[NobodyNada]

> "The Real Reason Music is Getting Worse"

As a musician myself, and as someone who enjoys watching music and music theory content on YouTube, I can't stand watching Rick Beato because of stuff like this. There certainly are valid criticisms to be made against the music industry, but those videos are like 90% ridiculous cherry-picked comparisons and vague, superficial justifications. It's low-quality nostalgia-driven engagement bait that's optimizing for clicks and comments.

I really like this video by 12tone addressing Beato's schtick about modern music [0]. 12tone is an example of someone who I consider produces much higher quality content than Beato, and obviously puts a ton of time and effort into the videos (writing scripts, drawing the visuals, recording and editing, and making moderately-clickbaity titles and thumbnails). But I'd guess it's probably a one-person operation.

In comparison, Beato's channel strikes me as low-effort content (pick a topic and spend an hour talking unscripted in front of a camera) with a ton of money spent on production, editing, and algorithm hyper-optimization to maximize ROI. It's such a straightforward case of something that would not exist without YouTube's monetization system that it's rather ironic for the parent to use it as an example otherwise.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODG4Xt45bU

[BLKNSLVR]

> It's such a straightforward case of something that would not exist without YouTube's monetization system

I find this to be very insightful.

I said above that Youtube itself created a generation that expects free videos, but it's also true that Youtube has created an industry that expect to make a living from their platform - to the extent that they literally cannot understand the point of view of the 'generation that expects free videos'.

There's obviously room for both since that's the world we live in, but it's interesting to see the two philosophically opposed 'bubbles' interacting with each other.

[TFNA]

Beato doesn't do much hour-long unscripted talking to the camera. Those videos are typically only about 10 minutes long.

In any event, Rick Beato seems like a normal human being, albeit a somewhat goofy dad-rock oldie. 12Tone comes across as an aspie weirdo. I'd rather have more of the former.

[NobodyNada]

> Beato doesn't do much hour-long unscripted talking to the camera. Those videos are typically only about 10 minutes long.

The videos are heavily edited with many cuts. So, I'd guess the production process is "have him talk for an hour, then edit it down to a 10 minute YouTube video".

> In any event, Rick Beato seems like a normal human being, albeit a somewhat goofy dad-rock oldie. 12Tone comes across as an aspie weirdo. I'd rather have more of the former.

And that's...kind of the point I'm making? The amount of effort put into the content of Beato's videos is quite low, with probably a couple hours at most of time put into research, coming up with talking points, and recording. But a lot of effort is spent on production, in order to make content that feels relatable and punchy and palatable to a mass market. It's junk food, and junk food sells well.