Slaves to the Algorithms

Being Internet famous can be a brutal thing. Believe me, I’m certainly not talking about myself. There are YouTubers, Bloggers, Instagram models and people on other platforms who make their living from their on-line presence.

It’s a shaky way to make a dollar. You can go from making a good income to having your on-line existence canceled overnight. Recently I was reading about an Instagram model who’s channel was canceled for some reason. She was really upset as she really had no other job skills except sex work or fast food. It’s weird when your job is to look good and appear to be having a fantastic life.

Over the winter I’ve been watching a lot of S. V Delos, a sailing YouTube channel. Recently they announced that they will be cutting back on their videos. The filming of their lives was beginning to interfere with them living their lives. They out and out said they refuse to be slaves to the YouTube algorithms. I think it’s a brave and wise decision -it’s also a rare choice.

There’s this other guy, who will remain nameless, who posts daily but basically just begs for money. He doesn’t really do anything but he talks a lot about the amazing things he plans on doing. It does appear that his scam is coming to an end and YouTube will be better without him.

This blog is technically monetized and I do get the occasional check from Google. It’s just about enough to keep me in coffee, so that’s good. There are certain types of articles that increase traffic, but it’s not worth concentration on those stories. I write because I enjoy sharing. Perhaps there are people out there who find some of my little ramblings useful, or at least entertaining. My readers are good people and I enjoy their comments. Very few trolls come to my blog.

A couple years ago a friend wanted my help to do a podcast. It was a niche subject that I don’t really touch on in this blog, but I have some knowledge of. The guy had a very ambitious posting schedule and the project was going to take a lot of work. It had reached the point where we had the computers, audio equipment, software, and quiet studio space. We had a podcast platform lined up. It was all set to go, then my podcast partner’s life got complicated. Once in a while he floats the idea past me, but his life is still busy seven days a week. I certainly wasn’t going to shoulder the whole thing by myself.

I wonder if we would have become slaves to the algorithms? Would we have tailored the shows to squeeze out every dollar? Probably not, now that I think about it. Both of us are too independent to worry about the bottom line.

-Sixbears