The film business is fighting Sean Parker’s Screening Room.

The book business is fighting Amazon’s Kindle.

And the music business is sitting in the present, the most up-to-date media vertical extant.

And yet people still complain.

Do you want to pay $150 for a device that would allow you to stream first run films for $50, day and date?

That’s what Sean Parker is advocating, that’s what most of the film business is fighting. Because they hate the future, they believe they can stick their finger in the dike and hold back what’s to come, screwing the public in the process. Day and date is inevitable, it’s just a matter of when. And until it arrives, piracy will reign.

The book business was so worried about the Kindle stealing its profits that Amazon was neutered. Once upon a time, all digital books were $9.99. Now they’re more like fifteen bucks and sales have stalled. Because price matters, and so does volume.

Meanwhile, you can get all you want in the music business, an unlimited amount of EVERYTHING, for ten bucks a month.

Sound like a good deal?

It is!

Sure, the old paradigm has been plowed under the process. But that’s got nothing to do with Spotify and everything to do with the internet and new digital tools. Today everybody can make a record, and distribute it. And those inured to the old ways don’t like this. As for YouTube and free… Well, the rights holders do get paid and Prince was seemingly the only person who kept his music off Google’s video service. Everybody else wants the exposure. Oh, what a world, where people can sample your wares for free and decide whether to double down, to become a fan, to go to the show, to buy merchandise.

You can’t even get all the films in one place online. And flicks and TV shows come and go on Netflix. As for the vaunted victories at Amazon, “Transparent” and “Mozart In The Jungle,” they may have accolades, but few people have seen them, because they’re behind a paywall most are not paying to get through and with so much noise in the channel, people who are paying don’t know they have this access. Whereas in music you can just go on Spotify, see the chart and find out what’s happening, everything can be clicked on. Well, not absolutely everything, but windowing will never take hold in music, it’s anti-fan, and everything anti-fan ultimately bites the artist in the ass. Beyonce spread “Lemonade” from Tidal. As for Drake and Apple… That service is peopled with alta kachers, that’s right, Apple Music is for old people and Spotify skews young… Guess where Drake’s audience is?

The book business ensured that it would have a greater percentage of less. Raise the price and books are no longer an impulse item. And sure, a lot of hard core oldsters and insiders like physical books, there’s nothing wrong with that, but to grow a business you need youngsters and looky-loos, and when they see the digital version costs as much as the physical version, with no printing, no shipping, no nothing, they pass.

Not to mention you read the review and can’t buy the book.

That’s another thing the music business has eviscerated, advance publicity. It just doesn’t make sense in the modern era, you leave too much money on the table. It’s all about the sneak attack, turns out that generates tons more publicity and people can access instantly. Meanwhile, we’ve got to hear about films years in advance, and I can’t tell you how many times I read about a book and find out it’s not available for weeks. Do I then remember to buy it? Usually not. As that old record business axiom says, if it’s not in the store when the customer wants it, they’re never going to buy it.

But today in music everything is available all the time. Someone dies and we don’t have to produce more inventory, never mind ship it. It’s just constant ka-ching!

The film and book businesses are so worried about losing today’s profits, they’re forgoing tomorrows. Did you notice that recorded music revenues went up? Streaming is growing. It’s been a wrenching transition, but the heavy lifting has been done, the music business is in the twenty first century, now it’s all about the art.

Sure, the rules are different. The game is different. But art is about innovation, and business is about disruption, throwing out the old and replacing it with the new. And do you know who likes this best? THE AUDIENCE! And when the audience is leading the enterprise you’re in trouble, the enterprise needs to get out ahead, the public is still learning about Spotify and other streaming music services, the future’s so bright you gotta wear shades!

But there’s all this doom and gloom…

There are winners and losers in every revolution. Artists who were lucky enough to have major label deals last century, have companies invest in their careers, are now angry that they’ve got zillions of competitors, not only nipping at their heels, but stealing their money.

