Nice social media account, shame if something were to happen to it...
February 24, 2023 7:47 AM Subscribe
Man, Social Media Platforms Really Want Us To Start Paying, Huh? "Twitter launched the $8-a-month Twitter Blue. Meta is launching a similar $12-a-month Meta Verified. YouTube already offers the $11.99-a-month YouTube Premium, which may start paywalling certain video resolutions soon... The reason this is happening is because the platforms that unbundled traditional media didn’t seem to anticipate that advertising would also unbundle. Though, I guess it should have been the logical conclusion. Advertising is about capturing the zeitgeist to grab people’s attention and these platforms fractured the zeitgeist and broke people’s attention spans. It might also just be that there is a certain size a website can be and perhaps Meta has reached it.
"
I won't pay for social media but damn, having that Youtube subscription made the platform actually somewhat palatable.
posted by djseafood at 7:56 AM on February 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by djseafood at 7:56 AM on February 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
I never watched YouTube vids before I got a premium account. Now I really enjoy it. If this were the model for other platforms like Facebook, Sling, etc. it would be a lot more incentive for me to pay than what they're currently trying to get me to pay for.
(Nothing would get me to pay for Twitter tho. I dropped off in Nov 2016 and it's been great with that pit of despair out of my life.)
posted by Kimberly at 8:05 AM on February 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
(Nothing would get me to pay for Twitter tho. I dropped off in Nov 2016 and it's been great with that pit of despair out of my life.)
posted by Kimberly at 8:05 AM on February 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
Lumping YouTube in with these other offerings feels like a bit of a trick, since it’s really used as more of a video and music streaming service.
Also, as someone who pays for MetaFilter, this seems… mostly fine? Bad for people who can’t afford it, but that seems like standard business, and if it leads to less people being the product then I’m for it.
(If it leads to people paying to be the product -also quite likely- then this is less good.)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:10 AM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
Also, as someone who pays for MetaFilter, this seems… mostly fine? Bad for people who can’t afford it, but that seems like standard business, and if it leads to less people being the product then I’m for it.
(If it leads to people paying to be the product -also quite likely- then this is less good.)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:10 AM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
(Also lumping YouTube in with these others is bad because it clearly leads to me and a bunch of others to chime in with a hearty “Well, actually”)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:12 AM on February 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 8:12 AM on February 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
My guess is that YouTube was lumped in because the platform is largely based on user generated content, as opposed to, say, Netflix or Spotify.
posted by gwint at 8:14 AM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by gwint at 8:14 AM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I won't pay for social media but damn, having that Youtube subscription made the platform actually somewhat palatable.
I'm on the trial and will likely get the family premium account but I still kind of resent it and the youtube app. I love the youtube content once I curate it to my needs via subscriptions but I hate that youtube puts it's recommendations above my subscriptions. I like the home automation features of google nest but I hate that nowhere in the advertising does it tell you that Youtube music will refuse to play the music you've actually asked for until you subscribe (until then it will play a playlist "based on" what you just requested which generally turns out to be eventually playing one song from the artist requested mixed in with whatever you've liked or previously played).
There is just so much low level bait and switch or fine print deception going on these days it's as exhausting as trying to avoid scammers on ebay. Companies need to be slapped with some regulation because all the bullshit is destroying trust and making everyone cynical about every possible commercial transaction you can make. We need to bring back some basic level of consumer regulation so everyone can get on with living their lives without a constant fear of being scammed somehow.
As for facebook and twitter, I see the subscription push as an admission that they are starting to die and are in the cashout phase of the deathcycle. Investors want some return even if it is going to be just to reduce their loss (and it is going to be a big loss).
posted by srboisvert at 8:16 AM on February 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
I'm on the trial and will likely get the family premium account but I still kind of resent it and the youtube app. I love the youtube content once I curate it to my needs via subscriptions but I hate that youtube puts it's recommendations above my subscriptions. I like the home automation features of google nest but I hate that nowhere in the advertising does it tell you that Youtube music will refuse to play the music you've actually asked for until you subscribe (until then it will play a playlist "based on" what you just requested which generally turns out to be eventually playing one song from the artist requested mixed in with whatever you've liked or previously played).
There is just so much low level bait and switch or fine print deception going on these days it's as exhausting as trying to avoid scammers on ebay. Companies need to be slapped with some regulation because all the bullshit is destroying trust and making everyone cynical about every possible commercial transaction you can make. We need to bring back some basic level of consumer regulation so everyone can get on with living their lives without a constant fear of being scammed somehow.
As for facebook and twitter, I see the subscription push as an admission that they are starting to die and are in the cashout phase of the deathcycle. Investors want some return even if it is going to be just to reduce their loss (and it is going to be a big loss).
posted by srboisvert at 8:16 AM on February 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
I will admit frustration with the youtube al-go-rhythm... I don't know how many time I need to tell it to not recommend "Joe Rogan" content. It's always popping up and I smack it down like a whack-a-mole.
posted by djseafood at 8:27 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by djseafood at 8:27 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
I use Facebook less and less lately and I don't see this changing that.
I'm in the "acceptance" phase of grief for Twitter, although still sad at the loss of that feeling of connection to the really awesome people I discovered there. But hey; really awesome people exist offline too, and I've definitely put more focus on my IRL social life lately.
The possibility of me paying for either is zero.
posted by emjaybee at 8:36 AM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
I'm in the "acceptance" phase of grief for Twitter, although still sad at the loss of that feeling of connection to the really awesome people I discovered there. But hey; really awesome people exist offline too, and I've definitely put more focus on my IRL social life lately.
The possibility of me paying for either is zero.
posted by emjaybee at 8:36 AM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
Paid verification seems reasonable if it is actually doing some level of verification. There is an administrative cost and especially for companies and brands it makes sense that they would have to pay for it. The do need some kind of creator program though like YouTube where if you share in the subscriber revenue based on certain thresholds - for example on YouTube it is a certain number of channel subscribers and viewing hours by users then you start to get paid for the content you create.
posted by interogative mood at 8:40 AM on February 24, 2023
posted by interogative mood at 8:40 AM on February 24, 2023
This is pretty funny.
Somewhat related: Google's been hiding news articles from some Canadians in a preliminary test in response to Canada's proposed "Bill C-18, the Online News Act would require digital giants such as Google and Meta, which owns Facebook, to negotiate deals that would compensate Canadian media companies for republishing their content on their platforms." (CP24 article.)
Probably worth it's own FPP but fuc kit.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:43 AM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
Somewhat related: Google's been hiding news articles from some Canadians in a preliminary test in response to Canada's proposed "Bill C-18, the Online News Act would require digital giants such as Google and Meta, which owns Facebook, to negotiate deals that would compensate Canadian media companies for republishing their content on their platforms." (CP24 article.)
Probably worth it's own FPP but fuc kit.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:43 AM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
I’ve never had problems with Youtube suggesting me alt-right content and I use uBlock Origin to erase the ads, so I’m confused as to what benefits Youtube Premium brings other than playing video in the background on a phone (which I resent being paywalls because it was a basic functionality for videos of any source and then Youtube said whoops actually not ours unless you pay!).
I do wonder how much more willing people would have been to pay for social media sites if we weren’t all living paycheck to paycheck. The eternal woe of giant companies trying to figure out how to get people to pay them money they don’t have because giant companies refuse to pay their workers well etc.
posted by brook horse at 8:44 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
I do wonder how much more willing people would have been to pay for social media sites if we weren’t all living paycheck to paycheck. The eternal woe of giant companies trying to figure out how to get people to pay them money they don’t have because giant companies refuse to pay their workers well etc.
posted by brook horse at 8:44 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
An interesting sort-of-parallel is that we live in an age of a million podcasters/creators offering up free membership in a private discord if you kick ‘em back a couple bucks. This is a more-expensive-than-metafilter bar to entry for what I assume in many cases is an unmoderated forum that’s largely empty because people have a million other discords to track.
