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I don't have the energy for an intellectual debate, but personally, I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has i

I don't have the energy for an intellectual debate, but personally, I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay. I don't follow or watch Mr Beast videos, but from what I've seen, they are largely driven by a money fetish and as far as "creativity", it feels on par with the more boring "What would you rather" conversations I had in middle school. Maybe he has unlocked the key to virality by vigorously analyzing data, but looking at his videos, at a glance, it seems to more be formulaic, predictable, and simply having an actual budget that sets it apart (if it is actually set apart, as I find it hard to tell how much of it is others copying his work versus hius work being unoriginal).

TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
For as much slop as gets produced on YouTube, I think the high quality educational content more than makes up for it. You can literally look up any subject and find a full blown series on the topic. His huge budgets and willingness to reinvest all the profits into future videos have allowed MrBeast to produce a lot of unique videos which are effectively unmatched by anyone else. Right now they're really the undisputed kings of the platform, by a massive margin.
- Andrex 2y ago
  Agreed, YouTube is the PBS of the internet. It's free and fast.
  - intalentive 2y ago
    It’s a wonder of the modern world
    - hackernewds 2y ago
      and it just works. I'm glad there's a monopoly of UGC video
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    PBS is not, at least nominally, advertising-supported. YouTube very much is.
- cnity 2y ago
  This is why those who can appropriately select good information will flourish in this age. I still suck at it (get pulled into mindnumbing shorts for 30 minutes), but then I learned a new musical instrument for _free_ using YouTube.
aantix 2y ago
>Youtube is net bad for the world Disagree. The outliers don’t determine the value of the platform. The videos of people creating, fixing, coding, diagnosing, doing every day random things - those are a gift to humanity. Those visual demonstrations transcend language. Because of this, YouTube is more important than Google or any written word website. Knowledge share is finally global.
- elliotec 2y ago
  This is not how YouTube, or people, or virality work though. The fact there is some useful educational content is a byproduct of the machine of lucrative trash of the capitalist hellhole spiral, and the written word will always prevail comparatively. You can always bet on text. https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html Also, as you likely know, YouTube is owned by Google so it’s very silly to say it’s “more important.”
  - scrollaway 2y ago
    What you're saying is that the high quality educational content is subsidized by the trash. It doesn't make it net-bad. It makes it an ad-supported educational resource. Is that surprising, given that it's owned by an ad company?
    - elliotec 2y ago
      It does make it net-bad because the educational content should exist without the trash, which is far more prevalent. It forces the positive stuff to comply with the trash algorithms that make them worse and also forces them to comply with the monopoly of one of the largest, most monolithic corporations in the world that can do whatever the fuck they want with the content. Of course it's not surprising! It's just shitty and needs to be different.
      - scrollaway 2y ago
        But the educational content DOESNT exist without the trash and you cannot make a case that it just would, that’s unlikely and impossible to prove. “Net bad” means the world would be absolutely and inarguably better without YouTube. This is so outlandish, honestly; YouTube at its core is an information sharing platform and a lot of useful things have come out of it. Immense amounts even.
brigadier132 2y ago
This type of criticism reads to me as a general hatred of what humanity actually is. Mr Beast exists because humans like to watch it. By blaming Mr Beast, you are putting the effect before the cause. There is no enlightened society that is only watching MIT linear algebra lectures for fun, it doesn't exist.
- omnicognate 2y ago
