Re:Popular YouTubers who are building their own sites
by monadic8 on Sunday March 07, 2021 @05:12PM
(#26380284)
Yes, these platforms primarily exist to drain revenue from the long tail of unappreciated content. I don't think that's a positive thing.
Re:Popular YouTubers who are building their own sites
by vkou on Monday March 08, 2021 @12:08PM
(#26388196)
You've described the internet in a nutshell. Computers make it possible to make money off the long tail, that would have otherwise languished in obscurity.
The alternatives are either a return to syndication, or a transition to some kind of non-market public cultural utility for distributing and promoting my cat videos. Or, we remain in what currently seems to be a local maximum, where distribution and marketing is cheap, but not so cheap that most content creators are doing it themselves.
Generally speaking, any industry where your revenue relies on marketing, promotion, or access to exclusive collaboration and distribution networks is going to have this property.
If you've made it really big, you can try to mitigate risk by doing your own marketing, or owning your own share of the distribution channel. For all the B-list actors, though, the economics of that aren't very favourable.