Eight years ago Lance Ulanoff had a problem. William
Shatner could not find him on Mastodon.
His distress is understandable, relatable even. Who wouldn’t want to
be found by Captain Kirk himself! The
From a content creation standpoint, it does kind of suck. There’s no ego about it. The system doesn’t carry your content to nearly as many eyes, even accounting for the reduced audience. Discovery and suggestion algorithms are extremely effective, and if I’m trying to get my stuff to reach as much of my audience as possible, I wouldn’t only be on Mastodon. I’m not just talking about mediocre content either - even extremely motivating stuff in the niche doesn’t generate even a small fraction of engagement as regular social media sites.
For some people, this is a benefit - it’s a poorly commodified system. For small content creators trying to build an audience and generate paid subscribers, it’s not enough. Most creators on Fediverse are contributing as a free or non-profit hobby.
I’m not talking about ads. Let’s say I’m a video essayist and I publish my essays on PeerTube. The recommendation algorithms aren’t going to show the free content I make to nearly as many people as if I put them on YouTube or Tiktok. And overall, that translates to fewer Patreon subscribers, FAR fewer.
That’s still an ad, you want money for a product you’re offering. The only difference is in your case there’s an extra step between impression and conversion.
I’m so sorry but you really need to reevaluate this because it categorizes like 80% of authentic internet content as ads. Is a graphic artist who works commission posting their art on social media an ad, if they’re doing it to hunt for commission? A streamer who posts their funniest clips on social media to get more paid subscribers? A game dev promo-ing features in their next game patch?
Self promotion is a form of advertising, doubly so if it’s done for the purpose of attracting revenue via some means. People can opt into it if they want via subscribing/following but it’s still advertising.
So yes most “authentic” content is just people advertising themselves. I would prefer not to see that unless I have opted into it.
From a content creation standpoint, it does kind of suck. There’s no ego about it. The system doesn’t carry your content to nearly as many eyes, even accounting for the reduced audience. Discovery and suggestion algorithms are extremely effective, and if I’m trying to get my stuff to reach as much of my audience as possible, I wouldn’t only be on Mastodon. I’m not just talking about mediocre content either - even extremely motivating stuff in the niche doesn’t generate even a small fraction of engagement as regular social media sites.
For some people, this is a benefit - it’s a poorly commodified system. For small content creators trying to build an audience and generate paid subscribers, it’s not enough. Most creators on Fediverse are contributing as a free or non-profit hobby.
I’d prefer for my social media to not be full of ads for “content”.
I’m not talking about ads. Let’s say I’m a video essayist and I publish my essays on PeerTube. The recommendation algorithms aren’t going to show the free content I make to nearly as many people as if I put them on YouTube or Tiktok. And overall, that translates to fewer Patreon subscribers, FAR fewer.
That’s still an ad, you want money for a product you’re offering. The only difference is in your case there’s an extra step between impression and conversion.
I’m so sorry but you really need to reevaluate this because it categorizes like 80% of authentic internet content as ads. Is a graphic artist who works commission posting their art on social media an ad, if they’re doing it to hunt for commission? A streamer who posts their funniest clips on social media to get more paid subscribers? A game dev promo-ing features in their next game patch?
Self promotion is a form of advertising, doubly so if it’s done for the purpose of attracting revenue via some means. People can opt into it if they want via subscribing/following but it’s still advertising.
So yes most “authentic” content is just people advertising themselves. I would prefer not to see that unless I have opted into it.