Thread by @tomaspueyo

Scientists have something to learn from musicians.

Their business models are changing in a similar direction. The ones who realize it quickly will gather an impact and wealth that few could have dreamed of before. 🧵

The currency of scientists is references to their published papers: The more references they get, the more successful they're considered, the more likely they are to get tenure, go up the ranks, and make $

That business model means they need to please their peers and the scientific journals.

Both of these are traditional gatekeepers who have a strong incentive about reputation. The more on the cutting edge the paper, the better. The more jargon, the more it looks advanced.

But this business model is changing. The revenue model (tenure) and the distribution model (scientific journals) are going through changes.

With internet, and especially with COVID, scientific distribution has had an explosion over social media.

Scientists have gathered immense audiences on Twitter, Facebook, even TikTok. They now have their own access to people.

That access will dramatically help for quotes

& also opens up a revenue model as creators. They can get $ directly from ppl, for example through a Substack.

Even for traditional tenure, it's likely that star scientists with their own audience will be much more prized than without it, because they will give a name to universities, which then can attract more revenue through students and alumni.

So how will all of this change their product, scientific papers?

We can get an idea by looking at another profession that has gone through a very similar transformation: musicians.

Traditionally, their revenue model (selling albums) was mediated by gatekeepers (labels), who hence had SO MUCH POWER. There were only 4 big ones.

But then with internet, sales started going down dramatically. The revenue model dried up.

What they didn't realize immediately is that rev was down because distribution was up: They now had access to listeners from all over the world

That meant they could create an audience and own it.

Instead of going through labels

That's how internet enables Taylor Swift to destroy the value of the previous albums she doesn't own, simply by re-recording them and telling the fans that follow HER to not listen to the albums she doesn't own.

Now, musicians have their own audiences, which destroys the gatekeepers, and instead of selling their music, what they sell is access to the musician, whether it's through merchandise, concerts, Cameos, private concerts, or OnlyFans-type interactions.

More and more, musicians won't go to labels to hope they get a shot at distribution, and the "tenure" might come with it (royalties). It will be the other way around.

Labels will go to musicians who are already successful to hope they can help them for a small piece of their pie

So what's the lesson for scientists?

If it's true that social media distribution becomes paramount to their success, and opens up new revenue models, they become creators.

Their audience is not (just) their peers anymore, it's the broader audience of normal people interested in their work.

This will force them to change their product.

Dry and obscure papers won't fly anymore.
Jargon will be anathema.
Good communication, good visuals, intuitive storytelling will become prized skills.

This will not be a radical transformation, because academia is a much slower industry than music. But it will happen, little by little, over the next few years and decades.

Scientists will step down from their ivory towers and become teachers again, something they should never have stopped being.

I, for one, will welcome this change.