Not sure if there’s a lesson to be drawn, but I think about it a lot.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:44 AM on February 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
Not sure if there’s a lesson to be drawn, but I think about it a lot.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:44 AM on February 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I use uBlock Origin to erase the ads, so I’m confused as to what benefits Youtube Premium brings
uBlock Origin doesn't help block ads in the official mobile app or on a Roku. At least, that's why I'm paying for it. It has some other features too but I don't much care about any of them. Maybe download for offline viewing would come in handy sometime.
posted by Nelson at 8:50 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
uBlock Origin doesn't help block ads in the official mobile app or on a Roku. At least, that's why I'm paying for it. It has some other features too but I don't much care about any of them. Maybe download for offline viewing would come in handy sometime.
posted by Nelson at 8:50 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
so I’m confused as to what benefits Youtube Premium brings other than playing video in the background on a phone (which I resent being paywalls because it was a basic functionality for videos of any source and then Youtube said whoops actually not ours unless you pay!).
If you’re streaming on a TV it also kills the ads, and it gets you full access to YouTube Music as well. I believe they have messed around with some exclusive content, but no comment on that and I have no idea what the status is. It also gives you the ability to download things for later, but perhaps that’s available across the board now as well.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:50 AM on February 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
If you’re streaming on a TV it also kills the ads, and it gets you full access to YouTube Music as well. I believe they have messed around with some exclusive content, but no comment on that and I have no idea what the status is. It also gives you the ability to download things for later, but perhaps that’s available across the board now as well.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:50 AM on February 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
Also, as someone who pays for MetaFilter, this seems… mostly fine? Bad for people who can’t afford it, but that seems like standard business, and if it leads to less people being the product then I’m for it.
Yeah, this seems to me like the same economic problem hitting large-scale social media sites a little later but pretty much in the same way as it hit Metafilter. The internet was never free, it's just visible to everyone now that ad revenue isn't subsidizing it.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:52 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
Yeah, this seems to me like the same economic problem hitting large-scale social media sites a little later but pretty much in the same way as it hit Metafilter. The internet was never free, it's just visible to everyone now that ad revenue isn't subsidizing it.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:52 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
Yeah. And the fact is, the bigger you scale before you sort out your long-term economics, the more people you end up fucking with in the process of trying to reroute and claw back, and the less investment any given cohort of that userbase is going to have in your platform. The rollout of the Twitter Blue stuff is sort of exceptionally lousy in terms of both optics and economics because Elon Musk is a fuckwit cowboy, but the same problem faces other big social platforms: how many of your users actually care about being there vs. just using it because it's free?
Youtube really is the weird middle child in this space between Netflix/Spotify and full-on social media, and I think makes an interesting point from which to look in both directions because of that. I'm not paying for youtube because I just don't use it enough for the shitty parts of the free experience to motivate me to, but I find the concept at least less fucking jarring and weird than for twitter or facebook, where it's like: what the fuck even is my end of this bargain other than you making things yet worse?
posted by cortex at 9:03 AM on February 24, 2023 [18 favorites]
Youtube really is the weird middle child in this space between Netflix/Spotify and full-on social media, and I think makes an interesting point from which to look in both directions because of that. I'm not paying for youtube because I just don't use it enough for the shitty parts of the free experience to motivate me to, but I find the concept at least less fucking jarring and weird than for twitter or facebook, where it's like: what the fuck even is my end of this bargain other than you making things yet worse?
posted by cortex at 9:03 AM on February 24, 2023 [18 favorites]
Isn’t it kinda rich for these platforms to ask us to pay them for the privilege of having our personal private information sold around the world and ogled by who knows who?
posted by disentir at 9:20 AM on February 24, 2023 [29 favorites]
posted by disentir at 9:20 AM on February 24, 2023 [29 favorites]
Which makes Twitter Blue something akin to being asked to pay to lower the chances of being stabbed while you read the really funny graffiti on a sketchy bathroom stall.
Exactly. Or users said "hey could you get the Nazis to leave this party" and Twitter said "no, we welcome anyone even Nazis".
Users: ok I am going to try to avoid them but you're making that hard
Twitter: yeah all the Nazis can stay and do whatever they want. You have to pay to party with them now though.
Users: I would actually rather stay home
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:24 AM on February 24, 2023 [32 favorites]
Exactly. Or users said "hey could you get the Nazis to leave this party" and Twitter said "no, we welcome anyone even Nazis".
Users: ok I am going to try to avoid them but you're making that hard
Twitter: yeah all the Nazis can stay and do whatever they want. You have to pay to party with them now though.
Users: I would actually rather stay home
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:24 AM on February 24, 2023 [32 favorites]
so I’m confused as to what benefits Youtube Premium brings other than playing video in the background on a phone (which I resent being paywalls because it was a basic functionality for videos.
PinP still works on android if you are youtubing via browser. What am I missing out on by not using the app?
posted by Mitheral at 9:29 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
PinP still works on android if you are youtubing via browser. What am I missing out on by not using the app?
posted by Mitheral at 9:29 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I actually find ads interesting in their attempts to make them relevant to me. I listened to Despacito on Spotify once and Spotify put my ads in Spanish for a few days.
Recently, during one episode of a TV show Hulu played me an ad for a dating site for Black people, a dating site for single parents and a dating site for people over 50. I am none of those things and I am not dating.
It's a funny juxtaposition between how irrelevant the ads are and then hearing how much these companies know about my private info. Are they just really bad at using it?
Instagram is much more specific but as a result it is extremely repetitive. I looked at a brand of socks once and now I see nonstop socks.
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:35 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
Recently, during one episode of a TV show Hulu played me an ad for a dating site for Black people, a dating site for single parents and a dating site for people over 50. I am none of those things and I am not dating.
It's a funny juxtaposition between how irrelevant the ads are and then hearing how much these companies know about my private info. Are they just really bad at using it?
Instagram is much more specific but as a result it is extremely repetitive. I looked at a brand of socks once and now I see nonstop socks.
posted by Emmy Rae at 9:35 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
My guess is that YouTube was lumped in because the platform is largely based on user generated content
To some extent, the idea that YouTube is a place for "user generated content" (whatever that even means these days) seems outdated. While, yes, there are tons of random videos from regular people, most of the really popular channels these days are very professional, often run by actual media companies with full-time staff. And even many of the channels that are still run by just the one person you see in front of the camera are still essentially little businesses and are the full-time job of the creators. None of that is necessarily a bad thing, but to me it makes YouTube a little closer to other streaming services. The main difference, I guess, is that a lot of those people don't have other distribution means if YouTube fucks them over (but, at the same time, a lot of channels have moved toward Patreon for funding because YouTube is so fickle about demonetizing any video that hints at anything even slightly political).
But, also, I have to agree with so many others: YouTube premium is so much better simply because there are so many ads in every fucking video these days. I mostly watch YouTube by streaming it to my TV (via Chromecast) and when my wife uses her account it is painful the amount of ads that come up. But she refuses to pay for premium and won't accept me upgrading my own account to the family plan out of some stubborn principle that I frankly don't understand.
