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Who Owns Nebula?

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Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#81

Post by tredre3 »

xd1936 wrote: post #77

> Nebula the business is “Standard Broadcast LLC,” and is directly owned at the LLC level by me and 43 other creators (and growing). > Nebula the streaming video service (which controls the streaming revenue) is Watch Nebula LLC, which is about 83% owned by Standard Broadcast LLC, with the rest held by Curiosity Stream. All control and all board seats belong to Standard Broadcast LLC. > We use shadow equity for platf…

> Weird that he didn’t just ask.

Cameron did quote someone who asked him and the answer he got was "it’s complicated". There is no reason to think that asking again would have resulted in different/better answer.

Plus, as we see, it's not that complicated. He explained the situation fully in one paragraph so why didn't he when asked in the past?

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#82

Post by tredre3 »

jszymborski wrote: post #74
armoredkitten wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, there's no evidence in any of this that would indicate the creators are misinformed or being scammed. In reality, they know their primary source of revenue is coming from Youtube, and it is a frequent complaint, especially for content creators who do anything marginally political or controversial, that they are demonetized or hit with copyright strikes (even in clear cases of fair use) and have to deal with th…

I never said they were scammed, but I was indeed misled by dishonest marketing, and frankly I think creators are also to blame for spouting lies about ownership. I supported Nebula because I think a creator's co-op is a beautiful project. I was willing to compromise on the co-op idea when I thought it was a 50:50 ownership structure but this is nothing close to equitable in my mind. I'll spend the money I save on Neb…

> I'll spend the money I save on Nebula on monthly donations to creators.

You'll split your 3-6 dollars between multiple people? So that after fees they'll each receive a dime?

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#83

Post by jszymborski »

tredre3 wrote: post #82
jszymborski wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said they were scammed, but I was indeed misled by dishonest marketing, and frankly I think creators are also to blame for spouting lies about ownership. I supported Nebula because I think a creator's co-op is a beautiful project. I was willing to compromise on the co-op idea when I thought it was a 50:50 ownership structure but this is nothing close to equitable in my mind. I'll spend the money I save on Neb…

> I'll spend the money I save on Nebula on monthly donations to creators. You'll split your 3-6 dollars between multiple people? So that after fees they'll each receive a dime?

I'm currently supporting two creators on Patreon and I'll likely up my donation to them by 3 USD each.

I'd rather be supporting the creator's co-op I thought I was, but I'll have to settle for this until that exists.

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#84

Post by hollerith »

jszymborski wrote: post #66
staunton wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what the scam is. The structure is opaque which indicates there might be some scam but how would one know what it is?

The accusations of it being a scam are speculative for sure, but they come from a relatable place: the inability to understand why creators would agree to take on "shadow equity" while a small handful of creators get actual real equity. It sounds like a few creators can sell the equity that is built by many creators at any time, but that all the other creators can only realize their equity if and when the company exi…

>a few creators can sell the equity that is built by many creators at any time, but that all the other creators can only realize their equity if and when the company exits.

That's misleading because an exit (i.e., a sale or an IPO) is usually the only way that owners of real equity in a startup can cash out.

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#85

Post by socalnate1 »

xd1936 wrote: post #77

> Nebula the business is “Standard Broadcast LLC,” and is directly owned at the LLC level by me and 43 other creators (and growing). > Nebula the streaming video service (which controls the streaming revenue) is Watch Nebula LLC, which is about 83% owned by Standard Broadcast LLC, with the rest held by Curiosity Stream. All control and all board seats belong to Standard Broadcast LLC. > We use shadow equity for platf…

This is the answer. This comment could have replaced that entire medium article and saved us all a lot of time.

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#86

Post by blagie »

staunton wrote: post #46
blagie wrote: post #36

This is approximately what I figured. Whenever I do deeper due diligence, this sort of scam comes up. Literally "whenever." For the record, Nebula is primarily owned and operated by creators. Those creators are: * Dave Wiskus * Brian McManus (Real Engineering) * Alex (LowSpecGamer) * Devin Stone (Legal Eagle) * Thomas Frank * Sam Denby (Wendover Productions) The other creators are getting scammed. This is not an unco…

I don't understand what the scam is. The structure is opaque which indicates there might be some scam but how would one know what it is?

Nebula advertises itself: "Nebula is creator-owned and operated" (implying the creators who publish). A lot of people subscribe in order to support creators, as a sort of alternative to Patreon.

This is not the case. It is owned and operated by the founders and some investors.

If someone donates believing they're supporting Extra Credits, Practical Engineering, or a similar channel, they're likely being misled about how much they're contributing to it. Indeed, they may believe they're supporting a creators' co-op, which they're clearly not. If Nebula sinks, the support is what they expected. If it swims, it's going to be a lot less.

