BLOCK THE BOTS!

Why Won’t YouTube Shut Down AI Training Today?

Author

Jim Louderback
September 09, 2024

FOR BEEHIIV:

Hi, I’m Jim Louderback and this is my weekly creator economy newsletter. If you’ve received it, then you are either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.

If the latter – and you want to subscribe, get it here!

This Week: This Week: YouTube’s Wishy Washy AI-Training “Response”, Kajabi’s amazing creator payout overshadowed by Only Fans and the Manager vs Founder debate the Creator Economy Needs to have NOW!

 

YouTube Working on AI Model Training Guidelines

The pressure is mounting on YouTube to do SOMETHING about AI companies training LLMS on creator’s videos. We SHOULD be able to opt out of training. YouTube’s response? Buried in the middle of its “Responsible AI Tools” post last week was a wishy-washy statement admitting that they recognize the problem (finally). We’re “developing new ways to give YouTube creators choice over how third parties might use their content on our platform.” Big Red went on, promising “more to share later this year.”

Hey YouTube. That’s not good enough. A simple and voluntary Opt-Out should be pretty easy to develop and implement. Every week wasted studying the problem results in more creator IP being ripped off, deconstructed and used to build training models. There’s no value in shutting the barn door after the videos have been tokenized. The time to act is NOW, not some nebulous point in the future. If you can continuously rebuild your platform to support 18 weekly football games, you ought to be able to create a simple opt-out too. Want to truly be “responsible”? Shut the darn barn door TODAY.

  • Related: There were some good developments in YouTube’s release, including new AI detection capabilities as part of Content ID and other new features.

Manager or Founder Mode for Creator Businesses?

Read the “Manager mode” vs. “Founder mode” essay that’s roiling Silicon Valley VCs and startups. It’s sort of a love letter to micro-management. Then think about applying it to creator businesses. MrBeast clearly runs on founder mode – to its ultimate detriment- and now seems to be pivoting to manager mode. But is that the right approach? Perhaps for the beast, perhaps right now (and arguably it should have happened a few years ago). But it begs the question: should creator-led companies stay in Founder Mode as long as possible? When should professional managers be brought? And when is too early? The creator economy needs to have this debate just as Silicon Valley is doing. Perhaps the “COO for creators” movement was misguided?

Instagram Continues to Lean in On Friends

Read any of the top creator economy newsletters this year and you’ll be overwhelmed by the torrent of new Instagram features. I first highlighted the impending tidal wave of features last November, counting 47 new features in 45 days and predicting 400 new features in a year. Looks like I was right. Lia Haberman has done yeoman’s work keeping up with all 400 (or so) - and this week puts it all into context, highlighting the three primary lanes of Instagram’s metamorphosis: Original, Shareable and Lo-Fi content. And as I laid out in July, it’s one leg of a broader differentiation in our three-legged platform stool, as YouTube leans into creators and content, Instagram focuses on friends and TikTok tries to sell you crap.

Kajabi Surpasses $8B Paid to Creators – But Only Fans paid out more:

With all the talk of peak courses, peak SAAS, peak this and that, one company has quietly delivered more revenue to creators than just about anyone else apart from YouTube (and OnlyFans). $2B in less than a year and $8B since they were founded 14 years ago. I still remember introducing Kajabi on-stage at Web Summit, a company that had quietly become a leader in creator commerce. Quiet no more. Congrats to the entire team there, not only is this a great company for creators, but it’s also a great company with an amazing team.

TikTok Gives Users More Control

In a rare kimono opening, TikTok now lets users tweak their FYP preferences by promoting or demoting different top-level topics. Via sliders found in the “content preferences” area, you can tweak what you want and what you don’t. The 12 relatively broad topics provide fascinating insight into the top level of TikTok’s topic graph, and even includes a short sentence helpfully describing each topic (eg “Pets: This type of content typically includes pet care tips and clips of people pets”). OK, maybe it’s not all that helpful.

Another new-to-me feature, TikTok rolled out a “STEM” feed back in 2023, also selectable in the Content Preferences area. I have more questions than answers here. Will we see new feeds specifically curated for each of these other 12 topics? And if I max out PETS and minimize the other 11 topics, will my STEM feed only include fluffy puppies solving quadratic equations? That would be so cool! I’ll report back.

SPONSOR: Creators do punch well above their weight! Nielsen reported that Whalar campaigns had a ROI of $2.41, surpassing all other media channels. More importantly, creators are efficient - while making up less than 1% of total media, they contribute 3x the impact. Check out the full Media Mix Model (MMM) study here to learn more about how creators are media investments.  

QUIBIS:

YOUTUBE

 

META

  • Want to create effective campaigns on Instagram? Yup, there’s a guide for that. HT to Lia Haberman for downloading it before it got pulled, presumably by Meta.

 

TIKTOK

 

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

 

CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

 

RESEARCH

  • New teen research from PreciseTV and Giraffe show that YouTube remains number one for teen consumption, and surprisingly Facebook is relevant as well – more than Instagram or Snap.

  • Tubular releases a detailed analysis of the state of social in 2024, including a rebounding interest in long-form video, business and finance are up-up-up. Plus, CaptainSparklez remains huge even after 14 years on YouTube – coming in at #10 in the gaming category.

 

BEAST WATCH

100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).

Like this free newsletter? Buy me a coffee and say thanks! Or let’s do a meetup in your town.

I've built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies - including Discovery and Paramount.

Subscribe for free to get this newsletter every Monday.

Let me know what you think – email me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.