It's not like I didn't know full well that it was gonna happen, but boy howdy is saying any nice thing about Large Internet Company on Mastodon quite the exercise.
I'm just another noodle on the internet - what do I know?
But perhaps if any mention of a mainstream anything invites You're Doing it Wrong and you Should Feel Bad About Your Opinions as responses by default... maybe this place isn't so fun.
@TechConnectify The joy of having a sizeable online following is that at some point the number of followers who are--to put it bluntly--irredeemable dicks crosses a threshold where they end up costing enough mental overhead to make actual online interactions with people measurably less fun.
@Legit_Spaghetti Yeah, ya know there was a day when Twitter stopped being fun because suddenly I was a target to be punched up at. It was a frighteningly sudden shift.
Here, though, that's always been there from some subset. Mostly it comes up when my toots get boosted.
There's a brigade of folks who seemingly would rather see popular YouTube creators stay the eff away rather than, y'know, maybe try and normalize decentralized non-corporate social networking.
There's a brigade of folks who seemingly would rather see popular YouTube creators stay the eff away
That mindset is something I hope I'll never truly understand. Maybe it's people who prefer to be big fish in a small pond and fear the "platform" becoming too popular.
Maybe it's people who are desperate to be tastemakers and feel threatened by others who are succeeding in reaching their audience.
@TechConnectify@Legit_Spaghetti yeah when a fediverse post goes wide enough jackasses come out of the woodwork. It's not really a function of too many followers cause it happens to me at 7.5k. I saw someone saying they were muting a thread because it was "in the long tail of bad replies" and that's definitely a thing. It's probably because most people here are more opinionated? So if a post goes wide enough, there are the bad opinions
@TechConnectify I have been using Mastodon less because I’m tired of all the absolutist/militant Internet, operating system, etc oriented responses. The soiled pants reactions to Threads really took the shine off for me.
@TechConnectify I support YT since one of creators shared how big impact on their channels premium watchers are. Benefit for me (I often watch from devices without easy adblocks) but i needed something outside that to decide
@TechConnectify For what it’s worth, I do fully agree with your assessment. I too wish they'd untangle Music from the rest and just make more options for users. Plus more transparency how things are divvied up between YT and the creators and who gets what and how.
But they also need to be more mindful about who they let advertise on their platform. Too often I see absolute garbage person insanity wrapped into ad form on there on videos I am absolutely sure the creator would be furious about.
@the_duke Oh absolutely. I wish they had some sort of ad integrity team - and frankly, if they don't spin one up yesterday I think they'll quickly find themselves in more trouble than they already are.
@TechConnectify Definitely! It's such a weird short term “get money quick” thinking, that any sane person would realise is going to hurt everybody long term including themselves. 😞
@TechConnectify Interesting thread! I, too, have been paying for Youtube Premium since it was Youtube Red. For my evening viewing, it is 100% worth it.
It was only after I signed up to Youtube Red that it showed me the music app. Before that, I never used streaming music, mostly because I found the prospect of training it too daunting. But I didn't have to train Youtube Music because it inherits my Likes from music videos. That was a win for me.
Also note that I love the YTM mobile app. It feels to me like it's maintained by people who actively use it. Mostly.
Both things can be true. I'm very pro open source, but a lot of open source issues seem to boil down to turf wars. Also their .doc complaint had nothing to do with Facebook, so..
Here's the thing. I don't like the company in question but I still get the premium product. I got a kid and I like a lot of the creators who incidentally can make a living of of their videos.
I also use the music product for streaming.. Often I stream music I've already paid for in another form.
You came to one of, if not the single-most, anti-corporate social networks ever built by humans to be a pro-corporate shill. You got exactly the reaction you expected, and now you have the nerve to clutch your pearls and wag your finger? I reiterate my previous sentiment: fuck all the way off.
I will proudly tell everyone of our response to you as I proselytize this place, and the people I tell will love it and join in next time.
@TechConnectify Thanks for sticking around on the fediverse. I'm yet one more of those "silent 99" who like to watch your videos and get a bit more of your extra thoughts on things.
Don't have much to say on the youtube thing as I already subscribe to Spotify for my music, and I don't watch enough videos to really justify paying to not see ads. In any case, thanks for your content.
@TechConnectify
FWIW I'm glad you're here and I hope you don't let the curmudgeons get to you.