  Are you arguing that the public fascination with it makes it morally acceptable? If so would you consider gladiatorial fights to the death and gruesome public executions, both of which have been massive crowd-pleasers in the past and no doubt would be again if they became socially accepted, justified by the same argument? If not, what do you think is different here that makes condemning Mr. Beast for feeding unwholesome public appetites wrong, but condemning Roman emperors for it right? Just a question of the degree of nastiness? Personally, I think human behaviour is massively influenced by culture and that we have an individual moral responsibility to take actions that work in favour of having a healthy culture. And I see that individual moral responsibility as resting particularly on those who profit from culturally influential activities (and if Mr. Beast isn't "culturally influential", please can we retire the term "influencer"). I see arguments often made that amount to justifying amoral, or even actively immoral, behaviours by the fact that money can be made from them, with an implicit assumption that humans have no free will when it comes to money, that an action that makes money has to be carried out and that this somehow morally absolves the one who does it. I see that as a corrosive meme and evidence of a deeply unhealthy culture, not as a conclusion that follows from adopting capitalism as the primary organising principle in a society.
  - brigadier132 2y ago
    > Just a question of the degree of nastiness? Just a question of degree of nastiness? Yes, competitions involving life and death are qualitatively different from competitions involving money. Something interesting to think about is that we do have ultra graphic action movies and horror movies. Are those also net negative? > Personally, I think human behaviour is massively influenced by culture and that we have an individual moral responsibility to take actions that work in favour of having a healthy culture. There is no human culture that I know of that was not fascinated by things like money and fame. > I see arguments often made that amount to justifying amoral, or even actively immoral I don't think Mr Beast is immoral and not for the reasons you state. I think you have in your mind some very judgemental ideas of what is right and wrong. I think shows like Mr Beast and all celebrity culture is dumb. I think sports are dumb too. I don't think they are evil and I know that humanity will find a way to create variants of these things no matter what kind of insane rules society tried to put in place.
seydor 2y ago
Does youtube have a lot of trash? He s certainly a (very big) outlier but the other trashy content is mostly about expensive cars and shit which is harmless by comparison. This guy has a genuine love of torturing people
lnsru 2y ago
I am with you. YouTube does not offer math lectures about volume calculation. It advertises some fast food alike junk about insane things. And the 8 years old boys watch cartoons about chopped heads and how the dog plays with these heads. Afterwards I was happy, that I am luddite and YouTube is blocked at home and kids don’t have smartphones.
- bmoxb 2y ago
  It absolutely does offer more maths lectures than you could ever conceivably watch.
  - twixfel 2y ago
    Yes, but good luck trying to watch them when the thumbnails in the side bar are full of seductive junk.
    - nicklaf 2y ago
      Browser extension solution to that problem: https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions
  - lnsru 2y ago
    They’re there. Hidden somewhere. I watched some of them. But you need to search for them. Like there is quality food I prepared for my workday today. But I must actively work on that and not take offered junk food.
    - gosub100 2y ago
      >But you need to search for them Oh the horror
- wholinator2 2y ago
  Youtube is the single most important and valuable learning tool that exists on the planet. There are lectures on literally everything, i have been recently learning my way into geometric algebra and lie theory for my physics phd. Sure, there's a lot of crap and youtube is just as happy to waste your time but if you search out and only watch educational content, your Frontpage will become educational content. It's hard to keep that way because there's tons of fun but uneducational things to watch, but there's browser extensions and things to help with that. Extensions that block the homepage and video recommendations, extensions that let you group your subscriptions and create your own feed. It can be amazing if you use it right, it's hard to use right sometimes
bit_4l 2y ago
I would disagree on the net bad for the world, or at least be skeptical about it. Personally, Youtube was my life changing tool which I used to learn almost everything essential to my career and personal development, and I would assume lots of others would be the same. The type of content it recommends goes with the type of content you interacted with in the past. It just a tool and it matters how you use it
malthaus 2y ago
youtube still has a net positive value. the amount of knowledge & learning (and ok, entertainment) i get out of it on a daily basis is immense and i can't imagine the amount of wisdom i'd have sucked up as a kid if i had access to all this. if it comes at the price of having it subsidised by the likes of mrbeast, i'm all for it. same trade-off as getting ads on instagram to enjoy it as a free service.
- sgu999 2y ago
  What the algorithm seems to favour is a better indicator of what people use Youtube for overall. I'm also using youtube almost exclusively as a means of education, but a net positive for us doesn't really mean much. If for one more educated viewer you get ten more radicalised and dumber ones, we may be better off without it.
