Not quite. Louis CK wasn't asking for a donation, he said that it cost $5 to watch his special.
But the point was that he made it available for everyone at a small price. You didn't need HBO for $10/month (typically where a comedian of his calibre would air their new special) and Comcast at $60/month on top of that. You didn't even need to pay Netflix $12/month or whatever. You didn't even need a PayPal account. Just pay for what you get in a DRM-free format.
I don't think this was even a sacrifice on his part. Sure he could sell DVDs through Amazon but how much of that does he actually profit? His costs for this experiment were the actual production of the performance (he smartly paid for it himself so he owns it, comedians are doing this more often now) and whatever server costs he has. His advertising costs are $0 through Twitter, positive press and retweets he's getting for this.
It's a win for everyone and I think bands would be wise to do the same.
It's not about lowering the cost for labor, it's about getting rid of the artificial, unnecessary middlemen.
I believe he actually stated that after the traditional sales channel gets their cut he ends up with about $5. So he is selling it for the same profit he would of seen and just cutting out all the middle men as he did not believe they where actually adding any value.
But the point was that he made it available for everyone at a small price. You didn't need HBO for $10/month (typically where a comedian of his calibre would air their new special) and Comcast at $60/month on top of that. You didn't even need to pay Netflix $12/month or whatever. You didn't even need a PayPal account. Just pay for what you get in a DRM-free format.
I don't think this was even a sacrifice on his part. Sure he could sell DVDs through Amazon but how much of that does he actually profit? His costs for this experiment were the actual production of the performance (he smartly paid for it himself so he owns it, comedians are doing this more often now) and whatever server costs he has. His advertising costs are $0 through Twitter, positive press and retweets he's getting for this.
It's a win for everyone and I think bands would be wise to do the same.
It's not about lowering the cost for labor, it's about getting rid of the artificial, unnecessary middlemen.