| > I get it, but most content -- that you and I find helpful in so many different cases -- exists because it can be monetized. That's a tragedy and it didn't use to be like this. In the past, you could use "exists to be monetized" as synonym to "garbage" and effectively filter such content[0] out of your browsing. Friction-based monetization is a giant "fuck you" to the user, so you can rightfully expect the quality and trustworthiness of content to match that attitude. The heuristic is still 100% valid, but it's increasingly hard to find anything other than content made for monetization[1]. I mean: > If you can't monetize your content, what's the point in creating it? The answer to that is, "you shouldn't". > Creating a lot of this content takes time, and therefore many people won't create it if it's not worth their time. Then those people should find a different, productive activity, and leave the "content creation" to people who are baffled at the question above, because for them, the reason is obvious - "because I can", or "for status", or "pay it forward", or "this would help others", or "the world would be a better place if people knew this thing I know". And none of that precludes asking people to pay for access. > If the world would just start paying directly for content (e.g. via Patreon), and if that was the only monetization needed, then maybe we could remove the painful friction No, let's not reverse the order in which things happened. Paying directly for content used to be the norm. It's nigh-impossible now, because everyone and their dog zeroed in on the perfect anti-competitive hack: free but with ads. This prevent almost all honest competition, because unless you have enough surplus to fund your creation yourself, you can't compete with free. -- [0] - The use of the term "content" on its own implies we're dealing with facsimile without soul. [1] - It's not that it doesn't exist - but rather, all the major platforms are, overtly or covertly, advertising platforms, so they both enable garbage peddlers and promote the garbage, because that's what pays their bills. In this way, it's not the centralization of the Internet alone that's the problem - it's centralization into platforms with structurally malicious incentives. |
Unless you enjoy it. Like the huge number of content creators who make little to no money on it, plus the huge number of content creators who do make money on it now but before they were able to.