I do a great deal of work with youth marketing so I have a slightly different perspective. I can't speak to music -- but films cost a great deal of money to make, and YouTube videos just won't replace that.
If you look at the next generation of consumers (kids) they're watching more broadcast television than any other demographic, they're camping out overnight to see films like the Hunger Games and this may surprise you ancient twentysomethings but these kids are actually paying for their music too. This is why Katy and Gaga are making real money, but more sophisticated music aimed at young adults isn't doing well.
The biggest mistake that techies make is that they assume that their lives are the lives that everyone else leads: And this just isn't the case. Are kids spending tons of time looking at YouTube? Yes! But they're also spending hours looking at the Disney channel too and paying for songs on iTunes with that gift card that grandma got them for their birthday.
Will the film and music companies go through a great deal of disruption? Very much so — but they won't be replaced by tech companies, unless those are videogame companies. The only way that tech companies will disrupt Hollywood is if they get into producing content - so far the only examples of this is Steve Jobs taking over Pixar to make films and Sony with their valuable music and film business.
Here in Ukraine people are forgetting "TV" as more and more people use computers. So the TV situation could differ among countries.
But I totally agree with you that the strongest way to defeat Hollywood would be some "Anti-Hollywood" producing great media content appreciated by people watching it.
Because they often don't have personal computers anymore, not as we had them.
When I was a kid, I set up zsnes on the computer at my after-school program, downloaded a bunch of ROMs, and taught the kids the key-mappings. I became the Guy Who Made Video Games Run on the PC. I did it at home, rampant pirate that I was.
But do today's kids actually have an unlocked PC available to them? Do they have consoles whose games come in self-contained cartridges so that piracy becomes imaginable? I don't think so.
They have consoles and handhelds that work mostly via their connections to proprietary company servers. They have iPods and phones and tablets locked down with company DRM. They have Windows 7 or OS X computers at home, at school, at after-school, and in offices with actual security models that stop kids from messing around installing whatever they like. Pirating a game now involves torrenting several GBs of ISO, mod-chipping your console or installing a game crack, and then installing a crack/workaround for the network log-in based DRM (thanks, EA and Ubisoft). It's often easier just to buy the damn thing off Steam, but then you have to ask Mom and Dad for money to buy games. What kid wants to go through that ordeal?
We grew up in a Wild West playground of open personal computing where little was locked, locks could be picked, and there weren't any security guards. I fear today's kids have grown up in a walled garden guarded by men with flaming swords.
Interestingly kids have always been into games consoles rather than PC gaming. I remember arguments between console and PC games players at school some years ago.
If you look at the next generation of consumers (kids) they're watching more broadcast television than any other demographic, they're camping out overnight to see films like the Hunger Games and this may surprise you ancient twentysomethings but these kids are actually paying for their music too. This is why Katy and Gaga are making real money, but more sophisticated music aimed at young adults isn't doing well.
The biggest mistake that techies make is that they assume that their lives are the lives that everyone else leads: And this just isn't the case. Are kids spending tons of time looking at YouTube? Yes! But they're also spending hours looking at the Disney channel too and paying for songs on iTunes with that gift card that grandma got them for their birthday.
Will the film and music companies go through a great deal of disruption? Very much so — but they won't be replaced by tech companies, unless those are videogame companies. The only way that tech companies will disrupt Hollywood is if they get into producing content - so far the only examples of this is Steve Jobs taking over Pixar to make films and Sony with their valuable music and film business.