From Jonathan Coulton’s blog (via Daring Fireball)
But somewhere along the way the bottom line started improving, and I became less obsessed with tracking every little thing. Now I sort of think of the whole engine as a special genetically engineered cow who eats music and poops money — I have no idea what’s going on in its gut, and I have the luxury of not really caring that much about the particulars. […]
The state of the industry makes a lot more sense when you think of it this way, all these new business models rising and falling, internet radio choking on insanely high performance royalties, Radiohead and NIN giving stuff away and making a killing. This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop.
I think that’s the best description of the current state of the music industry I’ve read. In long over-beer discussions with friends I’ve called it a black box: put music in one end, money comes out the other and don’t even think about trying to directly correlate inputs with outputs.
But man, feeding a cow and waiting for it to poop is a much more vivid way to put it.