What kind of videos are these? I hope it’s not the cousins from Louisiana…

Because the advertising business is highly centralized. Getting sponsorships is not as easy as you think.

An example: YouTube pays content producers per click, so to speak, a ridiculously small amount, but in total, with billions of clicks, a crazy amount. The money to finance this comes largely from advertising revenue (also Google’s main business model). They are the Gatekeepers so to speak.

But the content producers can’t live off this because Google keeps most of it for itself. They do give people the opportunity to find sponsors themselves tho - and that’s how people actually make the most money. But you have to find them for yourself or through intermediaries (that’s an industry in itself). This is only realistic if you have sufficient reach (subscribers in the example). And that, in turn, is only possible if you have already invested hundreds of hours in the production of content (you can’t make a living if you don’t get paid for that).

So I think it would be best if the platforms themselves were powerful enough in terms of reach to be able to negotiate well with advertisers. But not as powerful as Google, for example, who can afford to pay content producers a pittance because - unlike small platforms - they are not dependent on them.

I think we should be realistic. Content costs money because it requires a lot of effort. It’s naïve to think that content would just be created because people feel like posting something. If the Fediverse is to compete with companies like meta, this is only possible if there are opportunities for content creators to earn money. That should be self-evident, but it obviously isn’t here.

I’m not saying it’s necessary, but it is if the Fediverse is to have mainstream appeal.

Simply because the absolute majority of people are out and about where everyone is. And that’s where the content is. That’s the point: if you want good content, it costs money. It’s not just corporations that make a living from it.

What I want to say is this: The Fediverse could provide fairer conditions for the people who produce content. That makes sense and is necessary because the Internet lives from that.

I just don’t understand why people here don’t want to realize that work has to be paid for. That’s really strange.

I keep my jars on a shelf right next to the drawer for stuff, you know, the drawer for rubber bands, shoelaces, scotch tape, meat skewers and other such treasures that I’m sure I’ll desperately need one day.

That’s cute and all, but it’s also pretty much what Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Spotify and all the other tech giants are doing when they’re joyfully tracking what people are doing without their knowledge or consent.