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Maybe professional content creators don't need to exist at all. I look at people like PewDiePie and MrBeast and I wonder if society really needs anything that m

Maybe professional content creators don't need to exist at all. I look at people like PewDiePie and MrBeast and I wonder if society really needs anything that makes those men possible.

blharr 2y ago
As much criticism as they get, they are at least less opaque than the big corporate media guys who are making movies, TV, and news.
- moron4hire 2y ago
  I think this is a large part of the problem with YouTube and the like. People seem to act like, because this isn't traditional media, then the creators must be more like us than them. Maybe that was true at the dawn of YouTube 15 - 20 years ago. But it's definitely not true now. The way these content creators work is a huge apparatus of media production indistinguishable from any other production studio in traditional media. Indeed, maybe if them even aspire to get into traditional media. Well, until they find out the raw deal the distribution companies want to give them, that is.
rglullis 2y ago
You are looking at the extreme end of the bell curve and think they represent the totality of the group. For every Mr. Beast, there are tens of thousands of other people with 10k-1M subscribers who produce valuable content which would never exist if it were not for the already existing audience.
- moron4hire 2y ago
  I chose those names because they are a pure distillation of "everything that is wrong..." But it's pretty easy to find lots of issues that wouldn't exist if "digital media content creator" wasn't a job that kids today are aspiring to. Look at video thumbnails and "YouTube face". Look at how many videos are feature-film length ordeals: there is no way everyone is actively watching all that content; they're all putting it in their TVs in the background. Look at how every video on YouTube is at least 10 minutes long: that happens because it means the video will get a second ad spot. If it comes down to making a 9.5 minute video it a 10.1 minute one, well, nobody is going to pass up stretching an extra 36 seconds out of the B-roll. If you're an advertiser, it's gotta be driving you mad. All this micro-optimizing for length to get ad spots has to be really destroying their click through rates. Which is fine with me, actually, cry me big crocodile years. But it's probably also why they've spent so much effort on in-video sponsorships. Now that really pisses me off, because I'm paying YouTube for an ad-free experience and yet YouTube turns a blind eye to its content creators circumventing my preference. But all of this would go away if YouTube didn't pay content creators. "Why shouldn't people get paid for their work?" They should. But posting to YouTube shouldn't be someone's job. Because the remuneration system is perverse.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    > But posting to YouTube shouldn't be someone's job. Why not? Should they instead be kissing someone else's ass to get an unpaid internship at some lawyer firm? Aiming to get a stable job at one of the Big 4 accounting firms? Helping big fat cats get even fatter by working on VC? Toiling at some farm? Taking care of our kids at salaries that barely affords them to live close to where they teach? No one is being forced to do YouTube videos, and if that's what they are preferring to do, maybe it is better than the alternatives?
    - moron4hire 2y ago
      > Why not? I said why not. Because the remuneration system is perverse. The vast majority of people on YouTube are not going to make any money for what they post. I don't just mean "pocket change they wouldn't have had otherwise". I mean literally 0 dollars versus YouTube easily taking in millions over the long tail. As an example, I'm one of these such creators. I have a few videos that have been up for a long time and in that time have gathered low 100k+ views. If those views had all occurred in one month, YouTube would pay me somewhere around $2000. But because this happened over 10 years, YouTube has always said, "eh, you know what, it's not enough to bother." I'm sorry, but in any other case, if someone wasn't paying me $200 a year that they owed me, I'd be pissed. But I digress, that's not the issue, and that's not why I post videos to YouTube. The issue is that this is the case for the majority of content creators on YouTube. YouTube makes a massive amount of money by exploiting people's content that they will never pay 1 red cent for. For a lot of those people, they continue on because of a misguided dream that they might one day get to be they anointed few who gets to have their "fair" share of their content. Through the revenue sharing model, YouTube has created a perverse incentive structure that pushes content creators to do things in ways they wouldn't otherwise have done, on a promise that is likely never to occur. YouTube creator shouldn't be a job not because I think YouTube creators should find "something better to do", but because YouTube is a shit company that shouldn't be allowed to operate the way they do.
      - rglullis 2y ago
        Sorry, you previous post started complaining with "digital media content creator" in general, then you moved on to complain about YouTube. If your problem is with the implementation from one company and not the whole idea, fine. But this is not an issue with the "revenue share" model. Also: > For a lot of those people, they continue on because of a misguided dream that they might one day get to be they anointed few who gets to have their "fair" share of their content. It's not different from basketball/baseball/football players that spend all their young years working for free and expecting to become pro. Or musicians who get into pay-to-play circuits in the hopes of ever becoming the next star, or fashion models who endure all the crazy routine of a talent agency based on the dream of being as rich as Gisele Büdchen, and even to the batches of YC founders that are given 500k and are told "no, no, this money is not for you. This money is for you to try to make a billion dollar business. Your first priority is to make me even richer, not your well-being."

