Comment by reggieband | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reggieband | Hacker News Reader

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I"m bullish on this and have been for about 12 months. Watching the growth of Twitch has really opened my eyes to the potential of a "participatory economy" (if that name sticks).

Youtube seems to me to be on the edge of a cliff. They are allowing advertisers to call all of the shots. You see videos all the time about how "Trending" tab or whatever other recommendation section on Youtube favours established/mainstream content. The reason is that brand friendliness is make-or-break for Youtube. If a big enough advertiser complains their ads are in front of CreatorZeke's videos then Youtube is going to do whatever necessary to appease the million dollar spender. That has a chilling effect across the platform as creators divine what kind of content gets the sweet ad $$$.

On Twitch, in comparison, some of the biggest creators don't even show ads. They exist very well on subscriptions and donations. This greatly reduces the effect advertisers have over shaping the content that is created. I think fans are starting to realize this and it will likely continue to generate a sense of freedom on Twitch when compared to Youtube.

It reminds me of the "100 True Fans" article on a16z [1]. It is reasonable for a creator to exist and thrive with 100 to 1000 devoted fans.

1. https://a16z.com/2020/02/06/100-true-fans/

First Bezos unbundles product search with Amazon from Google's core BU. Amazon US is earning an ARPU of 900 almost an order of magnitude higher than Google. Now Twitch unbundles the most profitable piece of Youtube while he bundles a Netflix video service in Amazon Prime at the same time.

What does Bezos eat for breakfast?

Pages from Machiavelli and Rockefeller's private diary?

Amazon's search page is just absolute garbage.

One of the truisms of this emerging market is that diversity of revenue makes the difference. But it's also a bidirectional thing where diversity of the marketing funnel also matters.

If a creator is all-in on YouTube, they're at the mercy of the algorithm. But if they see YouTube as a cheap dumping ground to advertise content made elsewhere, they are the ones who benefit. For Twitch streamers this typically comes in the form of highlight videos; for e-commerce, the current products for sale are spammed. Slideshows and audio-only video get podcast, audiobook and music content out there. It's a numbers game where most of these videos disappear with sub-1000 view counts, but occasionally one slips through and gets blessed by the algorithm.

And if you look at other platforms it's the same thing - a "weaving" of venues into a web. Lots of Twitter accounts exist to spread memes and sell their merch. Discords exist as a gathering point for Twitch and Patreon subscribers. At various points monetization can be offered but the business doesn't have to rest on any particular one paying for itself because the marginal cost to the creator is too cheap to meter; it's more important simply to keep building the network because it is the network that supports, not the specific trade relations flowing through it.

So as we keep adding more platforms I think the ability to monetize is generally going to improve, because you have less reason to pay attention to any one platform owner's revenue model. And that also means that there's a "flight to quality" that will necessarily take place over the long run: When you straddle multiple platforms, you can afford to take a hit and possibly lose your identity on one of them, as long as you retain hooks elsewhere.

For musicians and the old and true bedroom guitar video what are good established or up and coming networks and/or apps??

I think some subreddits might work (though I also guess you have to be a regular first to then post your stuff), and YouTube would be the classic go-to, but I'd much rather make it the dumping ground even if only for philosophical reasons.

> You see videos all the time about how "Trending" tab or whatever other recommendation section on Youtube favours established/mainstream content.

Allow me to humbly suggest that -- regardless of the truth of this -- perhaps videos recommended on Youtube aren't the least biased evaluation of Youtube's recommendation engine.

Who says Youtube's recommendation engine is how these video's reach prominence? I've seen videos posted here, on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc. There are networks that creators collaborate on and share data other than Youtube after all.

>That has a chilling effect across the platform as creators divine what kind of content gets the sweet ad $$$.

Does YouTube replace that ad with another one that doesn't have that preference? If so, it's less of a chilling effect because then it's just advertiser preference.

Twitch has a lot of participation widgets in its UX to get eyeball attention though and that strikes me as their secret sauce for a participation economy. I don't know if other sites can do something similar and have the same effect. I feel like Twitch got big enough (and good enough) that they could do that and people would just engage. Meanwhile people watch some of those streams and don't do anything: we're pretty much non-participatory.

A huge portion of the money twitch streamers via donations make isn't currently monitizable.

Amazon doesn't see money that flows through streamlabs, though they do get a massive cut of subscriptions. Gifting subscribers was a brilliant move to raise revenues, but what Amazon really needs is to offer a seamless way to process the donations that provides a good value proposition.

"They exist very well on subscriptions and donations. "

I would argue that all platforms like those start out that way. The content creators are the passionate ones. Once the big money comes in, the payment model shifts and we end up with what YouTube is doing now.

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