As for the Facebook/Meta premium thingy, I honestly thought it was some kind of joke when I first saw it. A one-time fee for verification would be reasonable. An ongoing subscription to maintain that seems unreasonable and the "faster access to customer support" and "protecting you from identity fraud" just seems like a protection racket.
posted by asnider at 9:35 AM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
To some extent, the idea that YouTube is a place for "user generated content" (whatever that even means these days) seems outdated. While, yes, there are tons of random videos from regular people, most of the really popular channels these days are very professional, often run by actual media companies with full-time staff. And even many of the channels that are still run by just the one person you see in front of the camera are still essentially little businesses and are the full-time job of the creators. None of that is necessarily a bad thing, but to me it makes YouTube a little closer to other streaming services. The main difference, I guess, is that a lot of those people don't have other distribution means if YouTube fucks them over (but, at the same time, a lot of channels have moved toward Patreon for funding because YouTube is so fickle about demonetizing any video that hints at anything even slightly political).
But, also, I have to agree with so many others: YouTube premium is so much better simply because there are so many ads in every fucking video these days. I mostly watch YouTube by streaming it to my TV (via Chromecast) and when my wife uses her account it is painful the amount of ads that come up. But she refuses to pay for premium and won't accept me upgrading my own account to the family plan out of some stubborn principle that I frankly don't understand.
As for the Facebook/Meta premium thingy, I honestly thought it was some kind of joke when I first saw it. A one-time fee for verification would be reasonable. An ongoing subscription to maintain that seems unreasonable and the "faster access to customer support" and "protecting you from identity fraud" just seems like a protection racket.
posted by asnider at 9:35 AM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
paid verification makes a little sense practically. the problem for me is: the social media company 'verifies' once, then i pay monthly forever.
not. gonna. happen.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:38 AM on February 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
not. gonna. happen.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:38 AM on February 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
jinx
posted by j_curiouser at 9:39 AM on February 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 9:39 AM on February 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
Youtube, by a bunch of metrics, is now the biggest social media site out there. It gets the most time spent on it for many of the younger age-groups by a long chalk. Teens watch it for hours a day, as much as Gen-Xers did cable TV at their age.
If the pay for play economics are hitting Youtube now, that's a sign top to bottom of the food chain that the dead that ads could pay for everything is not viable at all. Which, I guess shouldn't surprise anyone. The internet follows the same economics as 1900 newspapers had to.
posted by bonehead at 9:40 AM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
If the pay for play economics are hitting Youtube now, that's a sign top to bottom of the food chain that the dead that ads could pay for everything is not viable at all. Which, I guess shouldn't surprise anyone. The internet follows the same economics as 1900 newspapers had to.
posted by bonehead at 9:40 AM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
10 year membership on Metafilter: $5
10 year Meta Verified user cost: $1,440
I think both business models are a bit flawed.
posted by gwint at 9:41 AM on February 24, 2023 [16 favorites]
10 year Meta Verified user cost: $1,440
I think both business models are a bit flawed.
posted by gwint at 9:41 AM on February 24, 2023 [16 favorites]
What’s happening with ad dollars is interesting. In a slightly related story NPR has announced layoffs which they are attributing to loss of ad revenue on their podcasts. I’m curious about what’s happening with ad dollars right now as there seems to be a big shakeup. Especially when ad revenue seemed to be everyone social media platforms business model.
posted by misterpatrick at 9:47 AM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by misterpatrick at 9:47 AM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
popping in to say that if you use facebook for text-and-image connectivity with family and friends that are far-flung, dreamwidth is in my view not a bad alternative. It's a fork of the codebase for the old livejournal, and it allows a lot more functionality in terms of tags and rich text editing etc. Image management is a bit nonintuitive, but it doesn't get into fees until you want to have a lot of pictures or usericons (and you can always link to pictures posted elsewhere. Also!: multiple links possible in the same post, presented inline with text for contextual usefulness. The interface is a bit web-2000 but that certainly shouldn't bother any regular users of THIS site. The only real downside to me is that there's no good phone client for it.
I got on to facebook initially largely because my old lj cadre had slowly migrated there. I have been trying to push people back to dreamwidth with pretty limited success so far, but based on my experience it's a service that a) doesn't beat me with ads or problematic third party content and b) has a reasonably low cost monetization-for-features model if I choose to go that way.
posted by hearthpig at 9:51 AM on February 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I got on to facebook initially largely because my old lj cadre had slowly migrated there. I have been trying to push people back to dreamwidth with pretty limited success so far, but based on my experience it's a service that a) doesn't beat me with ads or problematic third party content and b) has a reasonably low cost monetization-for-features model if I choose to go that way.
posted by hearthpig at 9:51 AM on February 24, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think both business models are a bit flawed
I definitely think Metafilter could stand to interfere with global elections. Make a bit of extra scratch.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:06 AM on February 24, 2023 [22 favorites]
I definitely think Metafilter could stand to interfere with global elections. Make a bit of extra scratch.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:06 AM on February 24, 2023 [22 favorites]
which they are attributing to loss of ad revenue on their podcasts.
I honestly don’t understand how podcast advertising, which so far as I can tell consists entirely of the occasional sponsorship message for pans, bedsheets and mattresses, ever worked
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:07 AM on February 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
I honestly don’t understand how podcast advertising, which so far as I can tell consists entirely of the occasional sponsorship message for pans, bedsheets and mattresses, ever worked
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:07 AM on February 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
Let's be honest, the tiny metafilter payment is a bot-control method. It's not the same thing as what twit/meta is doing.
posted by metametamind at 10:15 AM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by metametamind at 10:15 AM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I honestly don’t understand how podcast advertising, which so far as I can tell consists entirely of the occasional sponsorship message for pans, bedsheets and mattresses, ever worked
I was having a hard time figuring out the podcast advertising economy...which is why I'm glad I found AdSpace, an all-in-one, easy-to-use monetization system that you can get started on in just fifteen minutes. With loads of beautiful economic models created by professional quants, and fully customizable based on your core economic axioms, AdSpace lets you create an appealing, mobile-friendly speculative bubble in no time. And subscribers to this late-capitalist paradigm can save 20% off your first fiduciary leveraging with code WAGMI at checkout.
posted by cortex at 10:23 AM on February 24, 2023 [38 favorites]
I was having a hard time figuring out the podcast advertising economy...which is why I'm glad I found AdSpace, an all-in-one, easy-to-use monetization system that you can get started on in just fifteen minutes. With loads of beautiful economic models created by professional quants, and fully customizable based on your core economic axioms, AdSpace lets you create an appealing, mobile-friendly speculative bubble in no time. And subscribers to this late-capitalist paradigm can save 20% off your first fiduciary leveraging with code WAGMI at checkout.
posted by cortex at 10:23 AM on February 24, 2023 [38 favorites]
But, also, I have to agree with so many others: YouTube premium is so much better simply because there are so many ads in every fucking video these days.
And YouTube is doing evil about this now because if you are a content producer and do not monetize your content YouTube will monetize it anyway and they will just pocket 100% of the revenue. So the best you can do to be an a non-annoying YouTube content producer is to do the minimum monetization which hopefully is less than YouTube would choose to do.
posted by srboisvert at 10:40 AM on February 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
And YouTube is doing evil about this now because if you are a content producer and do not monetize your content YouTube will monetize it anyway and they will just pocket 100% of the revenue. So the best you can do to be an a non-annoying YouTube content producer is to do the minimum monetization which hopefully is less than YouTube would choose to do.
posted by srboisvert at 10:40 AM on February 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
uBlock Origin to keep YouTube from becoming unusable (which of course is why the next versions of Chrome will not allow it to be installed)
JDownloader to download any videos you want off of YouTube (or hundreds of other sites)
Handbrake in case you need to turn it into a different format to play on your other devices.
...and you're set.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 10:42 AM on February 24, 2023 [26 favorites]
JDownloader to download any videos you want off of YouTube (or hundreds of other sites)
Handbrake in case you need to turn it into a different format to play on your other devices.
