Click Bait Part 2 or The Death of Choice

Looking at the previously included videos, you might have noticed a few strange things.

First, that they're all pretty much the same show.
(I used gaming shows since that's what I'm most familiar with)
Second, the titles are click-baitey as fuck.

The thumbnails are also over-the top, controversial, and meant to draw you in.

And when you look over at the suggested video list, nearly every video on there is from the same channel you are currently watching.

It's the last point I want to focus on, because it can't be cheap to make that happen. Normally there are a variety of choices on that list of videos. Yet, when it comes to these channels (which are, more often than not owned by large television companies and like fucking Viacom and shit) most of, if not all of the suggested videos are of a single channel.

That requires money. Lots of it. Large, faceless companies are putting up big bucks and are expecting a substantial return on their investment.

This is destroying the whole purpose of online video sharing platforms in the first place.

With this type of competition, random everyday weirdos don't stand a chance. Not to mention the flood of advertising these fucks brought with them. I watched the change happen in real-time over the course of a year or so.

I used to love binge-watching dumb shit on Youtube. One of the main reasons I loved it was lack of commercials. Ads on Youtube where a rare and slight annoyance. I could watch charming, no-budget nonsense all day and only come across 5 or 6 ads that entire time. 5 OR 6 ADS FOR THE DAY.

Now I'll come across 5 or 6 ads during the course of one 15 minute video showing the other endings of a game I just finished.

But that's not the point here. I usually just scream at the top of my lungs until the ad goes away. Problem solved.

The point I'm trying to make is that the monetization of Youtube brought these people here. They rode a pale horse. It's name was Death, and ads followed in its wake.

Now the amount of agency a user feels while online has virtually vanished. It's a fucking battlefield. We have to fight everyday just to view the content we actually want to see.

It's bad enough that these channels dominate the suggested list, but once you understand the isomorphic connection to the retweet phenomenon, the implications of such a system, is terrifying.