I disagree with your reasoning about people reaching out for social connection. Many people post tweets, instagram images, facebook status’ of their morning coffee or other mundane daily rituals because they want to feel a semblance of accomplishment of doing something, anything. Subsequently, they desire, even demand that it be recognized by their peers, in the form of retweets, reblogs, diggs, likes, etc. It’s like the kid who receives a trophy for JUST showing up to the game, instead of trying to compete, win, and earn that trophy.

“We are not getting stupider because we’re tweeting up a storm”

Say you want to have an art career. You pay for art school. This very obviously contributes to your ability to have a career in the arts. (Though I have to say the recent hulabaloo about The Art Institutes has a similar stink.) Or you want to network with art world professionals. So you pay the entry fee to portfolio reviews. In all these cases, you get pretty much what you’ve paid for.

However, with something like this, it’s less clear that the exposure you are getting is the kind of exposure that you want. Are art or photo world professionals really going to seriously consider this project? Are gallerists? I mean, maybe. Maybe they will, but what makes it scammy is that you could probably find exposure that reaches the right audience for free if you just put in the work.

Can you even put something like that on your resume? If anyone looks it up, they can see that you’ve simply paid for inclusion rather than being chosen for the quality of your work. That’s not exactly a prelude to being represented or hired. When you pay for art school or a review, it’s paying to get in the door. Whether you get shown or find work is a whole other thing that no one guarantees. But with this, you are directly paying to be included.

But who knows. It’s not that much money in the long run and if people want to do it, why not. I just wonder how realistic they’re actually being about their expectations. It’s all just a balance of cost and benefit. I mean, shoot, if I’d found out about it when it was still in the $1 range, I’d probably have done it!

The question isn’t “is pay to play right?” The question is, “is paying for this right for me?” For this particular project, you have to ask what paying to be in this book does for you. Undoubtedly, there may be a lot of less-than-stellar photo work. But does this book get you on shelves of places you couldn’t get in to without building up a solid reputation?

My opinion is that this is a novelty, like the million dollar website. If you’re going to do it, do it now. Because the 2nd edition will most likely get ignored. If I’m an unknown, I think this is a great opportunity to get seen. I’ve paid to play for things with much less opportunity. :)

I think it’s also particularly important in cases where there are potential public health issues. Looking at pipelines and derricks and wastewater pools makes the residue look like an eyesore, but if you’re there and you get an instant headache from the fumes within minutes, that gives you a completely different outlook on the issue. There’s the argument that sort of thing could be conveyed by writing, but personally I find text less persuasive than the actual smell of the place.

What frustrates me about both articles is that they blow a bad piece of data out of proportion without context and then make sweeping generalizations from that. Both of them. My point is that the number of people graduating with an arts degree doesn’t tell us much about how dedicated they actually are to making art or why they do it.

But then again, we never really know why people do it do we? There are public reasons and there are private reasons.