I always enjoy a good discussion of why the internet works the way it works, why internet companies make the decisions they do, and how else they could make those decisions. It's kind of fascinating to me that people see the public-facing site but don't seem to think about the underlying business model and the fact that most of the things YouTube does, misguided or not, are ultimately to make sure YouTube and their creators can get paid enough to sustain the platform.
I keep debating a Premium subscription because I watch YouTube with AdBlock (because I'm a hypocrite despite the above), but the opaqueness has always bothered me too. Fortunately there's Patreon so I'm supporting the creators I follow even if I'm denying YouTube some revenue.
It's orthogonal to the Premium discussion, but I'm particularly fascinated by the occasional complaint that so many YouTube videos would be better off as blog posts or similar text media - I absolutely agree with the sentiment, but the obvious implication is that YouTube is so much better at monetizing videos than any ad platform is at monetizing generic web content that creators are better off spending more time and effort editing a video even though the end result is less convenient than text.
(definitely doesn't apply to your stuff, obviously - you have delightful a form of technical storytelling that's pretty much perfect for video)
@TechConnectify it can be a pain both here and on Lemmy to talk about their mainstream counterparts. When brought up you are often piled on for still using (insert site here).
@TechConnectify This is one of my least favorite bits about mastodon.
The decentralized nature and the hidden replies makes it harder to have a coherent community (with a clear set of community standards), and it allows some people to engage in poor behavior in a way that's invisible to the rest of the community.
There's also an unpleasant, open-source 'we are better than the sheep that use [proprietary platform]' vibe that some members of community espouse.
Anyway, it's frustrating and I'm sorry you're having a less-than-great time with bits of the platform.
I'm not turning #adblock off or stopping using #newpipe and #rss though. Ads are a security and mental health risk and I like controlling my viewing experience instead of an #algorithm.
@TechConnectify Thank you for starting the conversation you did, despite the painful result. I'll add my tiny voice to the other side of the scale, in that you got me to rethink my unwillingness to sign back up for premium (card expired, price went up, dark pattern upsells, blahblah ...).
I do wish YT gave more transparency on where my particular subscription goes. More detail better (channel breakdown pls!), but even just a "google" vs. "music" vs. "videos" would help demonstrate value.
@TechConnectify Welcome to Mastodon, a place designed to keep minorities trapped in society’s little boxes. You’re a woman? You should be posting about feminist stuff. You’re Black? You should be posting about racial issues. You’re disabled? You should be posting about accessibility and disability. You’re from LGBTQ+? Well, by now you get the deal.
Oh, you don’t fit in with any minority group? That’s cool. Just keep posting about how much you hate capitalism and you’ll be fine.
Yeah it sucks to be preached at by randos. Glad you're here and glad you're on YouTube too
Honestly $25 or whatever it is for improved access to the single most amazing repository of video on planet Earth isn't a bad deal, plus creators get a bonus. Win win
@TechConnectify something I found strangely missing in this crowd of folks shaking fists at Google was any mention of the infinite scroll additives of YT Shorts. #TinFoilHat jokes aside, that was a big reason I started interacting with YT through RSS.
I don’t think folks like to admit how much time they lose to the addiction that is Shorts. Now if YT were a Chinese company I’m sure they would be much hand wringing about YT Shorts.
@TechConnectify you have a million replies already but just wanna say I saw the original thread and thought it was perfectly reasonable. People are nuts.
The bubble you're in (and that's being held together by YT buzz) has popped for most people.
Every few days, try opening a Private Browsing window over a VPN link and visit YT's main page. Search for something you like and view it. ➡️ Notice the kind of the Suggested content links you get 👀 ⬅️
If its anything like the samples I was seeing though most of the 2010s, here's what you're likely to get:
Anti-vax
The world according to East Idaho
High-powered gun fetish
Bulldozing, well, anything
Why women have to shut up and mind the barbed wire
How could we let BLM burn the country down?
Poor beleaguered Russia (& the things we made them do)
Fox news clips
"Liberal" opinions all re-airing and whining about Fox news clips
FPS Games
YT will do the usual shtick about promoting "what people want". But I think you already know that's not what it is.
@TechConnectify I, too, really enjoy Youtube Premium, but think its YT Music integration is dumb.
I'm glad you get a greater slice of my money than if I were watching ads. I'm not a Patreon sub to my fave Youtubers, but I hope between Premium and my Nebula subscription that most of my favourites get at least a few more bucks a year from me.
