
Going sponsor-free – 3blue1brown - lisper
https://www.patreon.com/posts/19586800
======
Jagat
If you're reliant on ads, you tend to optimize your content to attract more
advertisers and eyeballs. If you're reliant on donations, you tend to optimize
your content to cater to the richer (or upper middle class) segment of society
with disposable income.

I'm pointing out the widespread belief among the techies that the second
option is inherently more noble than the first.

If I create content that caters to the local population of, say, Mombasa, am I
more likely to produce more if I rely on donations, or if I rely on google
displaying ads of Mombasa businesses? Would you, a techie in the USA/Western-
Europe with disposable income, even hear about my channel?

(edit: That said, I don't like brand promotion from the creator within the
video either since that introduces a huge bias. But I'm all for
algorithmically generated ads where the creator has little control)

~~~
jonreem
In your analysis you shouldn’t forget that advertisers don’t consider all
eyeballs equal either, and are willing to pay far more for ads shown to high
income users. The difference in effect might not be as large as you’re making
it out to be.

~~~
kjeetgill
Have you worked in advertising? It's nothing nearly so simplistic, but not so
complicated either.

It's not about capturing the highest income audience its capturing the largest
audience in the income demographic of your product.

Think something like (amount a customer will spend) * (% of demo willing to
spend at all) * (size of income demo). Naturally more people are less rich and
the first two terms are highly product dependent.

Stereotyping a bit, McDonalds isn't going to be making big inroads showing all
of their ads in opera houses and Lamborghini is not making any sales
advertising at Goodwill.

~~~
retsibsi
This still implies that higher-income eyeballs will be more valuable, doesn't
it? McDonald's might not value rich people so highly, but Lamborghini will be
willing to pay 10,000x more per customer gained. Of course the details could
confound this (supply and demand for each category of consumer, conversion
rates, etc.), but it seems like a reasonable default assumption.

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Rjevski
I fully agree with him. In-video ads should die.

I don’t really mind product placement as long as the brand matches the content
of the video (a gun channel promoting gun manufacturers is fine by me) but I’m
getting so tired when a totally unrelated video promotes some shitty pay-to-
win mobile games or forex/binary options exchanges/betting sites.

~~~
CraneWorm
all ads should just die

~~~
andrepd
Unironically this. For reasons which I won't bother expounding on unless
someone asks, I consider (all) advertising to be immoral. The world would be a
much better place if advertising was heavily regulated or banned.

~~~
tylerhou
Why is all advertising immoral? Markets with limited information flow become
inefficient. Advertisement just speeds up the flow of information?

For example, if I created a service to file taxes for free [0], what's wrong
if I advertise it so that more people can gain from it? Most people don't even
know that CalFile exists, for example.

[0]
[https://www.ftb.ca.gov/online/calFile/index.asp](https://www.ftb.ca.gov/online/calFile/index.asp)

~~~
majewsky
The internet was heralded as enabling practically unbounded information flow.
In my opinion, this removes the need for ads as information channel.

If you have a service to file taxes for free, and it really is good, shouldn't
it spread by mere word-of-mouth? Wikipedia never ran any ads, for instance.

~~~
tylerhou
Why does Google exist if there is practically unbounded information flow? Oh
right, because there is 1) so much information that we can't process it all
and 2) sometimes information just doesn't spread. If I host a website but
nobody links to it, does the information on my website ever get spread?

> If you have a service to file taxes for free, and it really is good,
> shouldn't it spread by mere word-of-mouth?

In an ideal world, yes. But my point was that _a service for filing CA state
taxes for free already exists, but most people still don 't know about it
because it's never advertised._

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Aardwolf
3blue1brown is awesome, some videos are extremely interesting and useful but
others are too specific imho, like, I love his videos explaining general
concepts about algebra, analytics, machine learning, quantum mechanics and
blockchain, but not really his videos about a particular obscure mathematical
problem, especially if the same obscure thing recurs multiple times (say,
something involving pi and lighthouses).

But glad to hear there won't be "b r i l l i a n t . o r g" (made hard to
copypaste on purpose since I've no interest in encouraging them due to
spamming too many of videos I watch) interruptions in the videos anymore

I think 3blue1brown's formula is amazing for laying the fundamentals of
advanced mathematics. But it's not needed for deep diving into specific
topics. And there are more than enough advanced core topics remaining to cover
instead.

~~~
thicknavyrain
That's really interesting. I found that I loved, similar to the occasional
video numberphile does, watching Grant explain how one might realistically
solve an interesting problem. A particular favourite is the one on the
Inscribed Square Problem, which, although introducing some elements of
topology, engages me more from the get go. He poses a problem and my curiosity
keeps me engaged until the very end, it feels a bit like a detective story, I
get the same satisfaction as some of the better Sherlock Holmes stories where
in the course of reading I think "Damn, I could have come to that conclusion
if I'd paid a bit more attention!".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmgkSdhK4K8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmgkSdhK4K8)

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stephengillie
These videos are excellent. They earned my "patreonage" a couple months ago.

~~~
ehsankia
I'm a huge fan and a patron too, but I'm curious. He doesn't show his monthly
earning but I see he has 5000 patrons. Even at the minimum 1$ tier, that would
still be 5000$ a month. While that's not "Youtube rich", I don't think that's
"small audience either. I assumed that he had enough backing to comfortably
make videos without having to worry about money or sponsors.

~~~
MarkMc
5000 patrons is good, but YouTube advertising is where the real money is
because (a) these math-type of videos have no expiry date; (b) Google are
getting better at monetising videos; (c) 3blue1brown is possibly the best
videos on the topic and not likely to be beaten by the competition.

In 10 years his 'Essence of Calculus' videos will probably earn more money per
month than now.

~~~
ehsankia
Sure, I'm sure he gets decent money from ads too. My point was that, I don't
see why he needs sponsors in the first place. My 5000$ estimate was a bare
bare minimum. Realistically, I would guess around $10k-$15k from Patreon and
another $5k from Youtube at least (he has 1M subscribers, which is the "Made
it" threshold).

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gmiller123456
I am usually amazed twice by 3B1B videos. First by the way he presents the
material, then by the fact that I've never seen it presented anything like the
way he did it. While I'm no mathematical scholar, I have read and re-read a
lot of "basic" linear algebra and calculus. Usually choosing a different
source every time I have to go back and re-read it. And I've never come across
anything that does as good as his series on those two subjects.

Granted, I'll still forget the material since I don't use it every day. But I
do believe it gave me a deeper insight, and will help me remember it longer.

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diminoten
It's always fascinating to watch the various thrashings about that creators
will do to try and protect something that's clearly special to them,
especially when those wild decisions end up being completely irrational.

This move is not rational. Ads do not behave like this article says they do,
and every draw or consequence of ads listed here are resistable or mitigatable
on his part, since he is the content creator.

People do crazy things for love, and this content creator clearly loves his
creation.

