There’s been a lot of recent blog posts alluding to the rumor that the web series is dying. Most of the articles are looked at from the business side of it.

I’d like to add my two cents into the discussion as a content creator myself and a “small grasshopper” in regards to putting material online. From my own point of view, as someone who has been in the independent film world for a long time, creating web series is the best single damn thing to ever happen.

Is it a crowded space?

Sure.

Is it hard or near impossible to make a buck or attract advertising or sponsorship?

Of course.

Are the huge view counts attainable on a consistent basis?

No.

Hard? Challenging? Feel like your banging your head against the wall impossible?

Yes!

But this is nothing compared to the indi film world. You’ve got - dried up film financing, artistic compromises made for investors, diva talent, a distribution platform that has dried up, and has been proclaimed dead - an atmosphere of downright swindler ship with most low-budget foreign distribution companies, an over saturation of the marketplace leading films to wither on the vine, all of these are a daily occurrence in the indi film world with far, far more dollars on the line.

Perhaps it’s a result of me still being “buzzed” from being a newcomer in the online video world, but the sense of creative satisfaction I’ve gotten in the past few months has surpassed all my experiences in the indi film arena.  I’m making a show that I like, not what other cooks in the kitchen want to see, I’m making it with friends, shooting it in the style I want to, and above and beyond anything else, enjoying myself. This is not even taking into account the viewer ship we’ve gotten, which, while by web standards is fairly minuscule, is for my own experience in showing films to festival audiences, far and away amazing.

No DVD screeners that fail to work, no dealing with unscrupulous sales agents who won’t return calls, no barrier to pushing your material out to an audience. The ability to be completely and totally in control of your destiny.

Is it still hard to make money online? Do you still need some kind of recognizable talent or element? Is it still a momentously uphill battle? Of course, and those debates and challenges have been written by voices in other far more established blogs. But for web series creators who have been around for a few years, who have become disillusioned that things haven’t changed, don’t forget the tremendous power that doing these shows have given you - and don’t forget what the alternative could be - because doing a web show, with all the inherent challenges in doing so, is far, far more creatively satisfying than any alternative in the independent realm.