lijok 2y ago
> I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world Overwhelming majority of things designed to exploit human imperfections for personal gain are a net bad. Youtube has become one of those things. Unfortunate, 'cause that's where the money is.
infecto 2y ago
I see it differently. I don't think YouTube fundamentally changes people; it might serve up low-quality content to those seeking it, but they'd likely find it elsewhere if not on YouTube. On the positive side, YouTube has brought the world closer. We can access videos from nearly every corner of the globe, giving us insight into how others live and interact in their environments. Additionally, it's become an incredible resource for information. If something breaks in my home, I can probably find a video explaining how to fix that exact model. While I'm not old enough to have "adulted" without YouTube, it’s amazing how much you can learn from it.
latentcall 2y ago
Yes agreed. Another commenter said YT is the most valuable educational tool in existence today. I think the real answer is a library. YouTube is 99% junk and just because 1% of it is decent, that doesn’t make up for the 99%.
- codedokode 2y ago
  Maybe but YT recommendations are good enough so that you don't see those 99% you are not interested in.
  - azemetre 2y ago
    Trusting an algorithm that wants you to watch the next video for ad impressions may not be the unbiased metric you think it is.
- meowface 2y ago
  There are plenty of terrible books and trash novels. Easily 99% of books are junk (often junk dressed up as non-junk). I think it's very possible that in 2024, YouTube is net more educational than reading. (Speaking in terms of total amount of knowledge acquisition.)
- quest88 2y ago
  So, you always go to the library for every problem you have where you need a detailed guide?
asah 2y ago
there's lots of ways to succeed on youtube and in this world. MrBeast is only one form. As one of many examples, the ww2 channel is quite different but also financially successful: https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo
mightybyte 2y ago
> I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay. Interesting that you say this regarding YouTube. I've been saying this regarding Twitter for awhile even though I consume quite a bit of YouTube content. However, I've curated my YouTube feed to be almost entirely stuff that is interesting, educational, and that I think I'm getting value from. I've learned tons of useful stuff from YouTube such as how to dress better and tailor my own clothes, how to fix things that break around my house, more effective training methods to accomplish specific fitness goals...I could go on and on. When I go to YouTube in incognito mode, I definitely see the bottom-of-the-barrel content that you're talking about. But it doesn't have to be that way.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  > However, I've curated my YouTube feed to be almost entirely stuff that is interesting, educational, and that I think I'm getting value from. Those creators are still making orders of magnitude less money than people who make zero content attention grabbing controversy meme slop videos.
  - ryukoposting 2y ago
    > Those creators are still making orders of magnitude less money than people who make zero content attention grabbing controversy meme slop videos. Off the top of my head, Gamers Nexus is a counterpoint. Obviously not Mr Beast-scale, but we're also looking at a huge difference in target demographic breadth. Besides, is YouTube any worse in this regard than what came before it? Substance-free reality TV predates YouTube. For as long as cheap printing and mail services have been around, artists have had strong incentive to go design ads rather than pursue their art independently. YouTube definitely has a race to the bottom going on, but it's not all-consuming and well-researched, high-quality material is still profitable for creators as long as you know how to play the thumbnail game.
    - MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
      > Substance-free reality TV predates YouTube And I would say 99% of it is worse than the goofy YouTube stuff. Reality TV is mostly people hooking up and pretending to fall in love.
matheusmoreira 2y ago
It's not YouTube per se that's bad. YouTube is just a symptom. The underlying pathology is advertising. The attention economy, surveillance capitalism. Those are the real problems. Those are the reasons behind this distortion of the world. They enable people who make moronic meme videos to make orders of magnitude more money than people who actually try to contribute something to society.
gosub100 2y ago
It's infinitely better than television because you can remove ads and choose what you want to see! I know you never compared it to TV but that was the main mode of entertainment before streaming. I think it's meaningless to criticize MBs content because it's a kids show. Of course it's formulaic and predictable. And I dislike his content too, and blocked him from my feed a year or two ago.