Maybe professional content creators don't need to exist at all. I look at people like PewDiePie and MrBeast and I wonder if society really needs anything that makes those men possible.

blharr 2y ago

As much criticism as they get, they are at least less opaque than the big corporate media guys who are making movies, TV, and news.

moron4hire 2y ago
I think this is a large part of the problem with YouTube and the like. People seem to act like, because this isn't traditional media, then the creators must be more like us than them. Maybe that was true at the dawn of YouTube 15 - 20 years ago. But it's definitely not true now. The way these content creators work is a huge apparatus of media production indistinguishable from any other production studio in traditional media. Indeed, maybe if them even aspire to get into traditional media. Well, until they find out the raw deal the distribution companies want to give them, that is.

rglullis 2y ago

You are looking at the extreme end of the bell curve and think they represent the totality of the group. For every Mr. Beast, there are tens of thousands of other people with 10k-1M subscribers who produce valuable content which would never exist if it were not for the already existing audience.

moron4hire 2y ago
I chose those names because they are a pure distillation of "everything that is wrong..." But it's pretty easy to find lots of issues that wouldn't exist if "digital media content creator" wasn't a job that kids today are aspiring to. Look at video thumbnails and "YouTube face". Look at how many videos are feature-film length ordeals: there is no way everyone is actively watching all that content; they're all putting it in their TVs in the background. Look at how every video on YouTube is at least 10 minutes long: that happens because it means the video will get a second ad spot. If it comes down to making a 9.5 minute video it a 10.1 minute one, well, nobody is going to pass up stretching an extra 36 seconds out of the B-roll. If you're an advertiser, it's gotta be driving you mad. All this micro-optimizing for length to get ad spots has to be really destroying their click through rates. Which is fine with me, actually, cry me big crocodile years. But it's probably also why they've spent so much effort on in-video sponsorships. Now that really pisses me off, because I'm paying YouTube for an ad-free experience and yet YouTube turns a blind eye to its content creators circumventing my preference. But all of this would go away if YouTube didn't pay content creators. "Why shouldn't people get paid for their work?" They should. But posting to YouTube shouldn't be someone's job. Because the remuneration system is perverse.
- rglullis 2y ago
  > But posting to YouTube shouldn't be someone's job. Why not? Should they instead be kissing someone else's ass to get an unpaid internship at some lawyer firm? Aiming to get a stable job at one of the Big 4 accounting firms? Helping big fat cats get even fatter by working on VC? Toiling at some farm? Taking care of our kids at salaries that barely affords them to live close to where they teach? No one is being forced to do YouTube videos, and if that's what they are preferring to do, maybe it is better than the alternatives?
  - moron4hire 2y ago
    > Why not? I said why not. Because the remuneration system is perverse. The vast majority of people on YouTube are not going to make any money for what they post. I don't just mean "pocket change they wouldn't have had otherwise". I mean literally 0 dollars versus YouTube easily taking in millions over the long tail. As an example, I'm one of these such creators. I have a few videos that have been up for a long time and in that time have gathered low 100k+ views. If those views had all occurred in one month, YouTube would pay me somewhere around $2000. But because this happened over 10 years, YouTube has always said, "eh, you know what, it's not enough to bother." I'm sorry, but in any other case, if someone wasn't paying me $200 a year that they owed me, I'd be pissed. But I digress, that's not the issue, and that's not why I post videos to YouTube. The issue is that this is the case for the majority of content creators on YouTube. YouTube makes a massive amount of money by exploiting people's content that they will never pay 1 red cent for. For a lot of those people, they continue on because of a misguided dream that they might one day get to be they anointed few who gets to have their "fair" share of their content. Through the revenue sharing model, YouTube has created a perverse incentive structure that pushes content creators to do things in ways they wouldn't otherwise have done, on a promise that is likely never to occur. YouTube creator shouldn't be a job not because I think YouTube creators should find "something better to do", but because YouTube is a shit company that shouldn't be allowed to operate the way they do.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      Sorry, you previous post started complaining with "digital media content creator" in general, then you moved on to complain about YouTube. If your problem is with the implementation from one company and not the whole idea, fine. But this is not an issue with the "revenue share" model. Also: > For a lot of those people, they continue on because of a misguided dream that they might one day get to be they anointed few who gets to have their "fair" share of their content. It's not different from basketball/baseball/football players that spend all their young years working for free and expecting to become pro. Or musicians who get into pay-to-play circuits in the hopes of ever becoming the next star, or fashion models who endure all the crazy routine of a talent agency based on the dream of being as rich as Gisele Büdchen, and even to the batches of YC founders that are given 500k and are told "no, no, this money is not for you. This money is for you to try to make a billion dollar business. Your first priority is to make me even richer, not your well-being."