We discussed the idea of Hollywood and broadcast media facing the inevitable demise a great deal. This is something that is very important for the world of Web 3.0.
While we are not garnering any attention on that front, what we are seeing is the media picking up on the idea of disruption. This is something that continues to grow albeit without covering the topics we delve into here.
One of the keys to all this is the fact that technology is going to keep advancing at a pace that makes Hollywood obsolete. It simply will not be able to withstand the onslaught of entities that will be present providing a similar product.
In fact, we may already be seeing that to a degree.
Web 2.0 Taking Out Hollywood
There was an article that appeared in Business Insider comparing Netflix and Google, specifically YouTube. It centered around the idea of these two companies vying to take down Hollywood.
The basis of the article was to make the point that Google stood a greater chance of this. Notice how the article did not present the argument as to why Hollywood was going to be crushed. While it did state that nothing is for certian, it laid out the reasons why YouTube is going to become one of the dominant media players.
By view time and advertising, YouTube is winning hands down. In time watched on the big screen, the metric that matters to big-brand advertisers, YouTube led view time for almost all of 2023, according to Nielsen’s Gauge. Its advantage wasn’t lost on Netflix cofounder and former CEO Reed Hastings, who’s namechecked YouTube as a threat to Netflix. And it’s done so without traditional Hollywood content.
This stems from the fact YouTube has a completely different model when it comes to content.
Many in media dismiss or overlook YouTube because it doesn’t look like a Hollywood player. YouTube funded original content for a while until it decided it would rather leave the content-making to creators and share the ad revenue with them. It paid out $70 billion this way over the past three years — but that money that went to the likes of MrBeast, not Martin Scorsese. Its TV business, YouTube TV, is a bundle of other people’s channels.
It goes on to add:
YouTube likes its model of funding creator content as it ensures a continual stream of hits, Brian Albert, Google’s managing director of US video deals and creative works, has said. “That’s a massive difference between the legacy studio-produced model where you hope you get enough hits to sustain viewerships,” he said.
This is a massive thorn in the side of the legacy studios. The sheer volume of video being uploaded to YouTube each day is astounding. This means that we are dealing with alot of minutes of content that people can view.
What is stated is true: few think of YouTube as a media company. They simply are a social media platform that focuses upon video.
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What also gets overlooked is that, in the United States, YouTube is the 4th largest pay-TV service with 8 million subscribers.
Web 3.0 Entering The Race
It is evident that both YouTube and Netflix are going to keep causing Hollywood a lot of pain. While Netflix does host content from the major studios, they also generate their own programming. This is being duplicated by the likes of Amazon.
At present, according to Gemini, there are more than 2 million channels that earn some type of income from on YouTube. Naturally, most of these are not huge money makers but it does show how the distribution model is changing.
One of my theories is that, as technology improves, the capabilities of many of these channels is going to explode. There will be a point where feature films are created by 20 somethings with generative AI on their laptops.
We saw a major Hollywood strike primarily over the use of AI by the studios. An agreement was reached by the two sides yet this is not going to preclude outsiders from implementing it.
YouTube content creators do not really care about Hollywood agreements. For that matter, neither do Web 3.0 participants.
When entering this phase of the discussion, we see a couple points:
- the barrier to get earning is a lot less
- equity in addition to income is available
Within an ecosystem such as Hive, we see the level of getting rewarded much lower than on the likes of X or YouTube. A simple upvote will carry some monetary value. This sets people ahead immediately.
Many talking about earning a living from being a content creator. The reality is most YouTube channels that are monetized tend not to be at that level. Small payouts are likely the norm.
Which brings up the second point: equity.
Those who are generating content on these types of platforms also can have stake. This can be either purchased or, in most instances, earned. As people are rewarded in stake, they grow their holdings, further incentivizing their desire for network growth.
This is not the case on YouTube or X.
It is also where I believe these platforms are going to struggle at some point in the future. Their business model simply cannot compete. While they can offer income, equity is off the table unless there is a massive restructuring, something the present shareholders of these entities are going to object to.
Disrupting The Disrupter
Disruption is in the air.
We are entering a new phase of the Internet. For now, many of the same players are leveraging their size and network effects to unseat existing companies. This will continue for a number of years.
In the meantime, Web 3.0 keeps building.
Here is where we see how things are likely to shake out. Web 3.0 is not going to disrupt what is presently in place in this sector. Instead, it will disrupt the ones who are now doing the disrupting.
The network-state is something that is going to be tough to compete with. Entertainment is simply one area of focus. Over time, it is likely some of these ecosystems will offer most of what people need, at least from their digital lives.
This is much bigger than Hollywood of the industry as a whole. It is an entire framework that will eventually take on countries.
Before that, it will be the likes of Google, an example of an entity that is already growing to eclipse nations, that Web 3.0 will be going after.