TheAceOfHearts 2y ago

For as much slop as gets produced on YouTube, I think the high quality educational content more than makes up for it. You can literally look up any subject and find a full blown series on the topic. His huge budgets and willingness to reinvest all the profits into future videos have allowed MrBeast to produce a lot of unique videos which are effectively unmatched by anyone else. Right now they're really the undisputed kings of the platform, by a massive margin.

Andrex 2y ago
Agreed, YouTube is the PBS of the internet. It's free and fast.
- intalentive 2y ago
  It’s a wonder of the modern world
  - hackernewds 2y ago
    and it just works. I'm glad there's a monopoly of UGC video
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  PBS is not, at least nominally, advertising-supported. YouTube very much is.
cnity 2y ago
This is why those who can appropriately select good information will flourish in this age. I still suck at it (get pulled into mindnumbing shorts for 30 minutes), but then I learned a new musical instrument for _free_ using YouTube.

aantix 2y ago

>Youtube is net bad for the world Disagree. The outliers don’t determine the value of the platform. The videos of people creating, fixing, coding, diagnosing, doing every day random things - those are a gift to humanity. Those visual demonstrations transcend language. Because of this, YouTube is more important than Google or any written word website. Knowledge share is finally global.

elliotec 2y ago
This is not how YouTube, or people, or virality work though. The fact there is some useful educational content is a byproduct of the machine of lucrative trash of the capitalist hellhole spiral, and the written word will always prevail comparatively. You can always bet on text. https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/193447.html Also, as you likely know, YouTube is owned by Google so it’s very silly to say it’s “more important.”
- scrollaway 2y ago
  What you're saying is that the high quality educational content is subsidized by the trash. It doesn't make it net-bad. It makes it an ad-supported educational resource. Is that surprising, given that it's owned by an ad company?
  - elliotec 2y ago
    It does make it net-bad because the educational content should exist without the trash, which is far more prevalent. It forces the positive stuff to comply with the trash algorithms that make them worse and also forces them to comply with the monopoly of one of the largest, most monolithic corporations in the world that can do whatever the fuck they want with the content. Of course it's not surprising! It's just shitty and needs to be different.
    - scrollaway 2y ago
      But the educational content DOESNT exist without the trash and you cannot make a case that it just would, that’s unlikely and impossible to prove. “Net bad” means the world would be absolutely and inarguably better without YouTube. This is so outlandish, honestly; YouTube at its core is an information sharing platform and a lot of useful things have come out of it. Immense amounts even.

brigadier132 2y ago

This type of criticism reads to me as a general hatred of what humanity actually is. Mr Beast exists because humans like to watch it. By blaming Mr Beast, you are putting the effect before the cause. There is no enlightened society that is only watching MIT linear algebra lectures for fun, it doesn't exist.

