Eminently True of Music
December 28, 2010
It’s a grave mistake in publishing, whether you’re talking about Internet or print publication, to try to play to a limited repertoire of established reader interests. A few years ago, Bill Gates was boasting that we’ll soon have sensors which will turn on the music that we like or show on the walls the paintings we like when we walk into a room. How boring! The hell with our preexisting likes; let’s expand ourselves intellectually. — Denis Dutton, founder of Arts & Letters Daily, who died today
His doctrine does not in the least contradict the value of the “long tail” or of “niches” — so long as you include the niche of people who are intellectually curious.