...and you're set.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 10:42 AM on February 24, 2023 [26 favorites]
The only comment i have is about YouTube Premium and just the general lie of the planet being able to access the same features with (roughly) the same price. The idea of what's a developed economy or not really becomes explicit here: i can be in southern Africa and my Premium features works as normal in South Africa, but not the moment I land 40 mins away in Eswatini for example. Suddenly key features why I even paid for Premium is lost (PiP/multi-window; minimized player).
Then even when it comes to rollout for Twitter and FB paid access, once again that comes into play too. Not that I want to pay for any, but RIP the small businesses and their socmed managers.
posted by cendawanita at 10:42 AM on February 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
Then even when it comes to rollout for Twitter and FB paid access, once again that comes into play too. Not that I want to pay for any, but RIP the small businesses and their socmed managers.
posted by cendawanita at 10:42 AM on February 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
(and it goes without saying, the small-scale political actors vs those who already budgeted for online trolls and cybertroopers anyway.)
posted by cendawanita at 10:44 AM on February 24, 2023
posted by cendawanita at 10:44 AM on February 24, 2023
I was having a hard time figuring out the podcast advertising economy...which is why I'm glad I found AdSpace, an all-in-one, easy-to-use monetization system that you can get started on in just fifteen minutes. With loads of beautiful economic models created by professional quants, and fully customizable based on your core economic axioms, AdSpace lets you create an appealing, mobile-friendly speculative bubble in no time. And subscribers to this late-capitalist paradigm can save 20% off your first fiduciary leveraging with code WAGMI at checkout.
Your fractal art has taken a really dark turn.
posted by srboisvert at 10:45 AM on February 24, 2023 [13 favorites]
Your fractal art has taken a really dark turn.
posted by srboisvert at 10:45 AM on February 24, 2023 [13 favorites]
It's worth noting that both Facebook and Twitter have massive debt anchors around their necks that the company has no ability to deal with - in the former, there's the white whale "metaverse" project being crammed down the corporate throat by a CEO with no functional controls on his authority; the latter having to deal with $44B of debt service.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:46 AM on February 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:46 AM on February 24, 2023 [10 favorites]
uBlock Origin to keep YouTube from becoming unusable (which of course is why the next versions of Chrome will not allow it to be installed)
JDownloader to download any videos you want off of YouTube (or hundreds of other sites)
Handbrake in case you need to turn it into a different format to play on your other devices.
...and you're set.
Your yak is not quite fully shaved. You've left out compiling your own kernel and creating your own distro.
posted by srboisvert at 10:46 AM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
JDownloader to download any videos you want off of YouTube (or hundreds of other sites)
Handbrake in case you need to turn it into a different format to play on your other devices.
...and you're set.
Your yak is not quite fully shaved. You've left out compiling your own kernel and creating your own distro.
posted by srboisvert at 10:46 AM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
With loads of beautiful economic models created by professional quants
My favorite podcast InsideAdPodWorld recently did some research and discovered that as many as 7/9 of the quants had none of the relevant degrees required for licensure in this field! In fact one had only a BA in French. Do your research!
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:50 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
My favorite podcast InsideAdPodWorld recently did some research and discovered that as many as 7/9 of the quants had none of the relevant degrees required for licensure in this field! In fact one had only a BA in French. Do your research!
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:50 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m curious about what’s happening with ad dollars right now as there seems to be a big shakeup.
From extremely outside of it, I'm guessing it's similar to the 2008 crash in advertising. As soon as other costs go up, businesses start to trim their ad budgets. Once there's advertising space because some businesses are pulling their ads or reducing them, the space gets cheaper.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:53 AM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
From extremely outside of it, I'm guessing it's similar to the 2008 crash in advertising. As soon as other costs go up, businesses start to trim their ad budgets. Once there's advertising space because some businesses are pulling their ads or reducing them, the space gets cheaper.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:53 AM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also, as someone who pays for MetaFilter, this seems… mostly fine? Bad for people who can’t afford it, but that seems like standard business, and if it leads to less people being the product then I’m for it.
On the other hand, there are some differences: the majority of Metafilter's revenues go to paying for human moderation, users aren't tracked across the web and their information isn't sold to third parties, and Metafilter's staff aren't exactly living large based on the money MF raises. Also MF's functionality is designed around improving user experience rather than increasing ad revenue.
Whereas FB tracks not only members but everyone all across the web, sells user to shady political saboteurs and others, tweaks every aspect of its user experience to get more ads and paid content in front of more users, and provides the absolute minimum in human moderation despite lack thereof resulting in continuous hate crimes, political manipulation, disinformation, bullying, and more. And they're sitting on billions of dollars in cash on hand, their CEO is the 16th richest person in the world, and even their lower-tier engineers are taking home more than the vast majority of FB users earn.
I may have mentioned this once or twice before, but I'm fairly tired of people and organizations who do not actually lack for money doing their best to wring every possible nickel and dime out of the world.
Is this money going to fund the Meta-controlled metaverse that absolutely no one should want and that will probably amplify the evil and the bullshit FB currently serves, or reassure investors enough to get them to stop criticizing said metaverse project?
posted by trig at 10:56 AM on February 24, 2023 [12 favorites]
On the other hand, there are some differences: the majority of Metafilter's revenues go to paying for human moderation, users aren't tracked across the web and their information isn't sold to third parties, and Metafilter's staff aren't exactly living large based on the money MF raises. Also MF's functionality is designed around improving user experience rather than increasing ad revenue.
Whereas FB tracks not only members but everyone all across the web, sells user to shady political saboteurs and others, tweaks every aspect of its user experience to get more ads and paid content in front of more users, and provides the absolute minimum in human moderation despite lack thereof resulting in continuous hate crimes, political manipulation, disinformation, bullying, and more. And they're sitting on billions of dollars in cash on hand, their CEO is the 16th richest person in the world, and even their lower-tier engineers are taking home more than the vast majority of FB users earn.
I may have mentioned this once or twice before, but I'm fairly tired of people and organizations who do not actually lack for money doing their best to wring every possible nickel and dime out of the world.
Is this money going to fund the Meta-controlled metaverse that absolutely no one should want and that will probably amplify the evil and the bullshit FB currently serves, or reassure investors enough to get them to stop criticizing said metaverse project?
posted by trig at 10:56 AM on February 24, 2023 [12 favorites]
Man, the whiplash on this has been amazing! 2021 to 2022 these companies were printing money, and now....
I guess that goldrush used up the last bit of magic they have been coasting on. I honestly expected this much sooner, but I guess the social media companies kept finding ways to grow user base well beyond my predictions. The pandemic probably forced everyone onto some form of social media, which used up the last drop of user growth on the planet.
That was their whole model, their way of seeking capital.
It's really weird, the Alexa team at Amazon put out a workable product, but nobody figured out how to monetize it correctly. We are losing technology not because it doesn't work, not because people aren't using it, but because companies got people used to not paying for it. Things have been "free" for decades at this point, and that "one weird accounting trick" being used to justify it is now gone.
As an engineer, this is an exciting time for me.
posted by The Power Nap at 10:57 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
I guess that goldrush used up the last bit of magic they have been coasting on. I honestly expected this much sooner, but I guess the social media companies kept finding ways to grow user base well beyond my predictions. The pandemic probably forced everyone onto some form of social media, which used up the last drop of user growth on the planet.
That was their whole model, their way of seeking capital.
It's really weird, the Alexa team at Amazon put out a workable product, but nobody figured out how to monetize it correctly. We are losing technology not because it doesn't work, not because people aren't using it, but because companies got people used to not paying for it. Things have been "free" for decades at this point, and that "one weird accounting trick" being used to justify it is now gone.