omnicognate 2y ago
Are you arguing that the public fascination with it makes it morally acceptable? If so would you consider gladiatorial fights to the death and gruesome public executions, both of which have been massive crowd-pleasers in the past and no doubt would be again if they became socially accepted, justified by the same argument? If not, what do you think is different here that makes condemning Mr. Beast for feeding unwholesome public appetites wrong, but condemning Roman emperors for it right? Just a question of the degree of nastiness? Personally, I think human behaviour is massively influenced by culture and that we have an individual moral responsibility to take actions that work in favour of having a healthy culture. And I see that individual moral responsibility as resting particularly on those who profit from culturally influential activities (and if Mr. Beast isn't "culturally influential", please can we retire the term "influencer"). I see arguments often made that amount to justifying amoral, or even actively immoral, behaviours by the fact that money can be made from them, with an implicit assumption that humans have no free will when it comes to money, that an action that makes money has to be carried out and that this somehow morally absolves the one who does it. I see that as a corrosive meme and evidence of a deeply unhealthy culture, not as a conclusion that follows from adopting capitalism as the primary organising principle in a society.
- brigadier132 2y ago
  > Just a question of the degree of nastiness? Just a question of degree of nastiness? Yes, competitions involving life and death are qualitatively different from competitions involving money. Something interesting to think about is that we do have ultra graphic action movies and horror movies. Are those also net negative? > Personally, I think human behaviour is massively influenced by culture and that we have an individual moral responsibility to take actions that work in favour of having a healthy culture. There is no human culture that I know of that was not fascinated by things like money and fame. > I see arguments often made that amount to justifying amoral, or even actively immoral I don't think Mr Beast is immoral and not for the reasons you state. I think you have in your mind some very judgemental ideas of what is right and wrong. I think shows like Mr Beast and all celebrity culture is dumb. I think sports are dumb too. I don't think they are evil and I know that humanity will find a way to create variants of these things no matter what kind of insane rules society tried to put in place.

seydor 2y ago

Does youtube have a lot of trash? He s certainly a (very big) outlier but the other trashy content is mostly about expensive cars and shit which is harmless by comparison. This guy has a genuine love of torturing people

lnsru 2y ago

I am with you. YouTube does not offer math lectures about volume calculation. It advertises some fast food alike junk about insane things. And the 8 years old boys watch cartoons about chopped heads and how the dog plays with these heads. Afterwards I was happy, that I am luddite and YouTube is blocked at home and kids don’t have smartphones.

bmoxb 2y ago
It absolutely does offer more maths lectures than you could ever conceivably watch.
- twixfel 2y ago
  Yes, but good luck trying to watch them when the thumbnails in the side bar are full of seductive junk.
  - nicklaf 2y ago
    Browser extension solution to that problem: https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions https://github.com/lawrencehook/remove-youtube-suggestions
- lnsru 2y ago
  They’re there. Hidden somewhere. I watched some of them. But you need to search for them. Like there is quality food I prepared for my workday today. But I must actively work on that and not take offered junk food.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    >But you need to search for them Oh the horror
wholinator2 2y ago
Youtube is the single most important and valuable learning tool that exists on the planet. There are lectures on literally everything, i have been recently learning my way into geometric algebra and lie theory for my physics phd. Sure, there's a lot of crap and youtube is just as happy to waste your time but if you search out and only watch educational content, your Frontpage will become educational content. It's hard to keep that way because there's tons of fun but uneducational things to watch, but there's browser extensions and things to help with that. Extensions that block the homepage and video recommendations, extensions that let you group your subscriptions and create your own feed. It can be amazing if you use it right, it's hard to use right sometimes

bit_4l 2y ago

I would disagree on the net bad for the world, or at least be skeptical about it. Personally, Youtube was my life changing tool which I used to learn almost everything essential to my career and personal development, and I would assume lots of others would be the same. The type of content it recommends goes with the type of content you interacted with in the past. It just a tool and it matters how you use it

malthaus 2y ago

youtube still has a net positive value. the amount of knowledge & learning (and ok, entertainment) i get out of it on a daily basis is immense and i can't imagine the amount of wisdom i'd have sucked up as a kid if i had access to all this. if it comes at the price of having it subsidised by the likes of mrbeast, i'm all for it. same trade-off as getting ads on instagram to enjoy it as a free service.

sgu999 2y ago
What the algorithm seems to favour is a better indicator of what people use Youtube for overall. I'm also using youtube almost exclusively as a means of education, but a net positive for us doesn't really mean much. If for one more educated viewer you get ten more radicalised and dumber ones, we may be better off without it.

lijok 2y ago

> I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world Overwhelming majority of things designed to exploit human imperfections for personal gain are a net bad. Youtube has become one of those things. Unfortunate, 'cause that's where the money is.

