Hacker News Reader

Comment by quartesixte | Hacker News Reader

Despite the great number of views that the enormously long tail of YouTube can garner, the general public still gravitates towards more general content.

THR is reporting on the general phenomena most of the general public will see. While also catering to their target demographic: the movers and shakers of the celebrity industry in Hollywood. It is a trade publication afterall, technically speaking.

View on HN

> the general public still gravitates towards more general content

I'm not sure that's true. The vast majority of the stuff I watch on YouTube is way too niche to be on television.

Same, but even though I will never watch him, you can't really argue with Mr Beast's view count.

I think the point is that for every Mr Beast view there are many more views of content by smaller creators, and whilst Amazon or a major network could definitely buy exclusive agreements with Mr Beast et al (and many leading stars already save a portion of their content for Patreon subscribers), they can't do that with the long tail. Plus if Mr Beast did end up exclusively on a network, YouTube's recommendation algorithms would surface other creators instead.

That's even more true in much smaller niches. Amazon and the BBC actually did pick up a couple of the top narrowboat YouTube channels (and offered them more money and viewers than YouTube ever did) but if you want to search for videos on a particular boating location or how to fix a particular issue or just to have enough content to binge watch to live the lifestyle vicariously without the expense and complications of owning a boat, only YouTube will satisfy you.

You're on HN, you're not the general public.

None of the big creators on YouTube are themselves bigger than a small niche. For example, ASMR videos cumulatively rival Mr Beast. There’s an infinity of such categories.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com