
Louis CK's self distributed special up to 1MM revenue in 12 days - thesash
https://buy.louisck.net/news
======
georgemcbay
Given various horror stories regarding paypal account freezes, seeing that
much money in a paypal account (even when it isn't mine), gives me the cold
sweats.

Of course, in his case the backlash to an account freeze would probably kill
paypal (would be so widely reported that the feds would have to get involved,
I'd guess), but still...

~~~
SquareWheel
Paypal has frozen the accounts of many large people. Notch, for instance.

~~~
redthrowaway
Yes, but Louis CK is way, _way_ more well-known than Notch is. The dollar
amounts might be similar, but Louis CK is regularly on late night talk shows
and the like. The backlash would be far greater.

~~~
staunch
The dollar amounts are not similar. Notch is earning a _hell_ of a lot more
and he's not in the US.

He's making like $220k/day. Something like $70+ million total sales.

~~~
kenjackson
Really? Is there a source for that? Not that I don't believe you, but I'd love
to cite this data myself. That's incredible.

~~~
ugh
Minecraft.net has a stats page: <http://www.minecraft.net/stats>

I’m pretty sure that someone somewhere on the web has recorded those numbers –
but I’m too lazy to search right now.

Calculating the average is something I can do, though: On January 12, 2011
Minecraft had sold one million copies. Since then Minecraft sold another 3.4
million copies in 345 days – that works out to an average of a little less
than 10,000 copies per day.

That works out to €150k daily revenue for 309 of those days (during beta, €15
per copy) and €190k daily revenue for the rest of the time (after the release,
€20 per copy), resulting in a revenue around €50m for 2011.

------
jpdoctor
The part that spoke the loudest to me: _I never viewed money as being "my
money" I always saw it as "The money" It's a resource. if it pools up around
me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system._

Many of you know exactly what he means by that, and also subscribe to the same
philosophy. I just thought it was a very apt way of putting it into words.

~~~
UrLicht
Kudos to him for redistributing his own wealth the way he deems fit. I admire
that. But let's not try to push this way of thinking on everyone else (not
saying that's what you're doing here) - for any given person the potential for
abundance and wealth is so damn near infinite let's just call it that.

Edit - meaning to say there is no proverbial "pie" that you can only have a
small slice of. Your pie is as big as you make it.

------
mcobrien
A million dollars and a public paypal email address (check the screenshot). I
really hope he has a secure password.

~~~
dangrossman
Even if someone else were to log into his PayPal account, there's no damage
they could do. They can't withdraw his money to another bank account; adding a
bank account takes 3-4 days while you wait for PayPal to deposit some money
which you confirm the amount of to prove ownership. All the 'hacker' could do
is send the money to another PayPal account, which is trivially reversible as
long as someone notices in less than 3-4 business days, before the receiving
account can complete a withdrawal to a pre-confirmed bank account.

That's all assuming the account isn't immediately locked. If you log into a
PayPal account from a different computer and far away location, they'll
usually lock the account until you call in to say that's you and not a hacker
doing so. At the end of the day, PayPal's core business is fraud detection,
not payments. Anyone can do payments; they're just a software layer on top of
two Wells Fargo and Chase merchant accounts.

Your PayPal account e-mail address should be considered public knowledge as
soon as you put up a PayPal button. It's given out with every transaction and,
if you don't use PayPal's encrypted button generator, it's in plain text in
the payment form or URL.

