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A child wanting to be a streamer is no different from wanting to be a professional actor or a soccer player. This story as cute as its folksy wisdom was didn't

by dron57 3y ago

A child wanting to be a streamer is no different from wanting to be a professional actor or a soccer player. This story as cute as its folksy wisdom was didn't mention scalability or the long tail of jobs. Some jobs scale, some do not. Brad Pitt, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rihanna and PewDiePie all have the benefit of being in the 1% (0.1%?) of their respective professions. They reap all the rewards. But there are millions and millions of people who aren't quite at the top and they get nothing. Dentists or plumbers on the other hand provide a service to a specific number of people. Their jobs do not scale. As such they are safer from the global Internet-wide competition and automation.

shubb 3y ago
Most people who try to make a living playing soccer don't pay the bills, but the top 1% of players make a lot of money. There are a lot of people who play soccer casually at the weekend and don't make money too. Most people who try to make a living programming computers pay the bills, and the top 1% of programmers make a lot of money. There are a lot of people 'kind of' learning a bit of python at the weekend sometimes who will never be professional programmers. Which of these is streaming like? You only need 1000 subscribers paying £10 a month to make £100K, and that is hard but not impossible to achieve. If you are reasonably smart, learn a bit about the industry, and work at it full time - it should be possible to get that many subscribers over a year or two. Right? So are youtubers more like programmers than soccer players?
- nrb 3y ago
  I’d hazard a guess that in order to bring in $100k on Twitch you’re probably in the top 1000 of all streamers. In order to make that in programming you don’t even need to be among the top few million.
- Rury 3y ago
  You have no idea what you're talking about, if you think streaming is more like programming than being a soccer proffesional. As of February, there are over 7 million active twitch streamers. 25 percent of the top 10,000 (ie the top 0.1%) highest paid Twitch streamers don’t even make minimum wage. Almost nobody makes any significant money as a streamer, let alone a living.

by dron57 3y ago

shubb 3y ago

Most people who try to make a living playing soccer don't pay the bills, but the top 1% of players make a lot of money. There are a lot of people who play soccer casually at the weekend and don't make money too. Most people who try to make a living programming computers pay the bills, and the top 1% of programmers make a lot of money. There are a lot of people 'kind of' learning a bit of python at the weekend sometimes who will never be professional programmers. Which of these is streaming like? You only need 1000 subscribers paying £10 a month to make £100K, and that is hard but not impossible to achieve. If you are reasonably smart, learn a bit about the industry, and work at it full time - it should be possible to get that many subscribers over a year or two. Right? So are youtubers more like programmers than soccer players?

nrb 3y ago
I’d hazard a guess that in order to bring in $100k on Twitch you’re probably in the top 1000 of all streamers. In order to make that in programming you don’t even need to be among the top few million.
Rury 3y ago
You have no idea what you're talking about, if you think streaming is more like programming than being a soccer proffesional. As of February, there are over 7 million active twitch streamers. 25 percent of the top 10,000 (ie the top 0.1%) highest paid Twitch streamers don’t even make minimum wage. Almost nobody makes any significant money as a streamer, let alone a living.