(Scattershot thoughts--I'm on a call and trying to both listen to the call and pay attention to important stuff like this and probably failing at both.)
I think the entitlement is a separate, but related issue, that will only get worse as we go further down the rabbit hole of potentially treating fanfic like a monetizable commodity. (FWIW, my pro writer friends still get that entitlement re: what they should/must/shouldn't write and complain about it all the time. )
Basically, and this is just my experience in fandom and everyone's fandom experience may vary, the bigger and more visible fandom has become, the lower the barriers to entry have become, the more fandom interactions have gone from smaller, more community-based ones to larger, more consumer-based ones (not that small = utopia, but it was different for me), the greater the sense of entitlement from readers.
I've managed to avoid a lot of this over the last few years by just avoiding writing much in megafandoms and sticking to old-school exchanges, most of which have a participant base best described as "old sticks in the mud like me" but I've seen it in the few cases where I've written popular pairings in large fandoms and it makes me tilt my head because it's so different from my pre-Web 2.0 megafandom experiences with popular pairings in large fandoms.
I don't think the gift economy model is all that healthy, either, but I also don't find that it adequately describes how I feel about fanfic as a form of expression largely free from the expectations of wage labor. Of course, even if I weren't on this call, I don't know that I'd be able to properly articulate my feelings on it, because they're tied into a lot of personal issues that are mine and mine alone. (Including how much I've grown to hate anything I love when it becomes paid labor because then it stops being mine on some level.) I think my best effort at articulation would be this: I enjoy having one environment in my life where the creation of something for the sheer love of creation is valued, without the expectation of compensation, even if it isn't valued enough.
no subject
I think the entitlement is a separate, but related issue, that will only get worse as we go further down the rabbit hole of potentially treating fanfic like a monetizable commodity. (FWIW, my pro writer friends still get that entitlement re: what they should/must/shouldn't write and complain about it all the time. )
Basically, and this is just my experience in fandom and everyone's fandom experience may vary, the bigger and more visible fandom has become, the lower the barriers to entry have become, the more fandom interactions have gone from smaller, more community-based ones to larger, more consumer-based ones (not that small = utopia, but it was different for me), the greater the sense of entitlement from readers.
I've managed to avoid a lot of this over the last few years by just avoiding writing much in megafandoms and sticking to old-school exchanges, most of which have a participant base best described as "old sticks in the mud like me" but I've seen it in the few cases where I've written popular pairings in large fandoms and it makes me tilt my head because it's so different from my pre-Web 2.0 megafandom experiences with popular pairings in large fandoms.
I don't think the gift economy model is all that healthy, either, but I also don't find that it adequately describes how I feel about fanfic as a form of expression largely free from the expectations of wage labor. Of course, even if I weren't on this call, I don't know that I'd be able to properly articulate my feelings on it, because they're tied into a lot of personal issues that are mine and mine alone. (Including how much I've grown to hate anything I love when it becomes paid labor because then it stops being mine on some level.) I think my best effort at articulation would be this: I enjoy having one environment in my life where the creation of something for the sheer love of creation is valued, without the expectation of compensation, even if it isn't valued enough.