~~~
jmonegro
All in all, horror stories aside, PayPal is a pretty secure way to store your
money.

~~~
mahmud
Paypal is very well protected from 3rd party attacks. However, it's very much
susceptible to random but real plundering of depositor money by _itself_.

------
jerfelix
I had a spirited debate yesterday with my 22 year old son about "Occupy" and
increasing taxes on the 1%. Since this puts Louis CK firmly in the 1% (if he
wasn't there already), it will be interesting to look at him as a case study.

At the risk of down votes, and converting this to a political argument...

According to my son, in order for the 1% to "win", many of the 99% had to
"lose". This seems like a clear case where we (collectively, mostly 99%-ers)
decided to "reward" Louis CK with a million dollars, and none of us "lost" in
the transaction. We decided willingly to fork over $5 for great comedy
(arguably worth more!). The only potential losers are the traditional
distribution outlets - which got zero from the transaction (so neutral, not a
loss).

So, Son, what do you think of that? Explain again why you think we should
penalize Louis CK for this?

Don't vote me down, kid. (My son will probably read this. I suspect there are
probably few father-son combos on HN.)

Edit: My son said he's not going to answer me publicly. However, he says "I
reserve the right to vote on the comment".

~~~
vidarh
So your son won't answer publicly, but here's my perspective:

It's not about penalizing him, or anyone else who are wealthy.

I don't consider myself rich - I live in a normal terraced house in a London
suburb the same size as my decidedly working class neighbors, and I don't have
huge piles of cash anywhere, though I do have some investments

But I'm well enough off to have it nice and comfortable, and I make several
times what most of my neighbors do with according benefits in terms of how I
lead my life.

Yet despite paying significantly higher taxes (about 10% points more than
someone on an average UK salary), the net effect of the reduction in my
spending ability from taxes is far less than the effect on my neighbors.

I won't even notice a 1% difference in my tax rate. I don't even know how much
I spend on groceries each month - it doesn't matter and isn't worth my
attention; I waste more than 1% each month on stuff from Amazon I probably
don't really need. A 5% difference would be noticeable, but not painful.

For my neighbors, a 1% difference can easily mean the difference between
making rent next month, or wait longer before fixing the car they depend on to
get to work, or having to count the coins and watch every penny to even be
able to make the paycheck last the whole month. A 5% tax hike for most of my
neighbors would mean they'd be in big, serious trouble.

This is one large reason why many people believe higher taxes on top earners
is justified. Whether in the US or UK, or most other places, the current tax
bands most places means the burden of tax in terms of the effect it actually
has on peoples lives is far greater on those who makes least to start with.

Yet people argued the economy would collapse with a new 10% higher tax band
for people making even far more than I do..

Any argument about what's "fair" is arbitrary and based on personal value
systems anyway. Why is a specific function of income to tax rate more fair
than another? It boils down to your values. Personally I don't consider it
fair that many of those who take all the shitty jobs I don't want to do, and
who struggle to keep things afloat, carry a heavier burden than me. After all
- without a well functioning society around me, there would have been no basis
for me to achieve the relative wealth I do have.

In another vein, I'd also prefer to have less misery around me. I can pay to
move somewhere where it's better hidden behind fences, or I can support
changes that actually helps make life better for others, whether in terms of
the tax system or others. The latter seems like a better investment.

~~~
kbolino
This is what has always struck me as unfair and somewhat crude about a flat
tax as well. A flat tax is only "fair" if you assume that everyone allocates
their funds in relatively congruent proportions, e.g. that everyone spends
about 10% of their income on groceries.

But past a certain point, groceries are more or less a fixed-dollar expense,
and so the more you make, the less you pay for groceries as a proportion of
your income. You can extrapolate this same idea to other critical expenses.

Thus, from the perspective of personal income alone, a flat tax--or a mildly
"progressive" tax--is actually regressive, because although it affects all in
equal proportion, the effect on the poorest is to forgo life's necessities,
whereas the effect on the richest is to forgo some measure of luxury.

Of course, the use of personal income to fund investments and businesses
muddies the issue, but the argument still remains, especially since the poorer
masses far exceed the richer few in number.