I consider this to be tantamount of fraud. That's as much a statement about myself as about Nebula. My standards for what constitutes fraud are much lower than e.g. the FTC's. However, I (again, personally) believe that if the FTC shared my standards, the economy would be more efficient and the world would be a better place. That is a personal opinion, but researched, and based on the work of David Landes (a well-regarded economist at Harvard, who had nice work about the role of social capital in economic growth).

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#87

Post by blagie »

kragen wrote: post #62
blagie wrote: post #36

This is approximately what I figured. Whenever I do deeper due diligence, this sort of scam comes up. Literally "whenever." For the record, Nebula is primarily owned and operated by creators. Those creators are: * Dave Wiskus * Brian McManus (Real Engineering) * Alex (LowSpecGamer) * Devin Stone (Legal Eagle) * Thomas Frank * Sam Denby (Wendover Productions) The other creators are getting scammed. This is not an unco…

i'm disappointed in brian mcmanus every time i watch a 'real engineering' video and find out that it's full of factual inaccuracies, like all the previous 'real engineering' videos i watched. you'd think i'd learn, but i keep confusing him with 'practical engineering', which is actually real

I find Real Engineering to be pretty good for aerospace, and horrible for everything else. There are errors, but no more so than any other resources I've seen on aerospace.

The problem I have is that it's trying to do electronic engineering, fusion, and now history. The worst is interviews / human interest / travel / behind-the-scenes, etc. My question is always: Why? Why do you think you're at all qualified to do a better job than the people who specialize in this?

If I had a choice, the Nebula-exclusive content would go more into math or deeper engineering: How does a jet engine work? That kind of thing.

But yes, Practical Engineering is very, very good.

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#88

Post by blagie »

xd1936 wrote: post #57
blagie wrote: post #36

This is approximately what I figured. Whenever I do deeper due diligence, this sort of scam comes up. Literally "whenever." For the record, Nebula is primarily owned and operated by creators. Those creators are: * Dave Wiskus * Brian McManus (Real Engineering) * Alex (LowSpecGamer) * Devin Stone (Legal Eagle) * Thomas Frank * Sam Denby (Wendover Productions) The other creators are getting scammed. This is not an unco…

You used the word "scam" six times in your comment. That is a bit exaggerative of the actual company structure. Creators are getting paid to put various forms of exclusives on the platform. Just because the company uses a disingenuous term to market itself doesn't mean that said creators are all victims here.

I don't know whether creators are victims (although I suspect they are), but I do know people who pay for altruistic reasons are victims. It's not billing itself as Disney Plus but specifically as a way to support creators and support a service for-creators/by-creators.

That, it's not.

As a footnote, this also explains why channels like Wendover are promoted so strongly by Nebula over, quite frankly, better content.

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#89

Post by kragen »

blagie wrote: post #87
kragen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm disappointed in brian mcmanus every time i watch a 'real engineering' video and find out that it's full of factual inaccuracies, like all the previous 'real engineering' videos i watched. you'd think i'd learn, but i keep confusing him with 'practical engineering', which is actually real

I find Real Engineering to be pretty good for aerospace, and horrible for everything else. There are errors, but no more so than any other resources I've seen on aerospace. The problem I have is that it's trying to do electronic engineering, fusion, and now history. The worst is interviews / human interest / travel / behind-the-scenes, etc. My question is always: Why? Why do you think you're at all qualified to do a…

if you were running real engineering, you could maybe pay a team of fusion energy postdocs, unemployed electrical engineers, or middle-eastern-studies grad students to review your draft script and offer suggestions for improvement before you record the episode

if you want to know how a jet engine works i think your best bet (other than library genesis and google scholar obviously) is integza

Re: Who Owns Nebula?

#90

Post by blagie »

kragen wrote: post #89
blagie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Real Engineering to be pretty good for aerospace, and horrible for everything else. There are errors, but no more so than any other resources I've seen on aerospace. The problem I have is that it's trying to do electronic engineering, fusion, and now history. The worst is interviews / human interest / travel / behind-the-scenes, etc. My question is always: Why? Why do you think you're at all qualified to do a…

if you were running real engineering, you could maybe pay a team of fusion energy postdocs, unemployed electrical engineers, or middle-eastern-studies grad students to review your draft script and offer suggestions for improvement before you record the episode if you want to know how a jet engine works i think your best bet (other than library genesis and google scholar obviously) is integza

... or volunteers from your followers.

Accuracy doesn't generate clicks.

Thank you for the pointer to integza. I have not watched the videos yet, but from the high-level, that's exactly what I was looking for (albeit for slightly different reasons; for a different project).

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