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Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

> So...what next? How do creators get paid?

I think we're in a "creator" bubble and a crash is coming. There are simply too many people expecting to be able to live off their hobbies and not enough actual value being created. Many, perhaps even most, of these creators are going to have to go get a job. It may not be a popular opinion, but I don't even think that's such a bad thing; there is way too much "content" out there, we don't actually need anywhere near as much as we're currently creating.

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I actually completely agree with this statement. I tend to follow the gaming industry pretty closely and lately I've noticed that there are simply too many low-quality gaming YouTube channels.

I was recommended a video the other day "The Downfall of Blizzard" or something like that, started watching it and was surprised at how incredibly bland the content was. Even more surprising was the amount of views and likes the video had. The jokes were bad, the production quality was low, there was no critical or opinionated analysis, etc.

There are tons of channels like this, full of videos where it's just some some guy or gal talking to a camera with some uninspired editing and generally run-of-the-mill content. And this is just one slice. I see this kind of content everywhere now.

Of course, everyone wants to be happy doing what they like doing, but it simply isn't sustainable that everyone lives off of their hobbies. Not only are they providing little value in general, but they're just not really good at it...

This definitely has been bred from 'fitting content creation to the algorithm'. There seems to be many dimensions of this with the first being maximizing minutes watched which is where the meandering and stumbling content seems to come from. The second is monetization and knowing if you have to dispute it's essentially already too late, re-uploading is punished heavily and the algorithm heavily favours new content. The third is people observing that to get reliably recommended having a strict upload pattern seems to be favoured by the algorithm which can turn into 'produce to produce' instead of a creative effort. The fourth is just the overhead of dealing with claims and other weird administrative backend and/or YouTube making a sweeping policy change that generates dozens of hours of manual work for people with a large catalog. The last is that because of all of these previous problems many of these people moved over to twitch and then just use their old YouTube account as a clip/advertising mill/stream archive dump site.

I put a lot of the blame on YouTube, because people seem more than happy to reward/watch well produced content but YouTube's algorithm rewards daily junk content over polished content produced biweekly or monthly. You can see glimmers of old YouTube from time to time where the video is trimmed precisely to support the actual content even if it's 3 minutes or well edited to be engaging but YouTube keeps creating (and revising) a game where that kind of content loses.

Don’t most have jobs? All these creator platforms end up with a power law distribution of attention and money. The vast majority are not making a living already yet here they are.

I think you might start seeing netflix-like consolidation into content packages.

We're already kind of seeing that with podcast networks, and I think something like that may be coming for other content creators.

We are already seeing this in its fledgling form. Sites like Masterclass, CuriosityStream, Nebula, etc are all trying to carve out their chunk of the "curated collection of content from independent creators" pie.

When it's all said and done, we're going to end right back up with the HBO/Showtime model for VOD across the board.

There have been (and still are) many networks among YouTube channels already. Some like Linux Tech Tips have a number of channels and a pretty large team. Others are more corporate and adopt creators as they get popular, but the actual network/org is not as obvious since they kind of act in the background, getting sponsors and distributing funds and services to their affiliated creators.

I just don't see anything off-YouTube as gaining critical mass in the near future though.

*Linus Tech Tips

It will be interesting to see what happens when the shattered US economy fully hits the end of its cash infusion rope.

Many unemployed people are jumping on the creator bandwagon created a supply glut and also a noise problem.

This will drive down prices and what people are willing to pay, particularly as people's ability to pay for anything in general craters if the jobs don't come back.

There will probably be some companies that make a quick buck selling the dream to those investing their last few dollars trying to eek something out, but perhaps we will also see some disruption of the models and general content creator and curator space.

I find this prediction very plausible. The economy contracted by one third this past quarter. Many will lose the ability/willingness to pay $100/mo to 18 different content creators.

The "get rick quick" scams will proliferate.

Will there be any positive outcomes from this economic tumble?

I wonder what's the ratio of people who genuinely expect to be able to live off their hobbies vs people who don't even get to enjoy a hobby due to The Fear forcing them into "The Hustle" in a world where success and even survival are not defaults?

There's definitely some people for whom these are legitimately just hobbies and if they make some money for it then great, sure. But for those people it's not really a problem if they don't get paid, they'll almost certainly continue to create anyway.

I think one of the worst(?) parts is when someone turns a hobby that their friends and family enjoy them doing/sharing in to a business. Suddenly it's this all consuming thing. Their instagram/SNS posts turn in to nothing but a stream of what amounts to advertisements for their fledgling business/hustle.

> a world where success and survival are not defaults?

Success is never a default in any world. Even in the most utopian Star Trek universe, not everybody gets to be a starship captain.

I actually have thought about recording videos of my hobbies and sharing them, just to share, but I'm discouraged by the high production value expectations that people have now and it's not worth the hassle. But I would never expect to turn it into a career. I respect and support several content creators, but they are handful among tens of thousands. The majority of creators simply aren't generating $5/mo in value.

"Contentment" would probably be a better word for what I had in mind. I wish I could just, like, exist, you know? I don't want a damn job lol

“contentment content,” i.e. stuff put online just because it makes the creator happy

Where do you see "high production value expectations that people have now"?

On YouTube. I watch a lot of other content creators and anytime anybody makes something that wouldn't pass muster as a Netflix Original there are detractors in the comments. Putting yourself out there on the Internet invites criticism and at least for me, I have no desire to allow my hobbies to be invaded by outside criticism so it's not worth the effort to produce content about them if I know I can't meet the bar required to avoid the most obvious criticisms.

A high % of the comments?

It's inherently no longer a hobby once you have to do it every day to pay your rent.

I think finding something you get paid for that you can get some sort of enjoyment out of is way easier than monetizing a hobby and keeping what you enjoy about that hobby alive.

Aren't we seeing the bubble bursting right now in academia? Hobby PhDs let you into the college content-creation club, to teach the next generation of content creators.

No, we're seeing a very different bubble (maybe) bursting in academia. PhDs do not have a lot in common with content creators.

That's not a creator-only thing. Thanks to automation and technology, most people have no way to add value, even at a "regular" job.

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