But all the newcomers like being able to play. Just tell today’s generation that they have to record in studios for a grand a day, depend upon a major label for distribution and have the audience unable to check them out for free and there’d truly be a revolution, and the irony is the biggest acts would be on the front lines. That’s right, Drake and Beyonce and the rest of the superstars utilize the new tools like crazy. Drake keeps putting out new music, they all utilize social media, and most of it’s FREE!

So music is in the best place. It’s a hotbed of creativity and its artists are revered more than actors or authors. Music is seen as authentic. And if you lament today’s scene that just means you’re stuck in the past. Sure, there might be ten writers on a track, sure there might be inane lyrics and boring beats, but the truth is you only get to the future by marching through the present. Rock replaced jazz and hip-hop replaced rock. We have no idea what’s next. But we do know the tools are at the fingertips of the creators and if you create something listen-worthy millions of people can check you out instantly.

That’s a good thing.

The techies pushed the arts into the future.

But it’s the artists who hold sway now.

Music’s on the launch pad.

So what have we learned?

That talent is the fuel, but rarely the engine. And it’s harder to build an engine than find new talent.

So if we go back two decades, we find three of the highest profile players in Hollywood teaming up to create a new studio, a veritable United Artists, making all that money for themselves.

Sound like the modern music business paradigm?

Well, if you’re thinking last decade. What we’ve learned is the record labels provide certain services, have certain relationships, that are hard to equal. Hell, the managers didn’t step up, they don’t like to pay. And the promoters pay all day long, but they don’t create out of thin air, they just fulfill demand.

So PSY made it alone. Amanda Palmer got a big buck on Kickstarter.

But where are they today?

Where is Lucian Grainge today?

Very little talent outlasts the company, the enterprise lives on.

So we start with Steven Spielberg, the most successful director of his era, he invented the blockbuster with “Jaws.” Although his forays into TV were checkered at best. A bit better on films he produced but did not direct, but the truth is Spielberg’s a director, not a businessman. He’s learned tons via direct experience, but a businessman has a different personality. Furthermore, studios are kept alive on their libraries, on their slate of films. You balance out the risk. When DreamWorks ramped up production there were too many failures, there was not a deep catalog, names only got them so far.

And then comes Jeffrey Katzenberg. The supposed genius behind Disney’s animation renaissance. And that it was, from moribund to making money. Kudos. But it’s one thing to run herd over people, making sure they work Sunday as well as Saturday, but another to run herd over an entire organization. Michael Eisner may have been a tyrant, but he gets most of the credit for bringing Disney back from the dead. And even Eisner has not been able to triumph on his own. Never underestimate the power of the edifice, the resources at your fingertips, the ability to leverage what you’ve got in power plays. Sure, Eisner learned how to make beaucoup bucks with films starring underpaid has-beens, but ideas are secondary to capital, secondary to lanes.

And then came the Pixar juggernaut. A company employing Steve Jobs’s deep pockets to get it exactly right. Turns out John Lasseter was the genius, not Jeffrey Katzenberg. That’s not a surprise, Lasseter bled animation, it was his whole life, Katzenberg fell into it, was he a suit claiming too much credit? I’ll let you decide.

And that brings us to David Geffen, entrepreneur extraordinaire. What Geffen specializes in is getting talent what it wants. That’s why he got behind Spielberg and Katzenberg, he wanted to give his friends not only the best opportunities, but the most remuneration. But Geffen is not talent. If he was, I’d have bet on DreamWorks SKG. Then again, Geffen’s major victories were in a pool he played in his whole life, records. He knew that world. And the trio’s label failed, because it had no catalog and couldn’t see that times were changing, too much money was spent reimagining the Warner Brothers of the seventies, only it was the nineties. One can ask if Geffen is really a builder, or someone who extracts value, knows how to make a deal. One can’t take away his triumph on Broadway with “Dreamgirls,” but even his own forays into film were uneven. As William Goldman famously said, “Nobody knows anything.” Which is why you hedge your bets and don’t try to revolutionize.