As an engineer, this is an exciting time for me.
posted by The Power Nap at 10:57 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
Also: I do hope we try to remember to call Facebook by its original name, and not use its alias, as companies like Facebook change names to disassociate ownership and management from a record of criminal activities at a global level. It might seem like a small matter and not one directly related to technicalities and minutiae of account verification, but using their alias does, unfortunately, reinforce the broader cultural amnesia they have tried to purchase.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:06 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:06 AM on February 24, 2023 [17 favorites]
Weird to see Apple mentioned only once casually in the links and not at all in this thread. This is a direct consequence of Apple's privacy policy changes and tracking prevention efforts, on iOS particularly.
posted by mhoye at 11:08 AM on February 24, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 11:08 AM on February 24, 2023 [16 favorites]
It's really weird, the Alexa team at Amazon put out a workable product, but nobody figured out how to monetize it correctly. We are losing technology not because it doesn't work, not because people aren't using it, but because companies got people used to not paying for it.
Alexa is dying because it can't stop showing ads and crap that people don't want. I had the high end display with the motion tracking rotation and thought the hardware was fantastic and cool but I returned it after a day because it showed me endless advertisements, tips and shit and there was no way I could control them. It was an annoying amazon billboard in my living room rather than what I wanted - a cool and easy way to video conference with my dad in his care home.
Same with facebook portal. Only after setting it up did it tell me I had to have a subscription service to use it for zoom (I should have read the fine print. Also it shouldn't have just been in the fine print).
posted by srboisvert at 11:09 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
Alexa is dying because it can't stop showing ads and crap that people don't want. I had the high end display with the motion tracking rotation and thought the hardware was fantastic and cool but I returned it after a day because it showed me endless advertisements, tips and shit and there was no way I could control them. It was an annoying amazon billboard in my living room rather than what I wanted - a cool and easy way to video conference with my dad in his care home.
Same with facebook portal. Only after setting it up did it tell me I had to have a subscription service to use it for zoom (I should have read the fine print. Also it shouldn't have just been in the fine print).
posted by srboisvert at 11:09 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
Related good read: Social Media is Dying from Ed Zitron.
posted by General Malaise at 11:13 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by General Malaise at 11:13 AM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
And if you think it's bad now, wait until they start adding in the costs of AI.
(Granted that more of an issue for search, but SM won't be fast behind, I'll bet.)
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:29 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
(Granted that more of an issue for search, but SM won't be fast behind, I'll bet.)
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:29 AM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
Alexa is dying because it can't stop showing ads and crap that people don't want.
But the ads are what pays the freight,which is the whole point. I use Alexa automation, and would pay a reasonable fee for the service. But the reality is that we've taught a lot of people that they shouldn't have to pay, and the free rider problem is now popping up, unsurprisingly.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:32 AM on February 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
But the ads are what pays the freight,which is the whole point. I use Alexa automation, and would pay a reasonable fee for the service. But the reality is that we've taught a lot of people that they shouldn't have to pay, and the free rider problem is now popping up, unsurprisingly.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:32 AM on February 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
To The Pluto Gansta's list I'll add the Enhancer for YouTube extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Firefox on Android, which among other things does a fantastic job of seamlessly removing ads. Of course that does mean that on mobile devices you have to use the YouTube website in a browser instead of the dedicated app, but (for me at least) that's not much of an issue.
(and if you want to get even more stern, look into the SponsorBlock extension that detects and skips past sponsor messaging, intros, outros, subscription reminders, etc. for a truly clean and trimmed-to-the-bone YouTube experience)
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:40 AM on February 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
(and if you want to get even more stern, look into the SponsorBlock extension that detects and skips past sponsor messaging, intros, outros, subscription reminders, etc. for a truly clean and trimmed-to-the-bone YouTube experience)
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:40 AM on February 24, 2023 [11 favorites]
But the reality is that we've taught a lot of people that they shouldn't have to pay, and the free rider problem is now popping up, unsurprisingly.
No one held Amazon at gunpoint and forced them to release an entirely ad-supported Alexa. The reason they did wasn't because people expect things like that to be free, it's because Amazon wanted to push an always-on, always-listening advertising platform into as many private homes as they could.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:05 PM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
No one held Amazon at gunpoint and forced them to release an entirely ad-supported Alexa. The reason they did wasn't because people expect things like that to be free, it's because Amazon wanted to push an always-on, always-listening advertising platform into as many private homes as they could.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:05 PM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
They've still got an always on, always watching camera on people's front doorstep though. With a direct feed into the local cop shop. That's arguably even more gross.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:09 PM on February 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:09 PM on February 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
>>But, also, I have to agree with so many others: YouTube premium is so much better simply because there are so many ads in every fucking video these days.
>And YouTube is doing evil about this now because if you are a content producer and do not monetize your content YouTube will monetize it anyway and they will just pocket 100% of the revenue.
This is correct and here's a little more detail to illustrate just how insidious YouTube's strategy is:
I put up some short educational videos on YouTube around 4 or 5 years ago, there were never any intentions to monetize them, just making some tutorials to help people. Most of these have a modest audience, perhaps 2,000 views over their lifetime, but a few have performed better, around 25k views.
Around 3 years ago maybe, I noticed that ads had been put on the most popular videos, then a bit later, ads were now on all the videos.
Now, do I get a penny of this revenue? No.
Do I have the option of removing the ads? No.
The way it works is YouTube places ads on the videos and takes everything. The way a "creator" gets profit-sharing is to hit these requirements:
Furthermore, that year long window makes it harder, because once a video is 366 days old they remove it from the total.
So this system means they keep a continuous revenue stream off your old catalog and your only recourse is to become more popular so that you can also profit off the ads or remove them entirely (which would actually be my preference).
And of course this feeds into the subscription model, because they figured out that if they jam ads into everything, then they could turn around and offer a "solution" by charging people to remove them.
"Don't be evil", indeed.
posted by jeremias at 12:17 PM on February 24, 2023 [36 favorites]
>And YouTube is doing evil about this now because if you are a content producer and do not monetize your content YouTube will monetize it anyway and they will just pocket 100% of the revenue.
This is correct and here's a little more detail to illustrate just how insidious YouTube's strategy is:
I put up some short educational videos on YouTube around 4 or 5 years ago, there were never any intentions to monetize them, just making some tutorials to help people. Most of these have a modest audience, perhaps 2,000 views over their lifetime, but a few have performed better, around 25k views.
Around 3 years ago maybe, I noticed that ads had been put on the most popular videos, then a bit later, ads were now on all the videos.
Now, do I get a penny of this revenue? No.
Do I have the option of removing the ads? No.
The way it works is YouTube places ads on the videos and takes everything. The way a "creator" gets profit-sharing is to hit these requirements:
- Hit 1,000 subscribers on your channel
- Have 4,000 "public watch hours" over the last year.
Furthermore, that year long window makes it harder, because once a video is 366 days old they remove it from the total.
So this system means they keep a continuous revenue stream off your old catalog and your only recourse is to become more popular so that you can also profit off the ads or remove them entirely (which would actually be my preference).
And of course this feeds into the subscription model, because they figured out that if they jam ads into everything, then they could turn around and offer a "solution" by charging people to remove them.
"Don't be evil", indeed.
posted by jeremias at 12:17 PM on February 24, 2023 [36 favorites]
I wouldn't be surprised if someone at Amazon has already proposed charging police departments monthly subscriptions for unlimited access to Ring footage and put together marketing materials explaining how much cheaper it would be to just give Amazon $10,000/month vs. going to court each and every time they wanted a video.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:25 PM on February 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:25 PM on February 24, 2023 [7 favorites]
djseafood: "It's always popping up and I smack it down like a whack-a-mole."
This kind of crap (and some sheer frustration with high-school-level personal and family drama, shit we REALLY should have grown out of by the time we are adults) is what prompted me to NOPE out of Facebook in the first place.
