Rant about the world of social media and marketing:
My latest (very recent) shock was receiving an email from a digital painting software company (I can't name them) asking me my price to switch my entire workflow to their proprietary product and announce it on my channels.
Of course I refused.
I'm still 100% committed to Free/Libre&Open-Source Software. But it made me realise that these days even profiles without a huge internet presence are getting paid to use and advocate things. Meh 😔
@davidrevoy thank you for sharing this. It's immensely valuable to be able to point to this and say: "no it's not necessarily that <Corporate Brand Product> is better, influencers might just be paid to use it." :blobcatfingerguns:
@davidrevoy@rysiek sometimes I wish I got offers like that just to ask for an inordinate amount of money (I'm talking hundred-million range), matching donations to the FLOSS alternatives, and with the condition that I can talk badly of the product the whole time and make unfavorable comparisons against the FLOSS alternatives. It'd still be a no, but would be funnier.
@Pixel_Lime Yes, they probably think every software are product, and every creator on Youtube can be managed with a 'best offer'. Probably that manager was selling cars or something like that last week. 😆
@davidrevoy Why didn't you tell the company name and just that, since that is public information and merely telling its name cannot violate the trademarks.
If I were you, I'd give the price as "Open source your products under a GPL-compatible license (GPL, MIT,...) and donate to Krita/Inkscape/...".
And lemme guess, given the hints I immediately think of the company behind Clip Studio Paint, Celsys, doesn't it?
@natsume_shokogami I want to keep this contact in good relation to nudge them into a Krita-compatible preset direction, or ORA file format.
I think it will be more productive this way than trying to scratch them. This type of software already made many more evil move towards their community, and they still are dominant and they keep growing... Their user base don't care, imo.
@davidrevoy OK, I was shocked... Then I looked to see who you are... Clearly whatever software company this is, hasn't really understood that aspect of your work. Thank you for all you do.
@jigmedatse Thanks :blobcatheart:
I really think the Global Marketing Manager who contacted me had no idea of what she was doing with this email and really was enthusiast and happy (I presume by the tone, but it might be commercial way of writting) to propose a good deal to me.
A big probabibility was she had no idea how involved I was around Krita. Maybe her vision of software is only "product". She probably thought offering something more advanced to an artist using only free software. 😅
@davidrevoy I know how dedicated you are to Krita, but I wonder if trying the software might be worth looking to see if there's anything there that you feel is worth pulling into Krita. I do know when I first loaded Krita, (I think possibly in response to your videos) I was, "wow, this works far more like physical media than anything I've tried before."
Unfortatunately, not one I'll do because I don't have any Windows or Apple machine at home to run it (and I don't want to invest in this).
But if I can put my hand without installing things at home, I'll do it; only to see what's new in 2023 (I left proprietary in 2009).
I also can trust the sharp expertise of the main devs on Krita: they keep study/purchase/install painting software and publish sometime reports of features they have.
@etua_en Oh yes. At my scale, I already received many 'wtf' sponsoring proposal: like a standing desk, or an accessory for keyboard. I can't even imagine how if I accepted this type of video in my catalog of tutorial with free/libre and open-source software would appear like a joke 😆
Btw, I never received a single VPN sponsor offer. I'm still not big enough for that 😅
@davidrevoy If you ask enough your message can be "Hey folks, they paid me enough that I don't need to do this anymore and can retire, so I can't really comment what using their software is like!", and if they don't agree, well, you tried 😂
Small and medium influencers have a better ROI, they cost less, they are closer to their community, they can become big.
And biggest influencers are already full of marketing product, so people are more suspicious about such announcements.
@dolmen Hey, I don't think it is compared to who usually got sponsor (relatively to how I saw commercial activities targeted 'profile'). I think about the one in millions of subscribers and/or hundred thousands. the one I call influencers on Instagram, etc... From their message, they probably have no idea about my Mastodon account btw and this metric.
They clearly target my Ytb channel with 78K subcribers. https://www.youtube.com/user/DeevadRevoy , I don't even have the 100K : my internet presence is not huge.
@dolmen Yes. That's what I think. They now invest on 'underdogs' , because it is cheap and they might go big in future. Also, it helps at controling the full landscape.
I have seen software very popular like Paint Tool SAI being almost totally not adopted anymore (if youtube is a mirror of the reality). Same for Corel Painter, Artrage, etc...
@davidrevoy On one hand, it speaks of the success of FOSS (especially Krita in this case) if corporations are this afraid and take this kind of desperate measures to try combat the competition.
@Neotheta Yes, in a way it feels like these big corporate invest now in removing 'bad weed', and convert smaller Youtube channel in hashtag like 'digital painting' / 'illustration' that doens't offer a catalog of video with their product. I'm not sure it was really against FLOSS directly. Maybe I'll probably would have the same email if I was using MsPaint or Acrylic3000 or DeluxePaint as a main tool on my channel 😆 ...
@davidrevoy It feels a little predatory in some ways - there are many people who are struggling to survive and would feel like they didn't have a choice :(
@davidrevoy You could tell them your price is whatever it'd cost to put the software under a free software license. If it'd help, use the Blender Foundation's purchase of Blender from NaN two decades ago (third quarter 2002) as a precedent.
@davidrevoy I always like to string people like that (usually prospective employers, in my case) with sky-high prices, just to see how long it'll take them to realize that my "55k personality test surcharge" is openly mocking them.
@davidrevoy
Well, I think you just outed them, already, then. And I can't say I imagined it would be anyone else.
Makes me wonder how many people already take that money. :kermit:
Given that FOSS tools is kind of your long-time "brand", it sounds as if they'd want your endorsement specifically to discredit FOSS, and that's nasty.
@pixelsalex Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I'll try. It's complex since I moved my computer in the main room of the house, for noise around and many events that require my attention. But I'll try, even without talking, just to give an open windows and invite to watch me working almost 'IRL' this way.
@davidrevoy Ha Based,
for not having your viewers/audience their blood sucked monthly for nothing, indeed. True artist make use of anything. Although you should have grabbed that money and lie in the advertisement in a video, then afterwards share opensoftware appreciations in mastodon or twitter. 😂
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