[sidstling]

I respect people who have the ability to entertain thousands of viewers, I really do. At the same time I’m really happy that wasn’t even an option when I was young. I’m sure I would have spent even more time playing video games if esports, twitch and YouTube had been a thing in the 90ies.

I know, I know, not everyone is alike, but at age 35 I’m really happy that my job involves serious adult challenges, and that my success in life isn’t depending on thousands of teenagers pushing a like button.

[wybiral]

> my success in life isn’t depending on thousands of teenagers pushing a like button

In a certain sense, though, most serious adult business still boils down to people seeing an ad, installing an app, buying a product, attracting investors, or teenagers clicking a like button.

Edit: The YouTubers who go on to do it at a more serious capacity will also learn valuable first-hand lessons in dealing with partnerships, sponsors, public relations, release cycles, etc. All of which are useful depending on what it is that you want to do in your career.

[lsc]

>In a certain sense, though, most serious adult business still boils down to people seeing an ad, installing an app, buying a product, attracting investors, or teenagers clicking a like button.

I mean, yes, I'm part of the machine, and the machine does sell advertising. But I'm a little cog in a big machine, and there are a lot of other cogs between me and the teenagers and their like buttons.

A long time ago, I wrote a technical book. One of the weirdest things to me was just how much reading the amazon reviews hurt. Like, they were mostly positive, but the negative ones, even negative reviews that as a buyer I would dismiss as 'clearly nutso' really hurt in a deeply irrational way.

At my dayjob? not only is it someone else's job to worry about that sort of thing, the volume involved would make it almost impossible for me to consume the feedback in anything other than a statistically sampled sort of way, even if it was my job.

[sidstling]

You have a point. I work in the public sector though. Last week I facilitated workshops to analyze how the administration can better implement an IT system as well as the organizational change-management for thousands of employees. If they listen and actually spend the necessary resources (they won’t), it’ll mean better quality for patients and a better work environment for our employees. For me that’s worth a lot more, but like I said, everyone should find their own path.

I just worry about the longer prospects of getting in to social media content creation, and where it leaves you if you want to change paths. I’ve been on quite a few hiring boards and I’ve never seen social media followers benefit anyone. We’re not the most obvious sector where it would benefit you, but I have a friend in journalism and when I discussed this with him, he said they looked at it, but also that the platforms make it so easy that success on YouTube doesn’t necessarily teach you anything useful.

I think I’m more in agreement with you. I personally think some educational youtubers would make good teachers. I also think they’d never get hired, however, because they don’t have the right education and because they are competing with people who have actual teaching experience.

Like I said, everyone should do their own thing, and I respect youtubers for following their dreams and succeeding. I’m just worried about the longevity of it, and I’m mostly worried because I don’t want my own children to get trapped in something that might not last them. I loved video games in my teens and my early twenties, today I haven’t played one in years. Of course not everyone will burn out on their young adult hobbies like I have.

[noobermin]

If you think this is problematic, say, providing for teenagers to click like buttons rather than confronting global warming or extreme wealth inequality, the question then is why do things have to be this way?

[tshannon]

True, but we get to "outsource" those worries to a marketing department, who hopefully have a better handle on audiences than we do.

[xabuq]

Ads drive less than 10% of all revenue. Ads make a difference in competitor market share, when saturated, tipping swing votes in a deadlock. In many other scenarios, ad exposure has no measurable effect of success or failure.

[qubax]

> but at age 35 I’m really happy that my job involves serious adult challenges

Highly doubt that if you are commenting on a social media platform. What's an "adult" challenge?

> and that my success in life isn’t depending on thousands of teenagers pushing a like button.

Sure it does. From journalist to software programmers and everyone in between.

[coldtea]

>Highly doubt that if you are commenting on a social media platform

Because adults don't use social media platforms? And HN is not exactly Snapchat either...

>Sure it does. From journalist to software programmers and everyone in between.

Most businesses around the world could not care less for "journalists", "software programmers" and "everyone in between". We're not all working on Facebook, Apple, and co, or even on internet businesses.

There are billions of people working in places that at best have some static website, and people just walk in and buy stuff for example. Or B2B, or services, and so on. And for most of these neither their website matters much (if at all), not do they deal with media writing about them (or care).