If you have to spend all of your time actively curating the content just to make the content tolerable, why are you continuing to put up with it?
I won't pay $12/month for YouTube. Locking what used to be free behind a paywall isn't going to get me to change my mind, it will only increase my resent towards the platform. I'm already ticked that 90% of my search results return (ad-packed!) video, when what I actually want is text I can read at my own pace. I really don't need another reason to be annoyed at the garbage heap YouTube has become under Google's short-term attention span leadership.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:29 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
This kind of crap (and some sheer frustration with high-school-level personal and family drama, shit we REALLY should have grown out of by the time we are adults) is what prompted me to NOPE out of Facebook in the first place.
If you have to spend all of your time actively curating the content just to make the content tolerable, why are you continuing to put up with it?
I won't pay $12/month for YouTube. Locking what used to be free behind a paywall isn't going to get me to change my mind, it will only increase my resent towards the platform. I'm already ticked that 90% of my search results return (ad-packed!) video, when what I actually want is text I can read at my own pace. I really don't need another reason to be annoyed at the garbage heap YouTube has become under Google's short-term attention span leadership.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:29 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
Emmy Rae: "Recently, during one episode of a TV show Hulu played me an ad for a dating site for Black people, a dating site for single parents and a dating site for people over 50. I am none of those things and I am not dating. "
Same! I keep asking my wife, "what is Hulu trying to tell me here??"
posted by caution live frogs at 12:35 PM on February 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
Same! I keep asking my wife, "what is Hulu trying to tell me here??"
posted by caution live frogs at 12:35 PM on February 24, 2023 [6 favorites]
metametamind: "Let's be honest, the tiny metafilter payment is a bot-control method. It's not the same thing as what twit/meta is doing."
Actually, when I joined, I had to send a photo of my driver's license to mathowie to verify that I was indeed a live frog
posted by caution live frogs at 12:41 PM on February 24, 2023 [25 favorites]
Actually, when I joined, I had to send a photo of my driver's license to mathowie to verify that I was indeed a live frog
posted by caution live frogs at 12:41 PM on February 24, 2023 [25 favorites]
Both Twitter and Facebook are offering another thing for your subscription though, "increased reach".
Facebook has been doing this for a while on instagram. They degraded reach to a fraction of what it once was and allow you to pay a couple of dollars to boost your post to a wider audience. But as far as I know it's always been per post.
--
I have had a very weird experience with instagram...I guess this is as good a place to talk about it as any. I had maybe 1500-3000 followers (can't remember) and instagram made my account a human-curated "suggested user" for a week. This resulted in gaining approximately 50k followers over the course of the week. Many of them were from Iran because it was around the time when the platform opened up to Iranian users. Instagram sent me a one-a-day calendar of pet photos and a few other things. Eventually my follower count went down to where it is now around 29k, but most of them are not a useful audience. There are thousands of bots, inactive accounts, accounts from people and places I don't care to target (my instagram is just marketing for my photography business).
Instagram gave me a very high follower count but those followers are extremely low engagement, and as a result, I think my reach is punished because of that ratio between follower count and low engagement. I've contacted them a couple times trying to get help culling out the followers, but they say they have no way to tell what accounts are spam/bots/inactive, which I certainly don't believe. Even just getting rid of all my followers with "forex" in the bio or who've posted twice but follow 8000 accounts would be a big help.
Anyway, likes on my posts have gone from a few hundred on average to sometimes just 10 or so, though I do get frequent reminders to pay to boost my posts, which I will never do; IG marketing value is a little useful to me, but not THAT useful.
Nevertheless, instagram still sees me as good account and I periodically get stuff completely out of the blue in the mail. A year or two ago they sent me a $100+ fancy tie-dyed sweatshirt with their logo embroidered on it; once they gave me a cheap backpack; and once they gave me gift credit cards to pay for takeout lunches during some week-long online "creators" event that I didn't attend.
The one thing that was amazing and which I hesitated to tell people about because it was so great until it ended sometime in the last year or two is that my instagram feed never had advertising. I think it was a perk for being a "suggested user" and I've only met one other person who didn't have ads and he was also a curated "suggested user."
And in spite of all the gifts and whatnot, IG has never let me get a checkmark to verify my account when I've tried.
posted by msbrauer at 12:44 PM on February 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
Facebook has been doing this for a while on instagram. They degraded reach to a fraction of what it once was and allow you to pay a couple of dollars to boost your post to a wider audience. But as far as I know it's always been per post.
--
I have had a very weird experience with instagram...I guess this is as good a place to talk about it as any. I had maybe 1500-3000 followers (can't remember) and instagram made my account a human-curated "suggested user" for a week. This resulted in gaining approximately 50k followers over the course of the week. Many of them were from Iran because it was around the time when the platform opened up to Iranian users. Instagram sent me a one-a-day calendar of pet photos and a few other things. Eventually my follower count went down to where it is now around 29k, but most of them are not a useful audience. There are thousands of bots, inactive accounts, accounts from people and places I don't care to target (my instagram is just marketing for my photography business).
Instagram gave me a very high follower count but those followers are extremely low engagement, and as a result, I think my reach is punished because of that ratio between follower count and low engagement. I've contacted them a couple times trying to get help culling out the followers, but they say they have no way to tell what accounts are spam/bots/inactive, which I certainly don't believe. Even just getting rid of all my followers with "forex" in the bio or who've posted twice but follow 8000 accounts would be a big help.
Anyway, likes on my posts have gone from a few hundred on average to sometimes just 10 or so, though I do get frequent reminders to pay to boost my posts, which I will never do; IG marketing value is a little useful to me, but not THAT useful.
Nevertheless, instagram still sees me as good account and I periodically get stuff completely out of the blue in the mail. A year or two ago they sent me a $100+ fancy tie-dyed sweatshirt with their logo embroidered on it; once they gave me a cheap backpack; and once they gave me gift credit cards to pay for takeout lunches during some week-long online "creators" event that I didn't attend.
The one thing that was amazing and which I hesitated to tell people about because it was so great until it ended sometime in the last year or two is that my instagram feed never had advertising. I think it was a perk for being a "suggested user" and I've only met one other person who didn't have ads and he was also a curated "suggested user."
And in spite of all the gifts and whatnot, IG has never let me get a checkmark to verify my account when I've tried.
posted by msbrauer at 12:44 PM on February 24, 2023 [21 favorites]
so far as I can tell consists entirely of the occasional sponsorship message for pans, bedsheets and mattresses, ever worked
I know nothing about the podcasting advertising economy as a whole. In my niche experience though, it seems like there are the advertisements on the podcasts I listen to for things like mattresses (though never bedpans so far) and then there are the advertisements on podcasts from existing media platforms like ESPN, which are for Real Brands with Real Money.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:52 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I know nothing about the podcasting advertising economy as a whole. In my niche experience though, it seems like there are the advertisements on the podcasts I listen to for things like mattresses (though never bedpans so far) and then there are the advertisements on podcasts from existing media platforms like ESPN, which are for Real Brands with Real Money.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:52 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
The only YT ads I see are the ones embedded by the creators themselves. About 90% VPNs and newly rising a few subscription meta-news-feeder type sites.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:03 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Meatbomb at 1:03 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I pay for tinybeans which is basically a private social network to share my kids pics with only the people I want to share with. [there have been bumps and the app sometimes breaks when they do an update. Still worth it, especially if you have older relatives. Until she passed, MY Nana was able to like and comment via her email. your invitees don't pay. And I explicitly own the photos.