infecto 2y ago

I see it differently. I don't think YouTube fundamentally changes people; it might serve up low-quality content to those seeking it, but they'd likely find it elsewhere if not on YouTube. On the positive side, YouTube has brought the world closer. We can access videos from nearly every corner of the globe, giving us insight into how others live and interact in their environments. Additionally, it's become an incredible resource for information. If something breaks in my home, I can probably find a video explaining how to fix that exact model. While I'm not old enough to have "adulted" without YouTube, it’s amazing how much you can learn from it.

latentcall 2y ago

Yes agreed. Another commenter said YT is the most valuable educational tool in existence today. I think the real answer is a library. YouTube is 99% junk and just because 1% of it is decent, that doesn’t make up for the 99%.

codedokode 2y ago
Maybe but YT recommendations are good enough so that you don't see those 99% you are not interested in.
- azemetre 2y ago
  Trusting an algorithm that wants you to watch the next video for ad impressions may not be the unbiased metric you think it is.
meowface 2y ago
There are plenty of terrible books and trash novels. Easily 99% of books are junk (often junk dressed up as non-junk). I think it's very possible that in 2024, YouTube is net more educational than reading. (Speaking in terms of total amount of knowledge acquisition.)
quest88 2y ago
So, you always go to the library for every problem you have where you need a detailed guide?

asah 2y ago

there's lots of ways to succeed on youtube and in this world. MrBeast is only one form. As one of many examples, the ww2 channel is quite different but also financially successful: https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo https://www.youtube.com/@WorldWarTwo

mightybyte 2y ago

> I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay. Interesting that you say this regarding YouTube. I've been saying this regarding Twitter for awhile even though I consume quite a bit of YouTube content. However, I've curated my YouTube feed to be almost entirely stuff that is interesting, educational, and that I think I'm getting value from. I've learned tons of useful stuff from YouTube such as how to dress better and tailor my own clothes, how to fix things that break around my house, more effective training methods to accomplish specific fitness goals...I could go on and on. When I go to YouTube in incognito mode, I definitely see the bottom-of-the-barrel content that you're talking about. But it doesn't have to be that way.

matheusmoreira 2y ago
> However, I've curated my YouTube feed to be almost entirely stuff that is interesting, educational, and that I think I'm getting value from. Those creators are still making orders of magnitude less money than people who make zero content attention grabbing controversy meme slop videos.
- ryukoposting 2y ago
  > Those creators are still making orders of magnitude less money than people who make zero content attention grabbing controversy meme slop videos. Off the top of my head, Gamers Nexus is a counterpoint. Obviously not Mr Beast-scale, but we're also looking at a huge difference in target demographic breadth. Besides, is YouTube any worse in this regard than what came before it? Substance-free reality TV predates YouTube. For as long as cheap printing and mail services have been around, artists have had strong incentive to go design ads rather than pursue their art independently. YouTube definitely has a race to the bottom going on, but it's not all-consuming and well-researched, high-quality material is still profitable for creators as long as you know how to play the thumbnail game.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
    > Substance-free reality TV predates YouTube And I would say 99% of it is worse than the goofy YouTube stuff. Reality TV is mostly people hooking up and pretending to fall in love.

matheusmoreira 2y ago

It's not YouTube per se that's bad. YouTube is just a symptom. The underlying pathology is advertising. The attention economy, surveillance capitalism. Those are the real problems. Those are the reasons behind this distortion of the world. They enable people who make moronic meme videos to make orders of magnitude more money than people who actually try to contribute something to society.

gosub100 2y ago

It's infinitely better than television because you can remove ads and choose what you want to see! I know you never compared it to TV but that was the main mode of entertainment before streaming. I think it's meaningless to criticize MBs content because it's a kids show. Of course it's formulaic and predictable. And I dislike his content too, and blocked him from my feed a year or two ago.