[acquisitionsilk]

It also results in more money going to Youtube/Google LLC/Alphabet Inc.

There are many wonderful videos and video-makers on youtube - but I think the platform has been a net negative for creativity, and for humanity, in many ways. Hence I personally would never support them with my money.

We haven't ever ran the counterfactual, and maybe there's some reason we can't or won't. But I would absolutely love to see youtube without youtube - no middleman, direct payments to the video-makers.

I'm not proposing a technical discussion here on what such a platform might look like or whether it's feasible - I just mean culturally, I'd love to see what videos we would come up with if we weren't constantly adjusting to suit the all-powerful and unknowable "algorithm".

I think this pressure to conform to the algorithm, to always chase more views, subscriptions, and comments, to frame every choice around that, has probably been much more prohibitive on creativity than we are able to imagine.

[chrismcb]

Why do you think the platform is a net negative? You claim it is a net negative for humanity. Yet most how tos are in you tube. Plus there are tons of learning materials. Seems like a positive to me. Creativity? Seems like there is a lot of creative content as well. So I'm not sure why you think that is also a negative. Yes it sucks when the framework wants to make money. But the framework is expensive. Now maybe more needs to go to the content creates. But the underlying framework deserves to make money as well.

[bdangubic]

It also results in more money going to Youtube/Google LLC/Alphabet Inc.

yup, they should run this whole service free of charge, no ads and no subscription :)

[acquisitionsilk]

I'm not saying I want them to run the whole service free of charge, I'm saying I'd consider it a gain for the species if the business closed down. I look forward to alternative ideas (with e.g. no middlemen, and direct payment) being tested out.

The TV era held some promise but steadily declined, and the Youtube era has went similarly. The audiovisual onslaught continues. Technically competent people on here are innoculated against the realities of the average usage on these platforms, which equates to brain-rot of the lowest calibre.

[bdangubic]

with e.g. no middlemen, and direct payment

this sounds amazing but it can’t be done. no one is going to 79 websites to watch things from 79 different artist. the middleman are core evil part not just in this area but many others but I can’t see how this kind of society we have built can function without it

[acquisitionsilk]

It wouldn't have to be 79 websites, obviously - there's RSS, for example. But there's also ten other things that already exist, and probably ten other things that don't exist that neither of us could imagine.

I know that if you live in one place, in one time, and everyone does one thing around you and acts like it's the only thing that ever existed, that it's really (really, really) tempting to think it's the only thing that could exist. But it's completely false. Loads of obvious seeming things are totally false, and this is definitively one of them.

Not only is it possible that we'll have a totally different society one day, and maybe even one where we have no to extremely few middlemen, but since Pascal and de Fermat we've known it to be roughly 100% likely! You can completely depend on the fact it will happen!