Some of the greatest achievements in the arts and science of human history were made possible by the patronage of wealthy institutions and families. Nowadays, cultural expression has shifted to digital content distributed on the web. The majority of web content platforms are using an advertising-based revenue model which makes creators dependent on advertising dollars controlled by a few large corporations. One such platform is YouTube, a monopolist among web video platforms.
Centralized and advertising-based platforms have total control and put maximization of ad revenue above everything else. Unfortunately, this is not in the best interest of all other parties and leads to the following problems: viewers are bombarded with ads and manipulated into fast content consumption and creators receive only a fraction of revenue from value they create.
Struggling to sustain on ad revenue alone, creators are pushed into mass-consumer market.
They have few opportunities to engage with fans and grow their community when binge consumption is inherently promoted. Furthermore, advertising businesses lose out due to inefficiencies in reach and rampant ad fraud.
The ad-based business model exhibits inherently misaligned incentives between viewers, creators, and advertisers. It disproportionately profits the middlemen and it is the source of problems described above. Even incumbent platforms aren’t motivated to fix it as it would directly undercut their revenues.
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