I have never seen anything equivalent on any big-name person/band on the internet. If you have specific examples please share them because the Radiohead experiment was one-off and it has long since ended.
batista already mentioned Stephen King.
It was sometime around 2000 and he decided to release a chapter at a time for free while accepting donations. He set some sort of barrier (I think it was 50%) and if the donations/downloads ratio fell below that, he'd stop publishing. After several chapters, the percentage inevitably fell under the 50% and he stopped publishing.
It was a novel (pun intended) experiment but at the time I certainly felt King was being quite antagonistic to the audience with the constant threats to cancel the experiment. And, well, I don't think the book was very good either, although it did go on to be published traditionally later on.
The idea of the e-book was very nascent at the time and there was no real understanding of what formats to use and on what devices (and e-books 10+ years ago were almost entirely for desktop use). If King did the same now using a Louis CK model, it would probably work well but.. heck, King doesn't need to try it because he's already as wealthy as any author should wish to be.
I would think that after achieving a great amount of wealth/success that these people would actually lust after the idea of breaking all requirements from the traditional publishers and work directly with their fans. Obviously need would be helpful, but I don't think need is necessary for success. Want seems to trump need in these cases - which might explain why it doesn't work quite as well for no-name bands/artists.
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I have never seen anything equivalent on any big-name person/band on the internet. If you have specific examples please share them because the Radiohead experiment was one-off and it has long since ended.
batista already mentioned Stephen King.
It was sometime around 2000 and he decided to release a chapter at a time for free while accepting donations. He set some sort of barrier (I think it was 50%) and if the donations/downloads ratio fell below that, he'd stop publishing. After several chapters, the percentage inevitably fell under the 50% and he stopped publishing.
It was a novel (pun intended) experiment but at the time I certainly felt King was being quite antagonistic to the audience with the constant threats to cancel the experiment. And, well, I don't think the book was very good either, although it did go on to be published traditionally later on.
The idea of the e-book was very nascent at the time and there was no real understanding of what formats to use and on what devices (and e-books 10+ years ago were almost entirely for desktop use). If King did the same now using a Louis CK model, it would probably work well but.. heck, King doesn't need to try it because he's already as wealthy as any author should wish to be.
Interesting. I don't recall the King experiment.
I would think that after achieving a great amount of wealth/success that these people would actually lust after the idea of breaking all requirements from the traditional publishers and work directly with their fans. Obviously need would be helpful, but I don't think need is necessary for success. Want seems to trump need in these cases - which might explain why it doesn't work quite as well for no-name bands/artists.