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Comment by matheusmoreira | Hacker News Reader

Playing video games apparently prints money these days. People stream it to audiences and get paid ad money. Some random anime facts YouTube channel can also print money if enough people watch it. Cartoons? Make some Tom and Jerry memes and enjoy. People print money by making videos reacting to stuff, basically professional HN commentators posting hot takes in video form.

Totally absurd if you ask me but that's the reality we live in. Advertising completely fucks up all the incentive systems in society.

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Very, very few of the people who do those things make enough money to earn an income (proportional to how many try).

But the streaming platforms and game developers love that so many people do try.

There was an interesting (hearbreaking?) piece about some of the numerous people who have spent years streaming without any viewers[0]. I suppose it is no different from any other novelist/artist/musician who never gains traction, but feels materially different when you have instant feedback that nobody cares about what you are putting into the world.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17541600

Luck is a big factor but still... Rolling the dice does not present much of an opportunity cost. I've seen people make a hobby out of gaming these platforms and algorithms with the most random things imaginable until they found something that sticked. They had nothing, then suddenly they had significant amounts of money. It doesn't matter what it is, it just needs to grab attention for long enough for the advertisers to push their products. It's not like the guy had to go to school for 10 years to do it.

To really take a swing at it requires basically full time commitment. It's like starting a small media corporation actually.

Doesn't seem much more absurd than the multi-billion dollars industry of looking at people pass a ball around through the TV screen. People take issues with the new and take the old for granted. You might as well use your reasoning on every aspects of the entertainment economy.

Advertising does fuck our society in many ways, but I don't think its demise would be the end of streaming, or even of "react" content.

> You might as well use your reasoning on every aspects of the entertainment economy.

I do. I find things like professional sports to be extremely problematic due to the disproportional rewards. It's quite demoralizing to watch people get paid millions of dollars to play games while those who get educated and become tradesmen, professionals and whatnot get paid peanuts by comparison.

Ask newer generations what they want to become and too often you get back bullshit like soccer player, streamer, influencer. It's the sort of thing that makes me think society is sick and needs to be completely overhauled.

> I don't think its demise would be the end of streaming, or even of "react" content.

I don't think those things should end. I think they should not be incentivized via ad money. Get rid of the advertising and all these distortions will correct themselves. Plenty of people will do it anyway for the love of it and that's okay.

Well then, I agree completely with your viewpoint.

> Playing video games apparently prints money these days. People stream it to audiences and get paid ad money

Paying video games alone doesn't print money [0], it's being a great entertainer that does, and it's not easy and usually requires quite a bit of talent and the right personality.

And as others have said, just go into Twitch pick a category and check how many channels are streaming that have 0 viewers... it's staggering, I would argue that perhaps only 2% or so of Twitch channels have more than 1 viewer.

Making bank streaming requires not only grueling work of putting video after video, empty streams, etc. for years but also probably being quite lucky, we only see a tiny fraction of people making content out there.

I agree though that this didn't exist 15 years ago, so it's definitively a possibility when before it wasn't!

[0]: Okay you can be a pro-gamer but I think that's even more niche and harder than making content.

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