why did i watch that instagram video lol...knowing it would piss me off. and yet, and yet.
what really bothers me, aside from the fact that IG is an unusable disaster now, is how he tries to tell everyone that reels/video were simply a natural progression that we have to keep up with and nothing instagram did had anything to do with it. like the reason ig is loaded with reels is because this is the content people want to see and want to make so we all just need to get with the program, and not because actually ig forced creators to make reels to reach their audience and then forced users to look at it via their algorithm and nobody on either side likes it at all.
the top tier comment i saw on twitter was a convo he was having with chrissy tiegan who said she didn't want to make videos...and he was just like, well don't then. and then she went on to say that she doesn't even see photo posts from her friends in her feed anymore, even when she's "all caught up" according to the app. and he said...he said...that's because her friends are using stories and DMs more than posting to their feed. like, THE AUDACITY. he really just tried to gaslight chrissy tiegan into thinking the posts she's not seeing in her feed actually don't exist at all lmao. this dude is a top tier piece of shit.
anyway, was excited to say have a nice vacation and many happy returns of the day to your girlfriend but well, that little chunk of the newsletter devolved quickly didn't it? XD still though. have a nice time i guess.
"instead, I’m beginning to wonder if the fact we’re noticing this kind of stuff more often is because algorithmic recommendations are breaking down."
Oh it's this, it's almost always this. I know you've covered "The Algorithm™" before, but I think another ridiculously common trend that flies under the radar is affiliate marketing. It's always the same ~25 companies sponsoring channels that range from 20k subs to 2m subs. There're full-blown marketplaces where these companies offer affiliate contracts to the lowest bidder (smaller youtubers), and this is a literal $100b+ market. The VPN market alone was $35b in 2021, and 3 companies own the large majority of the market share. It goes so so so much deeper than this, but there's a good academic article titled "Investigating Influencer VPN Ads on YouTube" that's a fine starting point.
I do think there are also MORE hustle zombies than ever before. I've been internet business adjacent for over a decade, and there was a similar proliferation during the last recession. Add in a pandemic, some gumroad classes, and suddenly, you have a whole lot of people convinced that they're going to make millions selling classes just like the one they bought.
Internet business is its own kind of MLM. Fewer boxes of Amway in the garage, but same energy.
I loved Gumroad, it was really the best platform for selling my print and play games and zines, but I stopped using it when the CEO had a public meltdown aimed at one of their former illustrators. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2022-02-04-1
You are totally right about Gumroad being filled with get-rich-quick books though. Gumroad had a great reputation for being an artist friendly platform with a cool aesthetic, but friends who worked there told me that the indie comics were only a tiny portion of the actual authors. I was told that the vast majority of ebooks were about becoming a landlord, or an Amazon dropshipper. This was all before the big crypto boom (and bust), so I imagine all those life-advice authors pivoted to crypto topics. Hence the CEO wanting to push so hard for NFTs on his platform.
I hope you enjoy your vacation! The gumroad information was good to know because I hadn't heard about it (gumroad )before. I wonder if all the scammy stuff rising to the top is a symptom of lower ad revenue at tech giants because everyone is fearing a recession. It feels like in my daily internet routine, i'm either seeing more offers for scams, more ppl trying them or ppl pointing them out (bc they're absurd).
I'm gonna agree/disagree on the coinbase video. I disagree that its a bad idea to produce a product that has some entertainment value even though there are some ominous headwinds. Like if its good it might spark a fandom or at the very least it endears some affection towards your institution even if your core product is a pyramid scheme. I agree because having seen the video its just bad story wise.(SPOILERS) They start with a debtor whos boxing for digital currency an indian woman speaking at a convention and a tech futurist vibe.(Good) Then they introduce zombies and its both nonsensical but also telling on themselves. In the crypto world the crypto future is destiny itself, ergo everything that interrupts that future must be outside of normal order of things or supernatural. I guess thinking that the only thing that could stop Celsius from freezing their funds is an otherworldly event and not the fact you invested in a very clear scam, is probably pretty popular now.
why did i watch that instagram video lol...knowing it would piss me off. and yet, and yet.
