31–40 of 168 posts
What creators need is a better youtube algorithm. Is it just me, or has youtube recommendations become almost unusable by now? Some years ago when I spent "an hour watching YouTube" I'd watch a huge majority of videos recommended by the algorithm based on my current subs. Today it is 1%. Why? I'll give you an example. I have varied interests, I sub and regularly watch a number if channels in each of my hobbies, but f…
I’m a full-time content creator. I feel like patreon/newsletters/paid communities are more hassle than anything. When I look at the pros and cons of every single revenue strategy, sponsorships has the highest gain and least cons (for me). Sponsors pay at least 10x what ad revenue pays, I don’t have to ask my community for money and the audience are likely to skip the ad anyway if they didn’t want to watch it. Patreon…
I see the same few sponsorships constantly: Skillshare, Brilliant, Nebula, Hello Fresh, BetterHelp, Raid: Shadow Legends. I like to guess which one it's going to be when the creator starts telling a made-up story that leads into the sponsorship segment. The fact that it's the same ones, over and over again, across a wide spectrum of channels, makes me think that sponsorship is not yet a proven reliable source of inco…
Paradox Interactive's relationship with the comedy sketch group Door Monster is also pretty nice to see. It seems clear that's not strictly a business relationship, but also someone at Paradox being genuine fans.
I think there's actually a bit of a sliding scale between personal patronage and corporate patronage. Local businesses sponsoring local plays, concerts or sports events is another example of sponsorship which isn't likely income-generating.
This doesn't sound as dire to me as the author makes it out to be. I think it sounds totally reasonable that you need 20,000 or even 100,000 engaged followers to be able to make it full time off creating content. I don't see how, even with advertising or sponsors, a smaller number of followers could ever pay a livable salary (out of 20,000 people, how many of those mattresses are you really going to sell?). It used t…
This doesn't sound as dire to me as the author makes it out to be. I think it sounds totally reasonable that you need 20,000 or even 100,000 engaged followers to be able to make it full time off creating content. I don't see how, even with advertising or sponsors, a smaller number of followers could ever pay a livable salary (out of 20,000 people, how many of those mattresses are you really going to sell?). It used t…
The advantage of Patreon-like systems is they let the creators "whale hunt", by taking much larger amounts of money from a small number of more engaged fans.
> Eventually, her viewers were asking for more recipes, more elaborate productions, and fancier kitchen gadgets to review. Suddenly, she needed some serious cash to keep it all going. She started taking on sponsors, then product placements, then brand deals. I watched her churn-out videos, just ads for knives, mixers, or meal kits. And I could see the light going out of her eyes a little.
Nobody "made" her do this: she was working for herself. And, as her own boss, she drove herself to work harder to the point of burnout.
It's almost directly analogous to opening a restaurant. You buy kitchen equipment and ingredients and hope to turn a profit from satisfying the desires of the public. Quite often it doesn't work out; most restaurants close within a year or two of opening.
Sorry, but the "creator economy" is a mostly-malicious delusion. Sure, it can sound great. And for a very lucky few it probably is great. But the 99% reality is that it's just hype from techo-utopians, wanna-be's, get-rich-quick salesmen, and a bunch of mega-corporate platforms - whose profits are built on the backs of virtual-slave "creator" labor. (Yes, maybe this is a bit too cynical. Maybe. A bit.)
The TL;DR of this is basically there are too many people creating content. Best thing that creators could do is tell other creators to quit. The author doesn't say this part but really that is what it comes down to. Instead she offers a generic advice about diversifying the medium of delivery.
The irony is that the "creator economy" was meant to democratise content and make everyone able to make a living from being a "creator". In reality the maximum number that can be sustained in this manner is less than the number of salaried listicle writers at media outlets.
And the model where some patrons receive a reward encourages transactionalism and disappointed patrons when they don't get the reward they expected.
Liberapay's model seems much more sustainable - donations only, no rewards; Liberapay fund themselves via Liberapay because they actually believe their system works.
This doesn't sound as dire to me as the author makes it out to be. I think it sounds totally reasonable that you need 20,000 or even 100,000 engaged followers to be able to make it full time off creating content. I don't see how, even with advertising or sponsors, a smaller number of followers could ever pay a livable salary (out of 20,000 people, how many of those mattresses are you really going to sell?). It used t…
Patreon knows that Patreon doesn't work - they don't fund themselves by donations on Patreon; instead they take a cut of other people's donations. And the model where some patrons receive a reward encourages transactionalism and disappointed patrons when they don't get the reward they expected. Liberapay's model seems much more sustainable - donations only, no rewards; Liberapay fund themselves via Liberapay because…
As in they are also funded by donations, or do the creators themselves pay for entry?
This doesn't sound as dire to me as the author makes it out to be. I think it sounds totally reasonable that you need 20,000 or even 100,000 engaged followers to be able to make it full time off creating content. I don't see how, even with advertising or sponsors, a smaller number of followers could ever pay a livable salary (out of 20,000 people, how many of those mattresses are you really going to sell?). It used t…
No, tv shows where profitable with much, much lower numbers than millions.