Hey when I google for a tutorial, or a brief on something, know what I don't want? A YouTube video. I don't want a long, slow, ad-filled and unedited video full of ummms and uhhhhs explaining something a handful of screen shots and a few hundred words could do.
@Mainebot They do this because YouTube gives them the potential of monetization, and they delude themselves into thinking their stupid little tutorial is going to make them rich. Same goes for all the people who would be making open source but instead make shitty little closed-source iOS and Android apps. One of many ways Google and Apple are ruining computing.
@Mainebot I'm more interested in how to fix it. With lotteries at least you can teach people the math, assuming they aren't superstitious, but with YouTube and apps there are enough factors at work that it's nearly impossible to convince people that they're almost certainly wrong about their chances. But at the very least we could get the stats up. N YouTube creators making M moneys for an average of X moneys per creator. The thing YouTube doesn't want people to know. http://fortune.com/2018/02/27/youtube-success-poverty-wages/
@Mainebot Maybe we need to stop eating YouTube's propaganda and stop calling their servants "creators".
@Mainebot Of course, we also need to give people other ways to give people the same kind of feeling of making stuff and working for themselves, because as bad as YouTube is you're probably still better off using that than trying to make money via Patreon. For video the closest thing so far is probably LBRY but there's still too big a hurdle because converting to and from currencies people are likely to have is still too hard, plus it's a desktop app.
@freakazoid @Mainebot I fully agree. We need to find an effective way to get people online paid for their art and software, and while the silos aren't great in that regard they appear to be doing a better job than anything we've come up with so far.
@freakazoid @Mainebot Yeah, I've heard about the things YouTube's algorithms optimize for: a frequent schedule of new 15min videos, or something like that. It's reportedly exhausting several of their servents.
In contrast my example of Kirby Ferguson has explicitly stated that that's not what he wants to make. He wants to take the time to craft videos people treasure.
@Mainebot @alcinnz And the irony of it all is, having actually worked alongside the SREs for YT's ad systems, I know for a fact that a lot of the "common knowledge" about how YT's algorithms work is complete bullshit. So people are running themselves ragged trying to optimize for stuff that isn't actually helping them, based on few anecdotes and assumptions by people presenting themselves as authorities but who have no clue whatsoever about how things work.
@freakazoid @Mainebot That said one of the best examples of someone doing well for themselves without resorting to DRM or advertising I can think of would be Kirby Ferguson.
He makes great documentary series he later likes to recut into decent lengthed films, Everything is a Remix & This is not a Conspiracy Theory, as well as contract work for activist groups. TinaCT is sold on a subscription basis which has been well worth the price for me.
(cont.)
@freakazoid @Mainebot I don't know the details of his finincial situation, but he's doing well enough that his wife could take over the business side of things full time whilst focuses on art.
And yes, he does use the Vimeo silo, but it appears like he uses that more as a SaaS than as a silo.
There are two factors to consider.
One is the opportunity cost vs the plausible payoff. This is one reason for lotteries working; people will drop a small amount that they won't miss, in the hopes of a life-changing event. It actually makes economic sense, from that perspective.
Another perspective is pointing out that youtube wealth is analogous to being a superstar sportsman. Not many get to do that.
To be fair though, they would have written some pretty shitty open source software. The late 90's were full of mpg123 frontends that needed php or a full MySQL installation in order to let me play a song with a mouse click.
Granted, that's still better than junk apps, but not a lot.
@suetanvil @Mainebot I think that more users is better even if they're cranking out shitty apps, because the tools don't evolve in a vacuum. And it's hard enough to make a mobile app that they might end up doing better stuff than writing PHP frontends for mpg123. But as I keep saying, we need to make it easier to write better apps, and to be less elitist.
@freakazoid oh I'm in marketing, I get the WHY, I just don't like it.