Sorta OT - Sam the Cooking Guy, zuck's Greed, and a Worldwide Decline of Community

Botch

I know a few folks on this forum follow the entertaining, worthwhile "Sam the Cooking Guy" channel, and many more here use ewe Youtube regularly.  I've found (maybe 50?) channels/creators (some hate that term) that I enjoy following/participating in, from cooking, woodworking, photography, politics, music, etc; and I spend more time on ewetube than I do watching TV (I guess I'm not alone).
ewetube was a brilliant business model, starting in a college dorm room: host a location for  members' home videos, collect data on which viewers were interested in which content, and then selling that data to advertisers.  I understood that's how it worked going in, and I was okay with that.  zuck and his investors became wealthy, fabulously wealthy, with this business model.  And you'd think they'd be happy about that.    
But, No.  They needed more!  More Money!!  More moneyyy for Us!!!!  In the past year or so I've noticed that every fourth "video" is now an ad, and most if not all actual videos are prefaced with ads, even a 51-second clip from say The Lincoln Project makes you sit thru a 00:15-sec ad first (I use a Mac "App Store" program called "Swizztube" (free) to bypass the ads (even gives you visual cues to skip internal ads by the creator themselves) but it's buggy); otherwise I only watch the "Shorts" on ewetube's website (and I understand they're getting ads now too, soon).  
 
Today's video from "Sam the Cooking Guy" was condensed down into a short format with voiceovers only, and was robbed of all its charm, I won't be following him anymore if this is the future; I posted this note in his Comments section:
 

Guys, PLEASE don't push your videos into the "Shorts" format, especially now that zuckerSuck is now pushing ads into the 30-second "Shorts" format. I also applaud you for not following YT's push for you content creators to shove your face into the thumbnail with a STUPID-ASS expression on your face, to garner more clicks. I've already deleted several longtime subscriptions because of that alone. zuck's unbridled GREED is ruining a once-great worldwide community; please don't buckle to his demands. Please.

I'd say 90% of the other comments expressed similar concern.  

The internet is still a free-for-all (for now) and content creators are free to move to a different service, but we've already seen that, as soon as a competitor gains some ground, they're bought out; imagine that's happening here too.  
 
This is probably a good topic for Friday night; but like Happy Hour, it's Friday somewhere on the globe, right? (I think that's how it works.... )  

JohnInCarolina

Just a small correction, Botch.

 Zuckerberg is not in charge of YouTube.  That would be the guys over at Google.  You want to blame Sergey for this one. 

Botch

JohnInCarolina said:

Just a small correction, Botch.

 Zuckerberg is not in charge of YouTube.  That would be the guys over at Google.  You want to blame Sergey for this one. 

Thanks; I asked Siri who YT's current CEO was (to double-check), and she replied zuck.
Guess I have some homework to do later.  

Ozzie_Isaac

I pay for YouTube premium.  Well worth the $11.99/month to me to avoid ads all together.  I can fast forward and rewind until my hearts content.

Also, very highly recommend you listen/read The Chaos Machine.  It will change your views on the entire Social Media ecosystem.

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Just a small correction, Botch.

 Zuckerberg is not in charge of YouTube.  That would be the guys over at Google.  You want to blame Sergey for this one. 

Thanks; I asked Siri who YT's current CEO was (to double-check), and she replied zuck.
Guess I have some homework to do later.  

I did know YouTube was a Google property but I didn’t know who the current ceo was either so I asked Siri and she told me it was Susan Wojcicki, which is also not true (she stepped down in Feb 2023). It’s apparently Neil Mohan who took over after her. Siri is apparently having a bad night 

lkapigian

I’ve done very well with Google algorithms

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz

lkapigian said:

I’ve done very well with Google algorithms

Me too!

Legume

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. Or some combo of the two. Newer forms of media have had grace periods to grab eyeballs, but everyone gets paid in the end, even Sam.

Botch

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

JohnInCarolina

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

It seems like the easy answer to this is to simply spend a lot less time on Facebook?

dbCooper

"Information wants to be free" When will they ever learn?

Botch

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

It seems like the easy answer to this is to simply spend a lot less time on Facebook?

Which is what I've done; I only watch the "Shorts" on YT anymore (until they're all saturated with ads too), and use an App called Swizztube to watch the longer-form vids (thought I'd mentioned that in my OP too).  

