4 ms·

Oh, I remember. They sucked! Both the ads and the news they funded.

Retric 4y ago
Feel free to link to all these advertising supported websites better than Seinfeld. I could use a good laugh. News was hit or miss. They did a lot of serious investigative reporting, but newspapers where simply a better medium for personalized in depth coverage.
- modeless 4y ago
  If I had to choose between network television and YouTube, I would choose YouTube every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I mean, I enjoy Seinfeld too, but on the whole YouTube is both more entertaining and vastly more useful and educational than network television. Not because the content has the highest production values, but because the content matches my interests and needs. That's the true power of targeted advertising. It allows creators to focus on niches that can't be served by content produced for a mass audience. Even large 'niches' get dumbed down to the lowest common denominator for network television. Case in point: Here's Jay Leno interviewing Elon Musk about SpaceX Starship for network television [1] vs YouTuber Tim Dodd [2]. Leno's program is fine for people who don't follow space. For my niche Dodd is vastly better, but he can't draw a wide enough audience to make money on non-targeted ads like Leno can. And the thing is, everyone has their niches. There is no large population of people out there who are average in every way and need the network television version of everything. The average person doesn't exist. [1] Leno: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wluBlr1j4qk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wluBlr1j4qk [2] Dodd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw
  - Retric 4y ago
    Dodd got 6 million people watching a 1 hour segment. That valuable even without advertising targeting beyond estimates of viewership based on content. Now, you can quibble about how much targeting increase revenue but the funny thing about total advertising is it’s fairly consistent through time. Tracking failed to significantly increase worldwide advertising spend, it only redirects it.
    - modeless 4y ago
      6 million views (a view only requires 30 seconds of watch time, not the full hour) over a period of 14 months, for the most viewed video ever on his channel. If he could draw that for every video, maybe he could come close to competing with Leno. But he can't. I mean, looking at YouTube numbers alone, Leno's show's most viewed video has 34 million views. And of course the vast majority of his viewership and revenue is elsewhere. Dodd simply couldn't have a network television show with this kind of content. It wouldn't come close to making sense. If he did a network television show it would have to be a lot different, almost certainly in a direction that would make it less interesting for me personally. My argument has nothing to do with global ad spend, that's a red herring. The key is how those ad dollars get distributed. Targeted advertising makes niche content viable in a way that non-targeted advertising can't match.
      - Retric 4y ago
        You can have non targeted advertising on niche content. In fact YouTube will display advertising to any user even those it knows nothing about. The only difference is relative pricing, but again the global population and global advertising spend doesn’t depend on tracking so if it was banned little would actually change.
        modeless 4y ago
        > global advertising spend doesn’t depend on tracking so if it was banned little would actually change > The only difference is relative pricing ... the relative pricing difference is the whole difference I'm talking about. Without targeted advertising niche content makes less money, general audience content makes more. So you agree with me that this is true. Then you say that this is a small change. I say it has enormous effects on the content that gets produced. Honestly, this is transparently obvious.
        Retric 4y ago
        It’s not that simple. Tracking doesn’t universally increase spend to all niche content, it reduces spend to some niche content and increases it to other niche content. So there would be some changes to which niche content is created but it’s not going away. Just look at how much YouTube content is sponsored via an Ad inside the video. That isn’t tied to your personal history.

Feel free to link to all these advertising supported websites better than Seinfeld. I could use a good laugh. News was hit or miss. They did a lot of serious investigative reporting, but newspapers where simply a better medium for personalized in depth coverage.

modeless 4y ago
If I had to choose between network television and YouTube, I would choose YouTube every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I mean, I enjoy Seinfeld too, but on the whole YouTube is both more entertaining and vastly more useful and educational than network television. Not because the content has the highest production values, but because the content matches my interests and needs. That's the true power of targeted advertising. It allows creators to focus on niches that can't be served by content produced for a mass audience. Even large 'niches' get dumbed down to the lowest common denominator for network television. Case in point: Here's Jay Leno interviewing Elon Musk about SpaceX Starship for network television [1] vs YouTuber Tim Dodd [2]. Leno's program is fine for people who don't follow space. For my niche Dodd is vastly better, but he can't draw a wide enough audience to make money on non-targeted ads like Leno can. And the thing is, everyone has their niches. There is no large population of people out there who are average in every way and need the network television version of everything. The average person doesn't exist. [1] Leno: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wluBlr1j4qk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wluBlr1j4qk [2] Dodd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw
- Retric 4y ago
  Dodd got 6 million people watching a 1 hour segment. That valuable even without advertising targeting beyond estimates of viewership based on content. Now, you can quibble about how much targeting increase revenue but the funny thing about total advertising is it’s fairly consistent through time. Tracking failed to significantly increase worldwide advertising spend, it only redirects it.
  - modeless 4y ago
    6 million views (a view only requires 30 seconds of watch time, not the full hour) over a period of 14 months, for the most viewed video ever on his channel. If he could draw that for every video, maybe he could come close to competing with Leno. But he can't. I mean, looking at YouTube numbers alone, Leno's show's most viewed video has 34 million views. And of course the vast majority of his viewership and revenue is elsewhere. Dodd simply couldn't have a network television show with this kind of content. It wouldn't come close to making sense. If he did a network television show it would have to be a lot different, almost certainly in a direction that would make it less interesting for me personally. My argument has nothing to do with global ad spend, that's a red herring. The key is how those ad dollars get distributed. Targeted advertising makes niche content viable in a way that non-targeted advertising can't match.
    - Retric 4y ago
      You can have non targeted advertising on niche content. In fact YouTube will display advertising to any user even those it knows nothing about. The only difference is relative pricing, but again the global population and global advertising spend doesn’t depend on tracking so if it was banned little would actually change.
      - modeless 4y ago
        > global advertising spend doesn’t depend on tracking so if it was banned little would actually change > The only difference is relative pricing ... the relative pricing difference is the whole difference I'm talking about. Without targeted advertising niche content makes less money, general audience content makes more. So you agree with me that this is true. Then you say that this is a small change. I say it has enormous effects on the content that gets produced. Honestly, this is transparently obvious.
        Retric 4y ago
        It’s not that simple. Tracking doesn’t universally increase spend to all niche content, it reduces spend to some niche content and increases it to other niche content. So there would be some changes to which niche content is created but it’s not going away. Just look at how much YouTube content is sponsored via an Ad inside the video. That isn’t tied to your personal history.