Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

Tech companies are taking a lot of heat here, but I think some of the blame here lies with Youtube's content creators.

If I buy ad time on late-night shows on NBC, I know I don't have to worry about Jimmy Fallon opening his show with a diatribe on "White Genocide" or "How feminists are the real Hitlers" or incoherently rambling about LBGTQ tumblr teens in a sweat-stained Starwars t-shirt.

Several Youtube content creators want to be able to freely oscillate between their core content topic (gaming, pop culture, etc) and random "edgy" topics. You're free to do that, and you shouldn't be censored, but you are not entitled to ad dollars.

They claim they're just trying to be "real" and "authentic" with their audiences, but how is it "authentic" to rant against Jews, Muslims, immigrants and neoliberal globalism while lining your pocket with ad revenue from Johnson & Johnson on a global technology platform built by immigrants/1st-gens, many of whom are jewish or muslim themselves? The cognitive dissonance is exhausting.

I think the author is trying to stay focused only on the issue of adtech vs (as he calls it) Madison Avenue ads. You also raise relevant points but they can be separate issues.

Anyhow to your point, I think the problem is that YouTube creators don't really think of themselves as being sponsored by brands. They've internalized only that they get paid to make content people watch. And that's not entirely accurate.

But for all the problems the author identified with adtech it has afforded people such as those on YouTube to enjoy what may be a fleeting era of getting paid to be genuine and uncensored. Perhaps membership fees to the platform that get allocated to creators can succeed here.

I see your argument but I think who's fault it is in the situation is more complicated than that. Yes if the content creators were just doing this for money, they should try and curate and audience that brands want to pay for.

On the flip side, these brands didn't have to jump into Internet advertising. They could have stayed focused on the nice reliable TV show advertising. They want to hit more eyeballs though and the unreliable Internet content is proving more popular with consumers who are the real product when it comes to advertising.

I figure there's going to be some back and forth between content creators and brands looking to advertise until a new equilibrium is reached and all shows fall in line to the new set of norms. After that, of course, a new format will likely arise and consumers will jump ship to the new format after finding the Internets norms too boring

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