to the suits. Stop getting in bed with corporations who will use and abuse you. Don’t compromise. Focus on your art. If you’re truly good, people will find you. Because there are very few good things in this world and so much of what is sold is crap purveyed by lying, cheating, scumbags.