@TechConnectify For what it's worth, I found your posts really interesting. I don't watch enough YT to bother subscribing, but I still enjoyed reading your perspective.
@TechConnectify First of all, this is a community developed and maintained platform, so praising big tech companies might not resonate here. Second, it might be a good idea to take a step back to holistically comprehend the opinions people have. Perhaps they have good reason for strongly disliking these companies that go beyond a single issue. Third, while you should be allowed to express any opinion you’d like, you should not be immune from scrutiny, just like the real world.
@TechConnectify People who take that approach to digital rights activism end up doing what those unethical companies would prefer they do anyway--wasting their time blaming the users who just want a quality, functional service. Youtube has many issues and (at the behest of turning a profit) is woefully indifferent to the well-being of the creators who make Youtube valuable, yet some people convince themselves that the truly big injustice is the people who are willing to subscribe for benefits.
@TechConnectify I ran out of Spotify student discount a couple years ago and switched to YT premium and have enjoyed not needing an adblocker as well as access to music not available on Spotify.
@TechConnectify A couple things you're probably aware of but on the off chance that an outside perspective is useful:
This is a platform where anyone can have their say in an open way. That's both good and bad, as it needs a more hands-on approach to moderate your experience. I don't know the moderator team on your server, but I can assume it's a fairly large server and they might have their hands too full to spot moderate without reports. I hope if anything gets too out of hand you're willing to use the Report system to let your local mods know if you're getting harassed. And I hope your mods are willing to investigate and moderate on your behalf to protect not only you but other users.
Also, you're a relatively big fish in a small pond. Historically, the fediverse has not done well with celebrity. I was there to see the Will Wheaton debacle, and I suspect was there to see the Final Straw live. A lot of things went into it that get missed, many things went south in a perfect storm. There's this really horrible thing that people have been trained to do where the more famous a person is, the more it's socially acceptable to not treat them as a person. I'm sorry that has to happen to you.
I don't understand why a lot of people take a personal opinion like "I like / don't like (thing)" and somehow transform that into the opinion-haver saying "I demand that (thing) is universally good/evil and that everyone should have forced/denied access to it!" Okay, you've seen youtube comments, you know what I mean.
I enjoy your videos, and I support most nuanced informed opinions on things.
What's honestly really quite tiring is that, in a lot of ways, I feel like I have to be more careful here than I was on Twitter. TWITTER
It's a different sort of thing I need to protect myself from - but also it's a lot harder because it's fragmented. I knew what toes not to step on there.
Here? You never know, and sadly I'm not super confident that can ever be effectively sorted.
@mycroft This is nothing against you and your advice (because it's solid!) but the whole notion that this place is infinitely tweakable to your desires is... a large part of the problem.
You break through whatever filter someone has set up and you. will. hear. about. it.
I think lots of folks have a hard time balancing priorities here - to the point of being self-destructive at times.
It's definitely polite to consider others' opinions, but if you're just posting to your own feed, being reasonable, and following the rules of your server, you shouldn't get flak for it. I personally have no qualms blocking anyone who starts an argument on the wrong foot, and reporting them if they step too far out of line. There are a lot of outright bad actors and servers full of bad actors.
As long as you're doing things for personal reasons and don't become a lightning rod for moderation on your server, I wish you could use all the tools at your disposal to curate a good experience for yourself.
@TechConnectify Naw man, you had a good take, ignore the hate. Yeah big platform bad, but actually paying to support the creators instead of shoving a million ads down my throat is where it’s at.
We pay for a YouTube Premium family account, and I can say of the 6 users only 1 uses music… because we also pay for an Apple Music family account.
I think you’re right, more people would pay for YouTube “silver” because they already have their established music app and don’t want redundancy
@TechConnectify totally sucks. I’ve found muting/blocking people who only seem to want to post bad vibes helps to leave me with just generally (for lack of a better word) “normal” people who post about cool stuff and talk about things. Sometimes it’s bad things, but the contingent of people here who really really only want to feel bad is a strong vocal minority
To be clear i don't like Alphabet. I have political problems with monopolies and believe they shod be split up.
But the revenue split system has always been uniquely fair on youtube. Probably only nebula comes out ahead of that, and they don't have any of the community building tools.
You can send any #foss peeps giving you grief my way. Commercialising is hard and strident politics can make it almost impossible.
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