If it was literally impossible to profit from digital video content creation, there'd be still be countless videos, and the overall quality (in terms of content value, not production value) would also probably be higher. People like sharing content, even for free - hence sites like this one, which we've all probably spent far too many hours on, and I've yet to receive a single payment from Dang!? And Google will never scrap YouTube because they gain immense profit just from profiling you, regardless of how many ads they can force you to watch. And perhaps even scarier from their perspective is the rise in marketshare that'd give to competitors.

In many ways it'd probably be far better for the world if making videos was not perceived as being profitable. The number of children who now want to be 'streamers' or 'youtubers' instead of astronauts, engineers, and scientists is not a good direction for society.

I think there’s a sorites paradox here: if it were actually impossible to make money from digital video, then YouTube wouldn’t exist at all because it couldn’t pay for the hosting and bandwidth it needs to distribute videos. What is true is that YouTube is basically not harmed by some fraction of their users blocking ads but, were that fraction to hit some percentage of the total traffic, YouTube would be forced to either discontinue free video hosting or charge to watch (or it would be killed as unprofitable).

Exactly right. I think we are incredibly far from that breaking point, and what Google is doing is chasing growth for their shareholders more than anything else, especially at the end of the free money era.

The platform itself may be replaced but the incredible result of the YouTube platform is that there are millions of excellent creators who are making a living by making their videos, and even making enough to keep raising the bar on their work.

It's not a given that growing such a swelling stream of creative work will ever again be possible if this one dies out. YouTube was in the right place at the right time with the right subsidization available while they made the systems work at scale, and scale them up to insane hyper scale levels. This happened because of the advertising bubble, which is showing heavy signs of stress especially in the last few years. Society is already pushing back against the data collection that makes advertising at these scales as lucrative as it is, and if the bubble finally pops it's possibly it'll never inflate this way again.

This is why it's important to support the small creators you enjoy in some way. Direct contribution is certainly the best of them all. Sure this might not be relevant for superstar YouTubers, but take for example Technology Connections. Alec is an amazing communicator who puts insane effort (full time) into producing super informative videos about electronics and engineering.

> If it was literally impossible to profit from digital video content creation, there'd be still be countless videos, and the overall quality (in terms of content value, not production value) would also probably be higher.

A lot of YouTubers I enjoy watching are very tech/science focused and use proceeds from their videos to purchase equipment that is used to create content. I don't think their channels would be nearly as interesting if they didn't make shiny-toy-money from it.

> The number of children who now want to be 'streamers' or 'youtubers' instead of astronauts, engineers, and scientists is not a good direction for society.

People desiring to be famous isn't an idea that started in the age of YouTube and TikTok. The medium changes with what's the dominant platform. If anything, YouTube and TikTok democratized the process.

"Democratized" is just a fancy way of saying "made it easier for more people to get into it". So you get the same result: more people seeing that becoming famous is actually attainable, which drains talent from more useful endeavors.

(And yes, I'm going to assert that becoming an astronaut, engineer, scientist, etc. is immeasurably more useful than becoming an influencer or whatever. It's fine to disagree with me there, but that's my position.)

Having said that, I do get a lot of value and understanding and useful information from some YouTube channels (which I do my best to support through Patreon and my YT Premium subscription). But not all channels are created equal.

TV, documentaries, movies and music videos are video content just the same. Even most sports is consumed in video format.

Only served via a different platform (or not really anymore for some like music videos).

People wanting to be streamers/youtubers is the same as them wanting to be any other celebrity.

To be able to show some valuable content, there has to be something valuable happening, and hopefully that still directs enough people to be astronauts, engineers and scientists (so eg NASA can live stream their flying to Moon or something).

All I am saying nothing has changed, really, other than the platform and accessibility.

> and the overall quality (in terms of content value, not production value) would also probably be higher

This is pretty questionable. Quality takes time. If you need an income to pay your rent, 40 hours or more of your work week are taken up. That leaves a few hours before dinner and sleep to work on your videos (since in this hypothetical, it is "literally impossible" to make money on your videos).

Of course you could work on the weekend, and many do. But let's not forget that making videos is work, and it's important to do the things, you know, we invented weekends for. Like spending time with your family, reading a book, or playing a video game. How entitled this content creator must be to have a weekend. This is of course assuming that the creator's day job is a traditional one-- more than likely they work partial days 7 days a week at varying hours as is the norm for crappier jobs.

