> and the overall quality (in terms of content value, not production value) would also probably be higher
This is pretty questionable. Quality takes time. If you need an income to pay your rent, 40 hours or more of your work week are taken up. That leaves a few hours before dinner and sleep to work on your videos (since in this hypothetical, it is "literally impossible" to make money on your videos).
Of course you could work on the weekend, and many do. But let's not forget that making videos is work, and it's important to do the things, you know, we invented weekends for. Like spending time with your family, reading a book, or playing a video game. How entitled this content creator must be to have a weekend. This is of course assuming that the creator's day job is a traditional one-- more than likely they work partial days 7 days a week at varying hours as is the norm for crappier jobs.
That 40 hours gives you enough income to pay your expenses, but unfortunately, for most people, doesn't give you the income you need to get a real camera, so you're just using the webcam that you already had on your computer.
The audio is terrible and the video looks like it came out of the early days of YouTube, but somehow that qualifies as "high production values".
Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of reality when working in a highly paid specialized field like engineering.
> In many ways it'd probably be far better for the world if making videos was not perceived as being profitable. The number of children who now want to be 'streamers' or 'youtubers' instead of astronauts, engineers, and scientists is not a good direction for society.
Well you are watching that content, presumably. Do you feel it provides value to you?
There are an awful lot of small science educators on YouTube. They are doing the work to inspire people to get into the sciences. Is that not valuable? Those people have an outsized dependency on the ad revenue and patreon income they receive so they can keep making videos that are accurate and engaging. For them, another hundred people blocking ads could mean the difference between doing what they love and releasing quality videos or having to go back to a day job that occupies all their time.
If there was no YouTube, how do our kids get inspired to become scientists-- by watching the latest MCU movie? By watching cable programming?
YouTube isn't all just MrBeast and dramatube videos but I get the impression that this is what you think of. It reminds me of the "algorithm slip" where users make broad assumptions about a platform because of what it serves to them, but really it says more about you than properly evaluating what content is on the platform.
When I sum up your take, it sounds like only those people with passive income should have the privilege to make videos, and that's actually not a world I want.
> Well you are watching that content, presumably. Do you feel it provides value to you?
That's a pretty thorny question, come to think of it.
Perhaps it's like eating chocolate. It provides value to some part of me, but at the same time, a more reasonable part can judge that I as a whole would be better off if the chocolate wasn't there and I'd eat something healthier instead. So I can both consume it and desire an environment where I wouldn't consume it.
You're free to not eat the chocolate, but are you suggesting that it's the chocolate's fault for existing, and that chocolate should go away so you aren't tempted?
I'd assert that a lot of content on YouTube is not chocolate. There are high quality "healthy" options right there on the app. How about Technology Connections or the 4 hour long retrospectives on your favorite book, film, or video game? What about the years of technical and learning content? Those aren't chocolate, those are spinach.
So only people with role models close to them or in a place where inspiring things are happening should be inspired?
Before YouTube and the Internet in general, only affluent people had these things, and we left behind a huge portion of the worlds population. Those people have the same potential as people of means or the luck to be born in an affluent country or an urban area.
I do get that you also include reading things on the Internet, but that's not always engaging enough to create a spark for people.
This is bordering on ridiculous. No, not only affluent people had role models FFS. Carl Sagan, for instance, was a 1st gen son of poor immigrants. His mother was a house-wife, his father a garment worker. His inspiration came from what scientifically curious people used to do before the internet - like going to the library, talking to his teachers, or even going to a museum every once in a while.
Since the advent of the internet the entire developed world has been getting literally dumber, so far as IQ can measure. [1] That's, to my knowledge, the latest study but a quick search for 'reversal of flynn effect' will turn up a zillion hits. In other words, what I'm saying is not controversial in the least. And one of the hypothesis for why this is happening (as per the linked paper) is, unsurprisingly, increased media exposure. YouTube is playing a significant role in literally making the world more stupid.
I love plenty of 'sciency' YouTubers - Veritassium, Cody's Lab, Smarter Every Day, and many more. But in reality, you're not like to learn much of anything from these sort of scientainment. It's just candy with a sciency coating, more likely to inspire people to want to make more candy, than to actually pursue science.
This is pretty questionable. Quality takes time. If you need an income to pay your rent, 40 hours or more of your work week are taken up. That leaves a few hours before dinner and sleep to work on your videos (since in this hypothetical, it is "literally impossible" to make money on your videos).
Of course you could work on the weekend, and many do. But let's not forget that making videos is work, and it's important to do the things, you know, we invented weekends for. Like spending time with your family, reading a book, or playing a video game. How entitled this content creator must be to have a weekend. This is of course assuming that the creator's day job is a traditional one-- more than likely they work partial days 7 days a week at varying hours as is the norm for crappier jobs.
That 40 hours gives you enough income to pay your expenses, but unfortunately, for most people, doesn't give you the income you need to get a real camera, so you're just using the webcam that you already had on your computer.
The audio is terrible and the video looks like it came out of the early days of YouTube, but somehow that qualifies as "high production values".
Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of reality when working in a highly paid specialized field like engineering.
> In many ways it'd probably be far better for the world if making videos was not perceived as being profitable. The number of children who now want to be 'streamers' or 'youtubers' instead of astronauts, engineers, and scientists is not a good direction for society.
Well you are watching that content, presumably. Do you feel it provides value to you?
There are an awful lot of small science educators on YouTube. They are doing the work to inspire people to get into the sciences. Is that not valuable? Those people have an outsized dependency on the ad revenue and patreon income they receive so they can keep making videos that are accurate and engaging. For them, another hundred people blocking ads could mean the difference between doing what they love and releasing quality videos or having to go back to a day job that occupies all their time.
If there was no YouTube, how do our kids get inspired to become scientists-- by watching the latest MCU movie? By watching cable programming?
YouTube isn't all just MrBeast and dramatube videos but I get the impression that this is what you think of. It reminds me of the "algorithm slip" where users make broad assumptions about a platform because of what it serves to them, but really it says more about you than properly evaluating what content is on the platform.
When I sum up your take, it sounds like only those people with passive income should have the privilege to make videos, and that's actually not a world I want.