~~~
3pt14159
Well it should be a flat tax with a rebate. Say $5k to everyone.

~~~
roguecoder
That does not address his problem. He is suggesting that a fair tax would have
everyone taxed to the same marginal value, that is, where the last dollar the
government taxes is worth the same amount to each person.

There is nothing inherently fair about a flat tax any more than there is
something magical about round numbers. It just appeals to our irrational love
for symmetry.

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weaksauce
I like it. Taking care of the people who helped you make it super seamless to
buy, quick to download, advised you on drm issues. Donating to charity is an
excellent way to gain real life karma. That man is a real class act(well not
on stage).

------
thesash
The most inspiring thing about the whole story to me is how he was able to
generate a massively successful marketing campaign simply by being authentic,
and engaging his fans directly. I think this follows a lot of the "Thank You
Economy" concepts that Gary Vaynerchuck promotes to a T, and I hope that other
artists, companies, and brands take note of how powerful that strategy can be
after seeing this success.

------
jessedhillon
It's funny that one of his segments in this special is about how he's a bad
person -- he has charitable thoughts toward others, only so he can use them
feel good about himself without having actually acted on those thoughts.

In reality, he is probably in the top 10% of best humans ever.

~~~
DeusExMachina
I take for granted that during a show he says bad things only for the sake of
entertainment. I never thought that most of the things he says about himself
are true, as I guess a lot of people do.

Making people laugh is hard. One of the way is to point at things that are
true. This is also one of the purpose of satire, make people think through a
liberating laughter. But people might get offended, so a good way to avoid
that is to point at yourself instead.

~~~
AgentConundrum
> _I take for granted that during a show he says bad things only for the sake
> of entertainment._

Indeed. In the Beacon Theater show, he tells a story about an asshole kid in
his childs class, and about shaking the kid up a bit when he was volunteering
at the school one recess. During his AMA on reddit, someone asked him if there
had been any fallout from the school/parent on that, and he simply replied
that the kid in the story was entirely fictitious.

He's also apparently said before that when he tells the story of a stupid
person he meets (like the guy on the airplane who gets pissed off that the
internet, something which the guy had only discovered minutes earlier, was
broken/slow - an example of fast entitlement), he's actually talking about
himself.

------
niravshah
What a great contrast to anyone defending SOPA.

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TheBiv
What about taxes? I see that he broke that money into 4 parts, but none of
those parts contained taxes.

~~~
cburgas
That's a good point. I hope someone stops him before he becomes another famous
tax evader :)

~~~
bira
He's probably going to pay taxes on the 220k he's keeping for himself.

------
LukeHoersten
This is awesome. I love stuff like this. Wasteful distribution companies being
cut out and still hitting a wider audience for less money.

------
mml
I hope he merely forgot to mention the 300k for uncle sam & co. presumably he
has accountants. i hope, for his sake.

~~~
vidarh
Which 300k? I don't think you understand the US tax system. Most of the $1M is
not taxable profits given the breakdown he's given.

------
vermontdevil
Is the video subtitled or captioned? The website says nothing and I did not
want to spend $5 without knowing in advance. I've emailed to the support email
account listed on the website. But I'm sure it'll take time for someone to
give me an answer through the email.

Am hoping someone here could chime in and give me a quick answer.

Thanks

~~~
vermontdevil
Follow up: I got an email from the support team. They said they plan to add
captions or subtitles after the holidays.

I'm hopeful. Just passing along to those who depend on captions.

------
mhd
Anyone got a better idea of what he would get for a HBO special (including DVD
rights), just for contrast?

~~~
JL2010
This doesn't help much, but an excerpt from his previous news update when the
special hit $500K:

"Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000
(after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large
company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would
have charged you about $20 for the video."

So somewhere north of $200K.

------
kin
among all the SOPA news today, seeing this is refreshing. I'm so glad this
model worked for him, and I hope others follow in his foot steps. Distribution
is over valued.

------
mattberg
a little off topic, but ... all that money on his website and you can't get a
permalink to a news article? what the?

~~~
MichaelApproved
_"the first 250k is going to pay back what the special cost to produce and the
website to build. "_

I agree that it's a strange setup for the website but all the money didn't go
just to building it. I bet (hope) that most of that money was what the special
cost to produce and not much was spent on the site.

