this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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Because the number of people who are willing to put in the work and create quality content without any potential reward is too low to be relevant. Without a credible model for monetisation, content creators will always prefer to stay in the closed platforms. If we want the open web to be a real alternative for everyone and not just a fringe thing, we need to be able to attract everyone.
Maybe I am getting old, but I do remember the time where "ads" did not automatically imply "Surveillance Capitalism". The problem is not the former, but the latter.
Easy for you to say, but how many creators do you know that can make a living exclusively off their Patreon? And of those that do, how many managed to get known without putting their content on a closed platform?
Maybe, but the number of dimwits willing to make sensationalist drivel to make a buck is staggering. Exhibit A, any Youtuber. I prefer not to have that incentive in the Fediverse.
Do you know that story about the pottery teacher that made an experiment by separating students into two groups, one was going to be graded by how many pieces they made (quantity), the other by their best piece (quality), and that in the end the group that worried about quantity ended up producing better work than the ones focused on quality?
It's the same thing with the internet. You are familiar with Sturgeon's Law, right? Instead of looking at the 90% of crap (quality), we should find always to churn out as much content as possible so that the non-crap 10% can be of a reasonable number.
I honestly do not care about the dimwits on YouTube, but it pains me that I can not convince someone like @geerlingguy@mastodon.social to leave YouTube to post his content on an open alternative, because that would be the same as asking to stop having the resources to keep doing the amazing work that he does.
So, in your pottery story only one in 10 mass produced pots would be better (by some fuzzy criteria) than those by somebody who actually pit their mind and creativity to it? Sounds wasteful AF, dude.
Similarly, a glance at that Geerling guy's website tells me that he is already maintaining around twenty different social profiles. So I guess his Youtube ad revenue goes into supporting that promotional effort, as well as the amazing work I've never heard of.
I respect your efforts with Communick, even if I don't agree with your examples. I'm just not interested in an internet that tries to center commercial revenue as a raison d'être. I'll support people who would be doing what they do without that motivation.
I'm not arguing for "commercial revenue as a raison d'être". I'm arguing that it's a numbers game.
Even if 100% of the people here on this small, elitist, open web were "good" (which is not true), a web that is universal and only 10% "good" would be better.