Huxley, I agree with you that writers need to look out for themselves and that my article does not provide an alternative immediate action to a strike. With as little known as there is regarding what will happen next in online program delivery, I would have opted to sit-tight with similar-to-current arrangements and wait. I sense that this strike tactic used now may have been counter-productive, and the breaking news that producers just walked away from the table seems to support this. I would now predict that the best writers will be able to do is get a fairly stingy cost-of-living-level increase and set a precedent they may regret later for an online revenue sharing model. On the other hand, a strike a couple of years from now, when each side had a better idea of what online revenues were really worth to them, might have worked better.
But I also think that in a few short years this whole environment and the entertainment supply chain with certain producers and networks in the middle may look very, very different. One of the many possible outcomes writers ought to consider is that while, relatively speaking, the producers seem like a hostile force, for better or worse they represent writers’ best chance to hold onto what they’ve got. In that case, using tactics like strikes now that alienate producers and consumers, and that might force them to seek alternative entertainment formats and talent across the web and abroad are not in their best interests.