That 40 hours gives you enough income to pay your expenses, but unfortunately, for most people, doesn't give you the income you need to get a real camera, so you're just using the webcam that you already had on your computer.

The audio is terrible and the video looks like it came out of the early days of YouTube, but somehow that qualifies as "high production values".

Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of reality when working in a highly paid specialized field like engineering.

> In many ways it'd probably be far better for the world if making videos was not perceived as being profitable. The number of children who now want to be 'streamers' or 'youtubers' instead of astronauts, engineers, and scientists is not a good direction for society.

Well you are watching that content, presumably. Do you feel it provides value to you?

There are an awful lot of small science educators on YouTube. They are doing the work to inspire people to get into the sciences. Is that not valuable? Those people have an outsized dependency on the ad revenue and patreon income they receive so they can keep making videos that are accurate and engaging. For them, another hundred people blocking ads could mean the difference between doing what they love and releasing quality videos or having to go back to a day job that occupies all their time.

If there was no YouTube, how do our kids get inspired to become scientists-- by watching the latest MCU movie? By watching cable programming?

YouTube isn't all just MrBeast and dramatube videos but I get the impression that this is what you think of. It reminds me of the "algorithm slip" where users make broad assumptions about a platform because of what it serves to them, but really it says more about you than properly evaluating what content is on the platform.

When I sum up your take, it sounds like only those people with passive income should have the privilege to make videos, and that's actually not a world I want.

> Well you are watching that content, presumably. Do you feel it provides value to you?

That's a pretty thorny question, come to think of it.

Perhaps it's like eating chocolate. It provides value to some part of me, but at the same time, a more reasonable part can judge that I as a whole would be better off if the chocolate wasn't there and I'd eat something healthier instead. So I can both consume it and desire an environment where I wouldn't consume it.

You're free to not eat the chocolate, but are you suggesting that it's the chocolate's fault for existing, and that chocolate should go away so you aren't tempted?

I'd assert that a lot of content on YouTube is not chocolate. There are high quality "healthy" options right there on the app. How about Technology Connections or the 4 hour long retrospectives on your favorite book, film, or video game? What about the years of technical and learning content? Those aren't chocolate, those are spinach.

> If there was no YouTube, how do our kids get inspired to become scientists-- by watching the latest MCU movie? By watching cable programming?

Same as everyone before YouTube. Role models and seeing/reading things.

So only people with role models close to them or in a place where inspiring things are happening should be inspired?

Before YouTube and the Internet in general, only affluent people had these things, and we left behind a huge portion of the worlds population. Those people have the same potential as people of means or the luck to be born in an affluent country or an urban area.

I do get that you also include reading things on the Internet, but that's not always engaging enough to create a spark for people.

This is bordering on ridiculous. No, not only affluent people had role models FFS. Carl Sagan, for instance, was a 1st gen son of poor immigrants. His mother was a house-wife, his father a garment worker. His inspiration came from what scientifically curious people used to do before the internet - like going to the library, talking to his teachers, or even going to a museum every once in a while.

Since the advent of the internet the entire developed world has been getting literally dumber, so far as IQ can measure. [1] That's, to my knowledge, the latest study but a quick search for 'reversal of flynn effect' will turn up a zillion hits. In other words, what I'm saying is not controversial in the least. And one of the hypothesis for why this is happening (as per the linked paper) is, unsurprisingly, increased media exposure. YouTube is playing a significant role in literally making the world more stupid.

I love plenty of 'sciency' YouTubers - Veritassium, Cody's Lab, Smarter Every Day, and many more. But in reality, you're not like to learn much of anything from these sort of scientainment. It's just candy with a sciency coating, more likely to inspire people to want to make more candy, than to actually pursue science.

[1] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...

This is just factually not true. A lot of YouTubers eventually quit their jobs and become full time content creators. That's means they are able to create more content and the quality of their content can increase as they are able to spend more time on production and editing.

They are also able to invest in their channels. Many bigger YouTubers have small production studios, very expensive camera equipment (think $70k Red Dragon/ARRI cameras, 5 figure lighting setups,etc), and full time staff. They can production quality that rivals a TV studio. None of that would be possible if video content couldn't be monetized.

I sort of agree about the obsession with being a "content creator". But at the same time, kids have always wanted to be rock stars, professional athletes, and movie stars. Content creator is just a new type of celebrity for kids to idolize.