What’s Up with Start Ups
I’m just getting a little sick of the system that values aggregators of content more than creators of content, and presumes some kind of magical future where owning users free time results in lots of money.
This is a really interesting Hank video. I think he slightly undervalues concrete/platforms like tumblr, but the underlying point is a very important one to me: In a world where the media landscape is shaped and defined by advertisers, your attention and your creations are the product for sale. Tumblr is not free. It is paid for by you giving it time and making things with it.
I like to imagine a world in which vlogbrothers, and even much more expensive projects like Crash Course can be sustainable without advertising, but because this ad-driven world is accepted so widely, I’m not sure it will ever happen.
Hank and I both continue to be profoundly troubled by it, though, and we’re working hard to imagine other ways to sustain the creators of awesome things, because if I’m going to be for sale, I don’t want Delicious Diet Dr. Pepper Which Tastes More Like Real Dr. Pepper to decide how much you and I are worth. I want us to decide.
