this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
41 points (76.6% liked)
Asklemmy
43879 readers
1348 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "If the viewer watches the ad, the ad buyer does not receive a return on investment." Doesn't the ad buyer want the viewer to watch the ad?
In any case, my comment was in the context of the OP, which is specifically concerned about the creator making money. If you care about the creator making money (and you should), then you have to either watch ads or pay them directly (via patreon, e.g.).
I have to admit that I have a sore spot for this subject. I believe (at least in America) that people are far too comfortable with the idea that we should be able to consume art for free. Obviously paying less is better than paying more from a personal finance perspective (and paying nothing is best!). However, it's quite clear that the distribution platforms are more interested in making a profit than they are in compensating creators fairly (some are better than others, of course). If the distribution platforms are stiffing the creators, and the consumers are paying little or nothing, then it's the creator left with the short end of the stick.
Generally speaking, creators just want their creations to be seen/heard because they care MOST about the art, not the money. Unfortunately, this often leaves them making less than they deserve for the value they create. Who benefits from this price/value disparity? The distribution platforms. I think if most people thought about this arrangement for a little bit, they would probably prefer that the creator gets more money and the distribution platforms get less.
However, I don't think that's the whole story. Distribution platforms need to make some money to cover the expenses of running the platform. I think it's entirely likely that the cost paid (via ad impressions) doesn't actually cover the TOTAL expense of paying the distribution platform overhead AS WELL AS fairly compensating the creator.
All that is to say, when you think about art in a producer/consumer context, it makes the most economic sense for the consumer to pay the producer. This circles back to my original premise: people are far too comfortable with the idea that we should be able to consume art for free. If we could get ourselves into the mindset that art is valuable and therefore should cost some money, I think we'd have a much more vibrant art culture.