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#contentisking — Public Fediverse posts

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  1. Though it's often misattributed to Bill Gates, Sumner Redstone popularised the phrase "content is king" which was used in a 1974 book, and pre-dates even that.

    lgkmarketingcc.com/content-kin

    The book seems to be J. W. Click, Russell N. Baird, Magazine Editing and Production. W. C. Brown Company, 1974, 274 pages

    worldcat.org/title/magazine-ed

    books.google.com/books?id=lMpH

    Earlier appearances in the 1960s refer to educational films:

    worldcat.org/title/toward-impr

    books.google.com/books?id=LiQg

    Aguments over provenance notwithstanding, my view is that the aphorism is a convenient bit of stage distraction attractive to media monopolists themselves aware of the real truth: network control is emperor.

    And this goes beyond just getting the proprietor's cut, the vigorish, skimming your 5, or 10, or 30%.

    Central control of a network means deciding what that network is. Where it begins, where it ends, what goes in, what comes out, who can receive, who can send, what interactions are possible, speeds and latencies, what messages are heard, what are not, who pays, who gets paid, who plays for free.

    These factors are wholly ignored by contemporary US (Borkian) antitrust doctrine.

    It's not just the vig.

    #ContentIsKing #NetworkIsEmperor #SumnerRedstone #media #power #monopoly #obituary