[themagician]

Monopoly in charge of the world's video content shows users what is most profitable instead of what they want to see. "Content creators" suffer as a result. Brain rot content is real, it's profitable, and it's only going to get "worse".

Does anyone remember the internet before pop-up blockers? Like, right before. It felt like the same thing to me. The internet was infested with pop-ups and becoming borderline unusable, and then comes along the pop-up blocker (and other things, but I'm simplifying here) and there was a "golden age" which is now giving way to a new wave of advertising-based atrophy. Not sure what happens next.

[hhhAndrew]

One idea for what happens next, that rhymes with pop-up blocker revolution, is Gates' "disintermediation of everything" via AI, where agents on our behalf will be able to "find me a video I like and don't show me the ads", "renew my electricity contract and don't let them soft-scam me with their tricky pricing structure", "buy groceries online and don't get tricked into buying candy from a promo", etc. Agents make become like popup blockers in that way. Subsequent to that, I reckon we may see some sites adopting TOS forbidding people to have AI agents visit on their behalf.

[bobsmooth]

>and there was a "golden age"

That golden age was short lived because all our favorite websites were unprofitable and shutdown.

[themagician]

> "That golden age was short lived because all our favorite websites were unprofitable and shutdown."

Painfully true.

[johnnyanmac]

The analysis in this article shows that revenue and likes didn't actually go down, though. Just views. That's only bad for sponsors overall.

I do wonder how this applies for smaller channels, though. Larger creators may get better revshare to make up for whatever the heck is happening. The little guy always gets screwed.

[namuol]

> Not sure what happens next.

You said it:

> it's only going to get "worse"