what really bothers me, aside from the fact that IG is an unusable disaster now, is how he tries to tell everyone that reels/video were simply a natural progression that we have to keep up with and nothing instagram did had anything to do with it. like the reason ig is loaded with reels is because this is the content people want to see and want to make so we all just need to get with the program, and not because actually ig forced creators to make reels to reach their audience and then forced users to look at it via their algorithm and nobody on either side likes it at all.
the top tier comment i saw on twitter was a convo he was having with chrissy tiegan who said she didn't want to make videos...and he was just like, well don't then. and then she went on to say that she doesn't even see photo posts from her friends in her feed anymore, even when she's "all caught up" according to the app. and he said...he said...that's because her friends are using stories and DMs more than posting to their feed. like, THE AUDACITY. he really just tried to gaslight chrissy tiegan into thinking the posts she's not seeing in her feed actually don't exist at all lmao. this dude is a top tier piece of shit.
anyway, was excited to say have a nice vacation and many happy returns of the day to your girlfriend but well, that little chunk of the newsletter devolved quickly didn't it? XD still though. have a nice time i guess.
"instead, I’m beginning to wonder if the fact we’re noticing this kind of stuff more often is because algorithmic recommendations are breaking down."
Oh it's this, it's almost always this. I know you've covered "The Algorithm™" before, but I think another ridiculously common trend that flies under the radar is affiliate marketing. It's always the same ~25 companies sponsoring channels that range from 20k subs to 2m subs. There're full-blown marketplaces where these companies offer affiliate contracts to the lowest bidder (smaller youtubers), and this is a literal $100b+ market. The VPN market alone was $35b in 2021, and 3 companies own the large majority of the market share. It goes so so so much deeper than this, but there's a good academic article titled "Investigating Influencer VPN Ads on YouTube" that's a fine starting point.
I do think there are also MORE hustle zombies than ever before. I've been internet business adjacent for over a decade, and there was a similar proliferation during the last recession. Add in a pandemic, some gumroad classes, and suddenly, you have a whole lot of people convinced that they're going to make millions selling classes just like the one they bought.
Internet business is its own kind of MLM. Fewer boxes of Amway in the garage, but same energy.
I loved Gumroad, it was really the best platform for selling my print and play games and zines, but I stopped using it when the CEO had a public meltdown aimed at one of their former illustrators. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2022-02-04-1
Of course, like so many things, this was ultimately about the CEO wanting to pivot to selling NFTs despite doing a Twitter poll where Gumroad's followers were strongly against the idea https://twitter.com/gumroad/status/1445060168111124484?lang=en
You are totally right about Gumroad being filled with get-rich-quick books though. Gumroad had a great reputation for being an artist friendly platform with a cool aesthetic, but friends who worked there told me that the indie comics were only a tiny portion of the actual authors. I was told that the vast majority of ebooks were about becoming a landlord, or an Amazon dropshipper. This was all before the big crypto boom (and bust), so I imagine all those life-advice authors pivoted to crypto topics. Hence the CEO wanting to push so hard for NFTs on his platform.
I hope you enjoy your vacation! The gumroad information was good to know because I hadn't heard about it (gumroad )before. I wonder if all the scammy stuff rising to the top is a symptom of lower ad revenue at tech giants because everyone is fearing a recession. It feels like in my daily internet routine, i'm either seeing more offers for scams, more ppl trying them or ppl pointing them out (bc they're absurd).
I'm gonna agree/disagree on the coinbase video. I disagree that its a bad idea to produce a product that has some entertainment value even though there are some ominous headwinds. Like if its good it might spark a fandom or at the very least it endears some affection towards your institution even if your core product is a pyramid scheme. I agree because having seen the video its just bad story wise.(SPOILERS) They start with a debtor whos boxing for digital currency an indian woman speaking at a convention and a tech futurist vibe.(Good) Then they introduce zombies and its both nonsensical but also telling on themselves. In the crypto world the crypto future is destiny itself, ergo everything that interrupts that future must be outside of normal order of things or supernatural. I guess thinking that the only thing that could stop Celsius from freezing their funds is an otherworldly event and not the fact you invested in a very clear scam, is probably pretty popular now.