JohnInCarolina

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

It seems like the easy answer to this is to simply spend a lot less time on Facebook?

Which is what I've done; I only watch the "Shorts" on YT anymore (until they're all saturated with ads too), and use an App called Swizztube to watch the longer-form vids (thought I'd mentioned that in my OP too).  

So you aren’t on Facebook at all then? 

Ozzie_Isaac

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

They got wealthy because of a speculative market.  They sold a promise and a dream to investors.  Now those investors want their returns.  Now everything needs to be monetized to make investors even a fraction of what they were promised.  Can’t sell dreams forever.

Botch

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

It seems like the easy answer to this is to simply spend a lot less time on Facebook?

Which is what I've done; I only watch the "Shorts" on YT anymore (until they're all saturated with ads too), and use an App called Swizztube to watch the longer-form vids (thought I'd mentioned that in my OP too).  

So you aren’t on Facebook at all then? 

My bad for confusing FB and YT again (the only social media I'm involved with, other than special-interest forums).  
May be time to unplug for awhile.  

GrateEggspectations

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

It seems like the easy answer to this is to simply spend a lot less time on Facebook?

Which is what I've done; I only watch the "Shorts" on YT anymore (until they're all saturated with ads too), and use an App called Swizztube to watch the longer-form vids (thought I'd mentioned that in my OP too).  

So you aren’t on Facebook at all then? 

My bad for confusing FB and YT again (the only social media I'm involved with, other than special-interest forums).  
May be time to unplug for awhile.  

I hear you, Botch. Despite being a millennial, this forum is the closest thing I have to social media.

With respect to the above, if I can ask, what forums are you a member of? I’m guessing some music ones, Apple ones (as per your pretty recent acquisition), etc.? 

JohnInCarolina

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

JohnInCarolina said:

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

It seems like the easy answer to this is to simply spend a lot less time on Facebook?

Which is what I've done; I only watch the "Shorts" on YT anymore (until they're all saturated with ads too), and use an App called Swizztube to watch the longer-form vids (thought I'd mentioned that in my OP too).  

So you aren’t on Facebook at all then? 

My bad for confusing FB and YT again (the only social media I'm involved with, other than special-interest forums).  
May be time to unplug for awhile.  

No problem, Botch.  I was really just confused by your comments.  I assumed maybe you had a Facebook account - many people do.  I have one but have been using it a lot less after I read The Chaos Machine.

unoriginalusername

As a small-mid size creator here is my $0.02 based off 145k subs and 5-6m annual views. 

YouTube keeps 70% of all ad revenue to themselves and only shares 30% with the creator. In general, take a videos views and multiply it by 0.007 and that’s what the creator makes. 

Most of my views avg 10,000 per video which is $70 on average ad revenue.  This is an oversimplification and I won’t go into the detailed calculations but the short version is this is declining for what the creator sees year over year. 

All that to say, when I do a brisket video ($129 cad for my last Costco brisket) look at charcoal, seasoning let alone time to create, edit and post content it’s a negative return on investment. 

Those in line ads creators do, 100% of the revenue goes to them and you can skip them more easily than the YouTube baked in ones so in my opinion a better experience since I can skip if I want. At 10k views most advertisers would pay around $750-$1k for a 60 second in line ad. 

I don’t know Sam’s numbers but he is likely seeing less views this year than last, and seeing significant cuts on the revenue he sees from ads on those videos. YouTube holds back channels that don’t use all features like shorts (which I hate) so you can be forced into trying some of these things YouTube suggests just to stop the bleeding. 

I don’t like ads either, but the model is not as creator friendly as most assume and if you like the guy I’d cut him a little slack for doing things that keep videos from being a negative margin proposition 

Legume

Ozzie_Isaac said:

Botch said:

Legume said:

Regardless of the form of media, my experience has been that nothing is totally free.  You either pay for access or you pay with your time watching ads. 

I disagree, although you are two-thirds correct, and I guess I wasn't clear on the original point I was trying to make.  
 
On the 'net, you pay cash for access, or you pay by watching ads, or you pay by letting YT figure out your own interests and selling that data to other websites for advertising purposes.  And, as I stated in my OP, I was aware of that, and I was okay with that, and they got fabulously wealthy just with that business model.  
 
