YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki recently spoke with live-streamer Ludwig Ahgren on his podcast The Yard about some important and trending topics.
YouTube has always been a platform that puts a lot of money into creators and encourages them to try new things. Shorts, for example, has only been around for about a year but already has an entire creators program dedicated to it, assisting both large and small YouTubers in making a living.
Live streaming is still one of the most popular forms of online content these days, and YouTube has decided to join in. Ludwig Ahgren, a video game streamer and Super Smash Bros commentator, recently announced that he is leaving Twitch to pursue a streaming career at YouTube, after the latter essentially drafted him to do so. I get a mute sense of amusement from platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming, which hire streamers like it’s the NFL. People who watch sports but complain about their children watching gameplay videos now have something else in common with their target of criticism.
Ludwig Ahgren revealed this to the world in a video of him blowing up a purple car (as he always does) and then inviting Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, to his podcast, The Yard. Despite being the CEO of a massive corporation, Wojcicki has previously accepted such invitations. She’s collaborated on videos with well-known channels like Game Theory, Anthony Padilla, and MostlySane over the years. She sat down with Ludwig Ahgren to talk about dislikes being removed, the future of Shorts, and NFTs.
The removal of dislikes has sparked a lot of backlash (read: a lot of criticism), some of which I tend to agree with.
Whatever the case may be, Wojcicki appears to be adamant that this decision was made for the greater good of the community. However, this is also the person who didn’t expect Rewind 2018 to receive as many negative reviews as it did, so some self-reflection wouldn’t hurt.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever stated my feelings on the subject, but I dislike NFTs. It’s not because I don’t “understand” them. In general, blockchain is proving to be uncomfortably harmful to the environment, with the end-result of all that waste being a digital image that may be more effective as a form of money laundering than anything serious.
Susan Wojcicki, on the other hand, claims to own a few and is considering using them as a form of monetization on YouTube.
Finally, the Shorts creator program has come under fire for effectively diluting earnings to the point where the average creator earns very little. Wojcicki’s response is that a new scale-able version of the program will be announced soon, though she declined to provide any additional details.