If facebook would let me do some version of that by paying, I would. I miss my extended family on facebook.
posted by atomicstone at 1:32 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
If facebook would let me do some version of that by paying, I would. I miss my extended family on facebook.
posted by atomicstone at 1:32 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I honestly don’t understand how podcast advertising, which so far as I can tell consists entirely of the occasional sponsorship message for pans, bedsheets and mattresses, ever worked
The ads are really nostalgic for me. When I was growing up, there was FM radio for music and AM radio for talk. Sometimes the best thing on was an AM radio show about real estate in the city, a show on how to invest your money, or a psychiatrist answering questions a la Frasier. I didn't understand how those programs worked with the niche ads they had then and I don't understand current podcast ads either. All I know for sure is that people have been making it work for longer than I have been alive.
posted by Quonab at 2:20 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
The ads are really nostalgic for me. When I was growing up, there was FM radio for music and AM radio for talk. Sometimes the best thing on was an AM radio show about real estate in the city, a show on how to invest your money, or a psychiatrist answering questions a la Frasier. I didn't understand how those programs worked with the niche ads they had then and I don't understand current podcast ads either. All I know for sure is that people have been making it work for longer than I have been alive.
posted by Quonab at 2:20 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I definitely think Metafilter could stand to interfere with global elections. Make a bit of extra scratch.
Indeed. If only MeFi had a secretive, conspiratorial group prone to intrigue and plots.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 3:42 PM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
Indeed. If only MeFi had a secretive, conspiratorial group prone to intrigue and plots.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 3:42 PM on February 24, 2023 [14 favorites]
One thing that I didn't see anybody mention about YouTube Premium, unlike all of the other memberships being discussed, is that content creators on YouTube make money off of it and have routinely said they make more proportionally through that then they do if someone watches their video with YouTube ads. In that sense it is much more like a paid streaming membership--especially now with streamers having ad-supported "free" tiers.
I get the general revulsion to Google (and I use uBlock Origin myself, including on YouTube, even now that I've subscribed to Premium) but I think the primary difference between a Twitter and a YouTube is that some of the creators are making money from both ads and Premium. And the further rise of things like this SponsorBlock extension--like, I get it, I don't want to hear about SquareSpace for the literal 50,000th time either, but you don't want to see external ads, you don't want to pay the creator directly (Patreon subscribers are tiny percentages of viewers, if the creator even has a Patreon), and now you want to chop off the last remaining thing that actually makes them significant money...
Nothing is actually free, and people who are absolutists about being anti-ad (I am in that camp) but also anti-everything else that could possibly make a creator money is the reason we are in the position we are in.
I also agree that YouTube stopped being primarily about the "user-generated content" a while ago.
Back on topic, none of what I just said applies to Facebook or Twitter subscriptions writ large. There's something to be said for the costs of developing and running the services but it isn't $12.99 a month per user.
posted by tubedogg at 4:00 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I get the general revulsion to Google (and I use uBlock Origin myself, including on YouTube, even now that I've subscribed to Premium) but I think the primary difference between a Twitter and a YouTube is that some of the creators are making money from both ads and Premium. And the further rise of things like this SponsorBlock extension--like, I get it, I don't want to hear about SquareSpace for the literal 50,000th time either, but you don't want to see external ads, you don't want to pay the creator directly (Patreon subscribers are tiny percentages of viewers, if the creator even has a Patreon), and now you want to chop off the last remaining thing that actually makes them significant money...
Nothing is actually free, and people who are absolutists about being anti-ad (I am in that camp) but also anti-everything else that could possibly make a creator money is the reason we are in the position we are in.
I also agree that YouTube stopped being primarily about the "user-generated content" a while ago.
Back on topic, none of what I just said applies to Facebook or Twitter subscriptions writ large. There's something to be said for the costs of developing and running the services but it isn't $12.99 a month per user.
posted by tubedogg at 4:00 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
Even if we all paid the $12.99 a month to FB we'd still be the product.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:45 PM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:45 PM on February 24, 2023 [8 favorites]
I don't think of youtube as social media but of all the platforms it's the only one I would remotely consider paying for even with the ad-less-ness I've enjoyed with ublock like many others. It's by far the least devolved in terms of recommended content; even the stuff that's obviously trying to suck me in to the platform is usually interesting like say megavalanche races. The amount of hobby, DIY and general knowledge I've gained from videos on that site over the years really is worth something, even if google could use the corporate death penalty like the rest of these shitcos.
Instagram though, holy shit - reels in particular is fully devolved into going for lizard brain "fighting, fleeing, feeding and fucking" psychological trigger video clips - thirst traps, street fights, "Karen" outrage videos, etc. Completely decoupled from anything I'm interested in or otherwise doing on the app. The feed is marginally better but I assume that's on its way out too.
Funny enough insta is the only app / website I have ever bought stuff from based on ads in the entire internet era, and so much for that.
Since these companies have always been psychologically violent toward their customers, there is zero chance they will become customer / service oriented and that would be the only reason to pay for them. Of course they get this so they're squeezing their actual customers.
posted by MillMan at 4:52 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Instagram though, holy shit - reels in particular is fully devolved into going for lizard brain "fighting, fleeing, feeding and fucking" psychological trigger video clips - thirst traps, street fights, "Karen" outrage videos, etc. Completely decoupled from anything I'm interested in or otherwise doing on the app. The feed is marginally better but I assume that's on its way out too.
Funny enough insta is the only app / website I have ever bought stuff from based on ads in the entire internet era, and so much for that.
Since these companies have always been psychologically violent toward their customers, there is zero chance they will become customer / service oriented and that would be the only reason to pay for them. Of course they get this so they're squeezing their actual customers.
posted by MillMan at 4:52 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I use FB because there are many friends and family that use it to communicate. I also belong to a guitar community that is extremely valuable to me. But if the Zuck wants me to pay, he can fuck straight off.
I have a Twitter account and over half of my follows are related to baseball (so my usage is really kicking into gear). The rest is a motley crew of SFF writers, two of which have been know to post here. But if Musk fucks it up, I'll go elsewhere.
We use Alexa dozens of times a day but never for the uses Bezos hoped. Only one of our devices has a screen and it's never looked at, so the ads get unwatched. I never order through the devices either. But what we do with it is: timer for cooking, exercise; weather updates and temperature, white noise or "sleep sounds" at night; asking actors' age, height, marital status, or cause of death while watching movies, and of course "ask for a fart". If Bezos charges for this, but I would think they would just roll it into Prime. I'm guessing it will stay.
posted by Ber at 9:12 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have a Twitter account and over half of my follows are related to baseball (so my usage is really kicking into gear). The rest is a motley crew of SFF writers, two of which have been know to post here. But if Musk fucks it up, I'll go elsewhere.
We use Alexa dozens of times a day but never for the uses Bezos hoped. Only one of our devices has a screen and it's never looked at, so the ads get unwatched. I never order through the devices either. But what we do with it is: timer for cooking, exercise; weather updates and temperature, white noise or "sleep sounds" at night; asking actors' age, height, marital status, or cause of death while watching movies, and of course "ask for a fart". If Bezos charges for this, but I would think they would just roll it into Prime. I'm guessing it will stay.
posted by Ber at 9:12 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
over half of my follows are related to baseball (so my usage is really kicking into gear).
There's no kicking in baseball!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:52 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
There's no kicking in baseball!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:52 PM on February 24, 2023 [1 favorite]
They sucked his brains out!: I do hope we try to remember to call Facebook by its original name
I think you mean TheFacebook
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:40 AM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think you mean TheFacebook
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:40 AM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
Metafilter's staff aren't exactly living large based on the money MF raises.