No, DreamWorks SKG was not a disruptive enterprise, at most it was a victory lap, and then it imploded. The aforementioned record label tanked, as did the video game division and Geffen ultimately made a deal for Spielberg’s output and the animation division went public.

And then the game begins. Can you give the Street what it wants? A baseline of profit, no dips with occasional peaks?

That’s nearly impossible to do.

And when you have a disaster in film, it’s nearly a total write-off.

Katzenberg scrambled. Saw he was gonna hit the wall and cut expenses and tried to live in the modern era. But was he doomed from the start? Was the task insurmountable?

That’s the question, can you compete with Amazon?

Nobody has yet.

As for Google… Bing has little market share and has lost over a billion.

And Facebook… It turns out there’s room for only one social network. And when another one appeared, Facebook bought it. That’s right, Zuckerberg scooped up Instagram, and while he was at it bought WhatsApp for good measure. Could Facebook possibly fall to Evan Spiegel’s Snapchat? Possible, although the profits at Snapchat are thin. But one thing you can say is Snapchat was a new idea, evanescent product. What was the new idea at DreamWorks?

There wasn’t one.

So be wary of competing in an established marketplace. Especially one with long entrenched players. You’re going to hit headwinds from minute one.

And think twice about going into capital intensive enterprises where you either succeed or fail and there’s no in-between. Records are cheap, movies are really expensive. Records can come alive long after release, and sell long after release, whereas the revenue chain for movies is down down down from the beginning. So if you’re busy spending and there’s nothing coming in…

That’s the dirty little secret of the studios and the labels, they’ve always got something coming in.

And the assets that generate this income, the library and the catalog, can be employed as leverage.

Independence is a loser’s bet, even the Weinstein brothers have failed. They lost Miramax and their new company has been teetering, and if Spielberg is the best director out there, they’re the best promoters.

So…

1. Don’t compete with the behemoths unless your enterprise is truly disruptive, has an element that cannot be seen by your competitors. Furthermore, it’s best if you can produce cheaper and scale quickly at little cost. And now, with so much content in the sphere, excellence is key. This is what killed Jeffrey, for a long time Disney was the only company in the animation business, then everybody was in it. The audience can’t see every cartoon, only the best.

2. Know what you do best. Spielberg directed. Katzenberg worked for others. As for Geffen, one can argue he did do what he did best, he delivered for Steven and Jeffrey beyond their wildest dreams, it just wasn’t a financial triumph for David.

3. Have a steady stream of income to tide you over the low points. Sure, in tech you garner an audience first and revenue last. But even that paradigm is fading. If you’re spending big and waiting for the money to come in…you’re at risk. Hell, the history of independent movie companies is death, Carolco bit the dust, maybe you just can’t do it.

4. Sexy doesn’t define the bottom line. Faceless hard work does…the animators who exercised Katzenberg’s wishes at Disney, the CPAs and other bodies at the studio who make the whole thing work.

We’re gonna see unicorns in the future. But if you expect outsiders to come along and dethrone film studios and record companies…you probably believe Tidal will become a raging success. People vote with their dollars. And they spend them reluctantly and wisely. They’ll follow your antics in the news, but when it comes to paying…

They want what everybody else wants. Not what is promoted best, but that which is considered quality and successful.

So, so long DreamWorks. You’re a relic of the nineties, before the world was blown apart by the internet and consolidation ruled.

Comcast is rolling up. Give credit to Katzenberg for selling out.

But it’s hard to characterize DreamWorks as anything but a disaster, a blip on the radar screen at best.

P.S. “Synergy,” the most overused word of the seventies, has finally come to flower in the twenty first century. Huge conglomerates can utilize assets in a way that small enterprises cannot. There are Pixar attractions at Disneyland, Comcast can feature DreamWorks Animation properties at Universal Studios. We live in a global economy. He with deep pockets can amass assets that propel each other to untold profits around the world.

