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Consider the case of a YouTuber who gets most of their revenue through superchats. They regularly upload videos, a couple times a week, and receive ad revenue a

Consider the case of a YouTuber who gets most of their revenue through superchats. They regularly upload videos, a couple times a week, and receive ad revenue and the od sponsorship deal. Once a week they do a livestream Q&A which is where the bulk of that superchat revenue comes from. Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of determining what your key business concern is, or what your business should put first.

latexr 2y ago
> Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Maybe, it depends on what they do next. Will they start uploading fewer videos and live-streaming more because they realised that’s where the money is? > Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of determining what your key business concern is, or what your business should put first. Agreed. But Google does put ads first. All the tracking, web proposals, Chrome, it’s all in service of ads. Perhaps you’re using an ad blocker and that’s making you forget, but Google’s services, like search and YouTube, are huge blobs of ads with a few bits of content sprinkled throughout and the ratio is getting worse in the ads’ favour. So yes, Google is an ad company. Not because it makes the most money from it, but because most of its effort is in expanding and defending their ad revenue. Heck, they literally spend billions of dollars just to make sure you search with their engine to see their ads.
consteval 2y ago
> Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all True, but in addition to the revenue Google ALSO tailors all their products to facilitate their advertising products. It's sort of like a singer who sells merch. The merch makes money but it also props up the singers singing career and funds tours. Chrome revolves around ads, android revolves around ads, maps revolves around ads, gmail revolves around ads. If you take a hard look at all their products their all linked to Google's advertisement offerings in one way or another. That, to me, means adtech is their main line of business.
marcosdumay 2y ago
> Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Yes. And if you press them economically, it will show. The only difference is that most people do not optimize their lives for profit.
- SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
  Not at all. In the hypothetical, without getting into the weeds of a business that doesn'tactually exist, if they stop producing the non-livestream content they could quickly find their livestream revenue dry up. They could perhaps pivot, but at that moment, the superchats only exist because of the non-live content they put out.
  - majewsky 2y ago
    So what you're saying is they will drive business decisions to ensure the viability of their livestream revenue stream. I feel like we're all in agreement.
darby_nine 2y ago
They are the be all and end all in determining the incentives of a company from outside of it, though. If you sell ads I'm not going to trust any other product you have out of simple conflict of interest.

latexr 2y ago

> Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Maybe, it depends on what they do next. Will they start uploading fewer videos and live-streaming more because they realised that’s where the money is? > Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all and end all of determining what your key business concern is, or what your business should put first. Agreed. But Google does put ads first. All the tracking, web proposals, Chrome, it’s all in service of ads. Perhaps you’re using an ad blocker and that’s making you forget, but Google’s services, like search and YouTube, are huge blobs of ads with a few bits of content sprinkled throughout and the ratio is getting worse in the ads’ favour. So yes, Google is an ad company. Not because it makes the most money from it, but because most of its effort is in expanding and defending their ad revenue. Heck, they literally spend billions of dollars just to make sure you search with their engine to see their ads.

consteval 2y ago

> Revenue sources are not necessarily the be all True, but in addition to the revenue Google ALSO tailors all their products to facilitate their advertising products. It's sort of like a singer who sells merch. The merch makes money but it also props up the singers singing career and funds tours. Chrome revolves around ads, android revolves around ads, maps revolves around ads, gmail revolves around ads. If you take a hard look at all their products their all linked to Google's advertisement offerings in one way or another. That, to me, means adtech is their main line of business.

marcosdumay 2y ago

> Are they a livestreaming "first" business-man/company/sole trader? Yes. And if you press them economically, it will show. The only difference is that most people do not optimize their lives for profit.

SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
Not at all. In the hypothetical, without getting into the weeds of a business that doesn'tactually exist, if they stop producing the non-livestream content they could quickly find their livestream revenue dry up. They could perhaps pivot, but at that moment, the superchats only exist because of the non-live content they put out.
- majewsky 2y ago
  So what you're saying is they will drive business decisions to ensure the viability of their livestream revenue stream. I feel like we're all in agreement.

darby_nine 2y ago

They are the be all and end all in determining the incentives of a company from outside of it, though. If you sell ads I'm not going to trust any other product you have out of simple conflict of interest.