If only! There are very few folks who I would like to see living large, but MF's staff, its volunteers, and a bunch of MeFites are among those I would wish to see showered in money. It is just a wish, it will never happen, but a gal can dream.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:22 AM on February 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
If only! There are very few folks who I would like to see living large, but MF's staff, its volunteers, and a bunch of MeFites are among those I would wish to see showered in money. It is just a wish, it will never happen, but a gal can dream.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:22 AM on February 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
Man, the whiplash on this has been amazing! 2021 to 2022 these companies were printing money, and now....
Well, not quite. They've never really made money, not really. They got huge by running up debt because investors could see they had a huge userbase and thought that SURELY they'd figure out how to monetize that many users sooner or later.
They kept ahead of a lot of the debt by advertising, but never got enough to really make a profit. And they know that cramming the service too full of ads will make users leave. So they're stuck.
The blue checkmarks for sale are a sign of them flailing around randomly and grasping at straws. Remember, that $12 price was the result of Musk first proposing $20, Stephen King saying he wouldn't pay for a checkmark, and then Musk just randomly going "well how about $12 then?" and it stuck. There never was any analysis of whether or not it was a price people would be willing to pay.
And really, why would anyone want to pay $12/month for a little blue badge? For businesses and so on I could see a one time payment to cover verification making sense, but a monthly extortion fee? Naah. "Hey Coke, pay us a monthly fee or we'll let any rando make an account named Coke!" That isn't going to really appeal to Coke.
For regular people it makes even less sense. Why would I want to pay Twitter or Facebook $12 a month for a checkmark? I'm nobody.
I could see a one time sign up fee like Metafilter has, if nothing else it'd filter out a lot of the spammers and bots, but a one time fee wouldn't be enough to make real profit. They want a monthly subscription, and no one will pay a monthly subscription for Twitter or Facebook. Or hardly anyone will.
As for the algorithm pushing right wing views, I don't really do recommended videos on YouTube so I can't speak about them, but my son does and we had a talk about it and why Joe Rogan isn't really a great person to watch because he keeps having Rogan pushed on him.
And on Twitter I am fucking inundated with right wing suggestions. Marjorie Taylor Green and DeSantis keep popping up in my twitter feed.
Facebook isn't QUITE as bad as Twitter, but despite having a posting and search history that shows absolutely no hint of interest in right wing choads, I keep getting suggested content from right wing groups and people on Facebook.
The algorighms have a bias towards the right. Presumably not due to any actual ideological desire on the part of programmers but because the metrics they use to calculate "engagement" give high scores to right wing sites.
posted by sotonohito at 6:17 AM on February 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
Well, not quite. They've never really made money, not really. They got huge by running up debt because investors could see they had a huge userbase and thought that SURELY they'd figure out how to monetize that many users sooner or later.
They kept ahead of a lot of the debt by advertising, but never got enough to really make a profit. And they know that cramming the service too full of ads will make users leave. So they're stuck.
The blue checkmarks for sale are a sign of them flailing around randomly and grasping at straws. Remember, that $12 price was the result of Musk first proposing $20, Stephen King saying he wouldn't pay for a checkmark, and then Musk just randomly going "well how about $12 then?" and it stuck. There never was any analysis of whether or not it was a price people would be willing to pay.
And really, why would anyone want to pay $12/month for a little blue badge? For businesses and so on I could see a one time payment to cover verification making sense, but a monthly extortion fee? Naah. "Hey Coke, pay us a monthly fee or we'll let any rando make an account named Coke!" That isn't going to really appeal to Coke.
For regular people it makes even less sense. Why would I want to pay Twitter or Facebook $12 a month for a checkmark? I'm nobody.
I could see a one time sign up fee like Metafilter has, if nothing else it'd filter out a lot of the spammers and bots, but a one time fee wouldn't be enough to make real profit. They want a monthly subscription, and no one will pay a monthly subscription for Twitter or Facebook. Or hardly anyone will.
As for the algorithm pushing right wing views, I don't really do recommended videos on YouTube so I can't speak about them, but my son does and we had a talk about it and why Joe Rogan isn't really a great person to watch because he keeps having Rogan pushed on him.
And on Twitter I am fucking inundated with right wing suggestions. Marjorie Taylor Green and DeSantis keep popping up in my twitter feed.
Facebook isn't QUITE as bad as Twitter, but despite having a posting and search history that shows absolutely no hint of interest in right wing choads, I keep getting suggested content from right wing groups and people on Facebook.
The algorighms have a bias towards the right. Presumably not due to any actual ideological desire on the part of programmers but because the metrics they use to calculate "engagement" give high scores to right wing sites.
posted by sotonohito at 6:17 AM on February 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
Remember, that $12 price was the result of Musk first proposing $20, Stephen King saying he wouldn't pay for a checkmark, and then Musk just randomly going "well how about $12 then?"
Stupider than that, actually. Musk countered with $8, and then on the approach to launch realized, somehow never once having confronted this basic fact, that Apple takes a 30% vig on in-app purchases on iOS, and after failing to win a public spat about it changed it to $11 if you're buying it on your iPhone. The basic economics remain the same—its not nearly enough new revenue to be worth the disruption unless you're stupid enough to imagine literally every twitter user would sign up—but as always there's some dumber details when you look closer, like a fractal techbro.
posted by cortex at 7:34 AM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
Stupider than that, actually. Musk countered with $8, and then on the approach to launch realized, somehow never once having confronted this basic fact, that Apple takes a 30% vig on in-app purchases on iOS, and after failing to win a public spat about it changed it to $11 if you're buying it on your iPhone. The basic economics remain the same—its not nearly enough new revenue to be worth the disruption unless you're stupid enough to imagine literally every twitter user would sign up—but as always there's some dumber details when you look closer, like a fractal techbro.
posted by cortex at 7:34 AM on February 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
After failing to win a public spat about it
Interesting! The last thing I heard about this was that tweet where Musk talked about meeting Tim Cook. I had just figured they had worked something out, but points to Tim Cook for winning on his bad policy and for Elon Musk sorta hiding that he got owned.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:42 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Interesting! The last thing I heard about this was that tweet where Musk talked about meeting Tim Cook. I had just figured they had worked something out, but points to Tim Cook for winning on his bad policy and for Elon Musk sorta hiding that he got owned.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:42 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
youtube premium is transformative, even after spending years grumping about their hardsell I definitely wouldn't go back.
posted by Sebmojo at 4:25 PM on February 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 4:25 PM on February 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
It is interesting to me to hear other people talk about what is being recommended to them, both on Twitter and YouTube, because while I see a bit of it on Twitter (although very little), I never see anything remotely approaching right-wing extremist or conspiracy garbage being recommended to me on YouTube. Maybe it's because I have never watched anything even remotely political on it? I also tend to be bad at "engagement"--I subscribe to the channels I like, put videos on custom playlists, watch videos from those, watch videos from recommended (which are usually pretty spot-on), and that's about it. I usually forget to like (or dislike) and I almost never comment. So maybe the algorithm figures I wouldn't be good at continuing to propagate viral stuff? Idk.
posted by tubedogg at 2:52 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by tubedogg at 2:52 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
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Both Twitter and Facebook are offering another thing for your subscription though, "increased reach". Pay-for-play is a serious degradation in the value of these services for me. I look at Twitter to find obscure stuff, personal stuff, stuff no one would pay to promote. (Not so much Facebook, it's never been good for that.) These paid promotion things are basically turning everyone's news feed into another advertising channel.
YouTube Premium is different though. At least until now, the main thing you got for your money was ad-free videos. Which has been great! You aren't paying for social status or reach.
The online ad business is experiencing a serious decline now, expect to see more of this kind of thing from established businesses. (Metafilter itself was ahead of the trend!) Startup capital is also harder to raise now so I expect we'll see a lot less VC-subsidized businesses where everything is free or unreasonably cheap the first five years.
posted by Nelson at 7:56 AM on February 24, 2023 [15 favorites]