The reality of Long Tail media

One of the lessons from a failed startup:

I would advise any entrepreneur or investor considering content to think twice, as Howard Lindzon from Wallstrip warned us. Content is an order of magnitude harder than technology with an order less upside; no YouTube producer will earn within a hundredth of $1.65 billion. This will only become more true as DVRs and media-sharing reduce revenues and pay-for-performance ads eliminate inefficient ad spend, of which there is a lot. The main and perhaps only reason to do content should be the love of creating it.

TV and movie distributors ("studios") will continue benefiting the most from the emergence of the Long Tail media. As the basic insurance principle goes, the more authors and works, the less risk for an efficient distributor.