Just when I’d convinced myself there was nothing wrong.

The turning point was physical therapy, last Thursday, improvement was nearly nil, I knew this was more serious than I hoped it might be.

So I came home and immediately called the bigwig doctor, who couldn’t see me for five weeks, I could see the number two on May 9th, this can’t be!

I made the appointment. And then I called my go-to guy. You have to know people in this world, and you know who this guy is, and thank god he was on the case, I got an appointment first thing Monday morning.

Where the doctor was reluctant to shoot me up. Because if it’s a torn rotator cuff it makes it worse.

I intentionally didn’t stretch before I saw him, I wanted to be the worst I could be. As it was, it was tough for me to go, I felt I should brush it off.

I was stunned when he commented on how bad my movement was, mortified when he spoke of a potential rotator cuff tear and surgery, he said I needed an MRI to be sure.

CAN I GET ONE RIGHT NOW?

That’s my personality, when I’m on the case there’s nothing in the way, I clear the decks and get right on it. I went into the tube Monday night, during the first available window.

And in the interim I reeled.

A 4-6 month recovery period? With your arm immobilized in a sling for the first thirty days? How was I gonna type? And what about my standard transmission car, and my obligations?

But by time I was finished with the MRI I’d calmed down, a bit anyway, to tell you the truth I was agitated, but I’d done all I could, now I just had to wait.

My original plan was to call the doctor, the report would be ready midday Tuesday. Then I reconsidered. What if there was more, would it translate well on the phone?

It wouldn’t have.

Today I got there early and I had to wait. Stunningly, the doctor apologized.

And by this point, as I stated above, I thought I was out of the woods. I could lift my arm above my head. Pain was lessened. But there was still that pop.

That pop turned out to be a biceps tear. And there’s a labrum tear too. And theoretically I could skip surgery, it’s only one of four rotator cuff tendons, but the doctor said he would tell a family member to do it, because there’d be weakness for the rest of my life, and possibly pain.

But I can lift my arm over my head now, I showed him!

And he pointed out the hitch in the lift.

So they pass the info on to the surgeon, who reviews it and gets back to me within three days. This is the guy I couldn’t see for five weeks, this guy is world class.

And what’s the recovery like?

Well, there’s a good amount of pain.

Well, I can’t take anything with Tylenol, it interferes with my Gleevec.

But the doctor reeled off a bunch of alternatives.

So where does this leave me?

I’m gonna have surgery, I’m not dumb. You don’t fix things and they haunt you in the future. It’s kind of like a car, I don’t let it slide, I get the repairs, I don’t want the thing breaking down on the side of the road, I don’t want to be hit with an even bigger bill in the future.

And to tell you the truth, I’m numb. I was forewarned, but I’d convinced myself I was fine.

But I’m not.

P.S. Had kidney tests yesterday, awaiting results. I don’t anticipate a problem, then again there’s the above, however I haven’t bled since.

P.P.S. There’s a brief window within which you can do the surgery, a month or two, it depends on your biology. So, if you wait and see, you lose your opportunity.

P.P.P.S. The tube, the MRI… Don’t be afraid, it’s just a psychological game. The first time I signed up for the sedative, but then I decided I’d give it a shot without. Now I’m a regular, I almost look forward to it, where else can you be undisturbed by phone calls and e-mail?

P.P.P.P.S. As I said, the doctor apologized for running late, but I’m willing to wait… Yet it’s good to hear. And I’m standing over his computer screen where I see a report detailing an acute rotator cuff tear…and I go into shock, this cannot be me! And I’m not sure it was. The MD had to go back and bring up another screen, had to type my name in. Maybe I got a reprieve, but it was not to be. We looked at the pictures and it was clear. I asked him would the MRI have shown problems even without the trauma and he said yes, maybe there was a preexisting condition, but what he saw now needed to be addressed. And I can’t get over the pops in my arm, the biceps muscle out of its groove and the rotator cuff tendon flailing, that sensation when it slides from under the bone.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

So said Bob Dylan, in “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” a fountain of wisdom on “Bringing It All Back Home,” a transition from politics to inner truth, from folk to rock, this was the LP before “Highway 61 Revisited,” when Dylan became a household name with “Like A Rolling Stone.”