But NO, that wasn't enough for them.  Greed!  Now you can pay them to eliminate the ads on FB, but they're still collecting your "interests data" to still sell to other websites.  Or, you can put up with targeted advertising on other websites (which I accepted), but now I'm getting targeted ads shoved down my throat by FB itself!  That's what I'm so effing p***ed off about.  Sorry I wasn't clear.  

They got wealthy because of a speculative market.  They sold a promise and a dream to investors.  Now those investors want their returns.  Now everything needs to be monetized to make investors even a fraction of what they were promised.  Can’t sell dreams forever.

We are a bipolar nation - we want cheap things but we want companies to continue to ramp up earnings so our investments go up. Everyone ends up paying more to drive corporate value, but that only benefits those who already have money to invest. We are all working, in some way, for our richer neighbors.  Add to that, most executives are incentivized many times more by corporate financial (stock) performance than by salary.

We can't only blame corporations for greed, it's become a vicious cycle. I guess as consumers we can choose to buy goods and services from ex-US and privately held companies or non-profits to avoid that, sort of, or we could bury our savings in the yard.

Remember when the service department of your car dealership was there to help keep
your car on the road, sell you some parts, etc., and not seen as a corporate cost center? Now they more aggressively sell services you may not need. That switch happened a long time ago, but it most certainly happened and it's part of the same creep. How can we maximize or open up new revenue streams when our growth flattens? That's the question being asked inside companies.

Legume

https://www.fool.com/research/how-many-americans-own-stock/

alaskanassasin

I only use YouTube videos for mostly automotive repairs. I also don’t use facebook and never sign into google, if I check my gmail I sign right back out.

alaskanassasin

I do own individual shares of google and facebook. Most people probably have invested in either or both through mutual funds, target date funds or etf through their retirement.

lkapigian

unoriginalusername said:

As a small-mid size creator here is my $0.02 based off 145k subs and 5-6m annual views. 

YouTube keeps 70% of all ad revenue to themselves and only shares 30% with the creator. In general, take a videos views and multiply it by 0.007 and that’s what the creator makes. 

Most of my views avg 10,000 per video which is $70 on average ad revenue.  This is an oversimplification and I won’t go into the detailed calculations but the short version is this is declining for what the creator sees year over year. 

All that to say, when I do a brisket video ($129 cad for my last Costco brisket) look at charcoal, seasoning let alone time to create, edit and post content it’s a negative return on investment. 

Those in line ads creators do, 100% of the revenue goes to them and you can skip them more easily than the YouTube baked in ones so in my opinion a better experience since I can skip if I want. At 10k views most advertisers would pay around $750-$1k for a 60 second in line ad. 

I don’t know Sam’s numbers but he is likely seeing less views this year than last, and seeing significant cuts on the revenue he sees from ads on those videos. YouTube holds back channels that don’t use all features like shorts (which I hate) so you can be forced into trying some of these things YouTube suggests just to stop the bleeding. 

I don’t like ads either, but the model is not as creator friendly as most assume and if you like the guy I’d cut him a little slack for doing things that keep videos from being a negative margin proposition 

I think the rub with the in line ads with people is when they pay The Tube to get rid of ads and then there’s those .. I don’t care one way or the other … I know a few “ Content Creators “ and it is beyond a full time for very low cost 

personally I watch very little content where they have a lot of subs, it’s just one big subliminal commercial 

edit … but then again, life is just one big Ad 

PhinnGerbang

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz said:

lkapigian said:

I’ve done very well with Google algorithms

Me too!

Holds up three fingers!

lkapigian

PhinnGerbang said:

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz said:

lkapigian said:

I’ve done very well with Google algorithms

Me too!

Holds up three fingers!

I see what you did there 

AlmaHolzhert

lkapigian said:

PhinnGerbang said:

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz said:

lkapigian said:

I’ve done very well with Google algorithms

Me too!

Holds up three fingers!

I see what you did there 

Holds up two fists!

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz

AlmaHolzhert said:

lkapigian said:

PhinnGerbang said:

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz said:

lkapigian said:

I’ve done very well with Google algorithms

Me too!

Holds up three fingers!

I see what you did there 

Holds up two fists!

It appears we share similar interests. 

lkapigian

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz said:

AlmaHolzhert said:

lkapigian said:

PhinnGerbang said:

Dr_Phil_Oliver_Holz said:

lkapigian said:

I’ve done very well with Google algorithms

Me too!

Holds up three fingers!

I see what you did there 

Holds up two fists!

It appears we share similar interests. 

Great to see all of you here !