~~~
dwynings
Cost of the website was 30k.

------
zaroth
But... What's an "MM"?

~~~
jfarmer
I know you're not serious, but MM stands for "million." "M" stands for
"mille," French for "thousand."

So MM is a thousand thousand, or one million.

------
malkia
Awesome dude!

------
mkramlich
So the lesson reinforced here, again, is that once you're already famous for
something, the Internet makes it easy to sell things to fans directly. We
already knew this. But it's great to see it happen.

~~~
jamesbritt
_We already knew this._

We needed people like Louis CK to know this, and now he does, and so
(presumably) will other artists otherwise fearful of such an open approach.

------
tpowell
Just wow.

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cottonseed
I wonder if he's charging too much, given that he's giving away 1/3 of his
profit.

~~~
rcfox
This is a weird thing to say. If he kept the whole $1 million, would the $5
still be acceptable?

The price of an artifact (especially one with zero incremental cost to
produce) should be dependent on the value created, not the need of the
producer. The fact that people spent $10 to have the privilege of travelling
to see a fraction of this show, and then went away saying good things about
the show implies that he charged too little.

~~~
HotKFreshSwag
He only charged too little if his goal was to extract as much profit as
possible from his customers.

~~~
cottonseed
Right. Based on what he has said (and done), I don't imagine that was his
goal. I imagine several goals: to entertain people, to make a reasonable
profit, and show he could successfully develop and distribute his own content
unencumbered. Did $5 maximize those goals? That's what I was wondering with
the original (brutally downvoted) OP. Suppose he charged $1, 5x as many people
saw it, and he made the same amount. Would that have a been a better price
point?

~~~
rcfox
It's a little naive to expect a linear relation between dollars and viewers.
Charging $1 would have increased sales, but probably no more than 10-20%.

~~~
cottonseed
I didn't mean to imply such a close relationship between price and volume with
my example. What I meant to ask was, if more people saw it but he made the
same amount, would he like that more?

I know this is a deeply nested comment so that might not be the right place to
put it, but this is the idea I'm trying to get at. Louis CK is performing an
experiment about the production and distribution of entertainment. I think
that's great, and I'm thrilled at his success both because I think he's quite
good, and I think the current model(s) are very broken. The existing model
seems to have a funnel effect: e.g., in music, labels pick bands to invest in,
and those bands get a disproportionate share of the spoils. So I guess my
question is, what price for content like this best for me, the consumer, in
that it stimulates and supports a diverse landscape of content and performers?
Is $5 the right price?

------
swombat
I'm not sure I actually feel good about paying those $5 knowing that most of
it won't end up in Louis's pocket, actually.

If I wanted to donate to charities, I'd do it myself. I don't want to, I
believe there are better ways to use money - so I feel that money is kind of
wasted.

More importantly, I felt good about paying $5 because I felt I was giving $5
to Louis CK to support a great effort and an awesome artist. The fact that
he's keeping only 22% of it makes me feel like 78% of it was rejected. If so,
I might as well have kept my $5.

Honestly, right now what I'm thinking is that I'll probably get the next
version off BitTorrent. I'm not happy paying for a download with 80% of
overhead, especially if that overhead is voluntary. Most of the $5 should end
up in Louis' pocket, and if it doesn't, I don't feel like throwing it down the
drain, I have better uses for my money.

~~~
mononcqc
You gave the money to Louis, he spent it however he felt like, which includes
giving to charity. Where's the problem?

~~~
swombat
You give your son $100 as a birthday present. He spends $20 on himself and
throws the rest in the bin. That's his choice, but next time, will you give
him money? I wouldn't.

~~~
bsphil
Except that's a terribly inaccurate analogy. This isn't a $5 gift, it's a
transaction for a product. He's not throwing away the rest, he's paying bills
and donating to charities.

How you came up with "throwing $80 in the bin" is beyond me.

~~~
johnthedebs
Just wanted to add to this (not that it's needed to make the point): Louis
C.K. isn't your child.