But that’s what Dylan was, a man who kept rolling, kept changing, kept exploring, who was not married to the past and cared not a whit for naysayers.

Kind of like Steve Jobs.

And as long as Jobs was at the helm of Apple the company burgeoned.

But those days are through. To expect the Cupertino company to continue to triumph is to expect the Doors to succeed without Jim Morrison.

Granted, some bands survive the loss of their frontman. Van Halen soldiered on with Sammy Hagar, and Phil Collins emerged from behind the kit to lead Genesis, but usually…when the creative genius is gone, it’s over.

But the public does not want to believe this.

It’s hard to get people’s attention, it’s hard to gain their loyalty, but once they’re inured to you they don’t want to give up. Exhibit number one is BlackBerry. Anybody who’d used an iPhone knew the Canadian company was toast. But even the financial press was out of the loop, looking at the numbers instead of society.

And what does society want?

Something new and different that not only titillates its fancy, but demonstrates extreme utility.

Unlike the Apple Watch, which was good in theory yet dead on arrival, or after twenty four hours, when it ran out of juice. You had to recharge it, was it worth the effort, or were you better off just putting it in a drawer? And like a cult band from the eighties which hits a wall and goes no further, there was no word of mouth on the Apple Watch, some owners testified, but the rest of the populace just ignored it.

Tim Cook needs to be replaced. Apple doesn’t need a traffic cop, it needs a visionary. Execution is important, but it’s secondary to inspiration. The idea is king, never forget it.

But it won’t happen, because in modern society the board is a tool of the CEO, an echo chamber. And no one likes to take big risks, no one likes to upset the apple cart when things are going reasonably well. But then they start to tank and it’s over.

Kind of like the iPad, replaced by the phablet, the large phone.

The iPad was killed by the phablet the same way the iPod was killed by the iPhone. What did Cook and company do? They doubled-down on the iPad, creating a Pro version with a stylus that was a marvel of technology but is something most people just don’t need. Meanwhile, there was this canard that the device was a desktop replacement when the truth is it’s nothing of the sort.

As for the future…

That’s what we depended upon Steve Jobs for. We’re not techies, we’re not engineers, we’re just consumers. We buy, you provide.

So we’re down to three, Amazon, Google and Facebook, Apple is over.

And it hurts me to say this, being a Mac user since ’86, but he who cannot see the writing on the wall is destined to a life of business illiteracy, never mind being left behind.

You can fail, but you must learn from your mistakes. Amazon killed its Fire phone, but it’s building a juggernaut with its Echo. Apple made the big splash, with Siri, but it’s the Seattle company that’s taking the flag and running with it, doing what Apple used to do best. Yes, Apple did not create the first portable MP3 player nor the first smartphone, it just did it better. Amazon has not only trumped Apple in voice recognition, it put a dent in wireless speaker leader Sonos, which is pivoting at this very moment.

But there’s no pivot at Apple, only an endless victory lap.

As for the electric car… Assuming they’re building one, Steve didn’t focus on me-too products, but breakthrough products. And the breakthrough is in driverless cars, and Google dominates there.

The two founders, the two principals, took over the reins from Eric Schmidt, they no longer need adult supervision. And although they’ve stumbled here and there, Google keeps pushing the envelope, funding new businesses most people haven’t heard of, and adjusting for a mobile economy along the way.

Which Facebook does best. Facebook has made inroads into mobile advertising and the average person just thinks it’s a social network, the same way most people don’t know the prime revenue driver at Amazon is the web services division, not retail.

Smartphones are nearly a commodity. This is what’s hurting Samsung, the cheap competition from the bottom, the Korean company just can’t establish enough differentiation to hold on to market share, never mind profits. Sure, the iPhone has an ecosystem, it may even sport the best OS out there, but Apple has been legendarily bad at services and we need look no further to Sony to see how those selling premium-priced products are ultimately eclipsed. Turned out Samsung was just as good, if not better, in flat panel TVs, the Trinitron was no longer an engine of growth. The future comes and if you don’t continue to lead, you’re toast.

This is not a musical act, which can thrive on the hits of its past. No one wants a cassette Walkman, and no one wants a twenty inch tube TV.

Bill Campbell believed in founders. Turns out adult supervision makes the trains run on time, balances the books, but makes your company moribund. You’ve got to find a way to keep the crazy innovators in charge. And if they can’t adjust their ways, if they can’t get along, they’re booted, like Andy Rubin, or neutered, like Marissa Mayer, both at Google. And yes, Marissa got another gig, where she’s accomplished little, demonstrating the worst parts of her willful, my way or the highway personality in the process. Maybe Yahoo was unfixable, but if the board had done its research it would have never hired her.

Apple needs a house hippie. Someone who can see into the future and bend the company to his or her will. Tim Cook must retreat to doing what he does best, which is overseeing the supply chain, maximizing efficiencies. Steve Jobs got it wrong once, hiring Sculley, he could get it wrong again. The smart money makes changes soon, the dumb money just lets things roll along until the train approaches the wall it’s going to crash into.

This has got little to do with finances today. Despite the drop, Apple is huge and still throwing off cash. But business history is littered with those who dominated today but were marginalized tomorrow.

It’s hard to find an original, someone strong-willed enough to lead minions into a future frequently only they can see. Which is why most bands and most companies don’t make it.

But they shouldn’t. Competition is cutthroat, we’re only interested in the best.

So I don’t know who can lead Apple out of the doldrums. Probably someone young, not invested in the past. Then again, Steve Jobs had an investment in Apple, it was his baby, when he returned he had to make it right.

Who has that investment now?

Kind of like a record company without its founder still in place, run by someone beholden to suits as opposed to his gut.

The history of success is one of great leaps of faith, big risks.

And we haven’t seen any risk from Apple in a long time.

Then again, you’ve got to know where to go.

That’s why movies were so great in the seventies, the directors knew where to go. The suits came in and normalized the industry and today it’s a meaningless scrapheap that generates cash but has the cultural significance of a trash bag, it does its job, it throws out the garbage, and then you forget about it.

Sure, detractors love to deride the leader. Which just illustrates how hard it is to stay on top. But Zuck buys WhatsApp, knowing that messaging is king, having a vision around the world, and Apple still keeps iMessage locked behind a wall.

It’s sad, but it’s time to change leadership at Apple now. Before Cook gets uptight and makes lame acquisitions like Ballmer, purchasing the moribund Nokia, most of its value needing to ultimately be written off.

Innovation…

It happens in music. Shawn Fanning led the way, Daniel Ek has picked up the flag. If you think they’re the enemy you don’t know how the future arrives, it’s in the air, if it wasn’t Shawn it would have been someone else. Ek just found a way to make streaming music work, and continues to double down on the free tier, raising and spending money when everybody twice his age says he’s a bozo.

But those twice his age are already done. They want Robert Plant to reform Led Zeppelin, but in tech we’ve already established that there’s little demand for the past, and the past never grows, it only recedes.

We’ve got an endless supply of MBAs, people who can install order in a land of chaos. But we’ve got very few visionaries, those who deserve the ball like Steph Curry. We thought Michael Jordan could never be matched, but it turns out someone playing a different game could wow us. Who knew the three point shot was so effective?

That’s right, who knows?

Someone does.

And it’s no one at Apple.