The pivot to video

I very much enjoy writing. Writing on this blog everyday is never a chore, though as with anything in life there are good days and there are bad days. Sometimes the lines flow one right after another, and sometimes the words just can’t seem to materialize and form together cogently, but still I must solider through. The goal is consistency, a daily habit I shouldn’t skip unless there’s truly compelling reasons to (like being debilitatingly sick).

I don’t ever concern over the amount of views this website is getting, and I wouldn’t care if the number is zero. Not once have I clicked on the analytics tab on the Squarespace console; I write (and take pictures) for myself, and if there’s some of you out there that happens to enjoy the content I put out, that’s simply icing on the cake. This isn’t some hopeful launching pad to a freelance career, but rather a genuine gesture at putting myself out there to the (Internet) world.

Of course it’d be incredibly nice to get paid to write and do photography, but that is not that endgame here.

As an avid viewer of Youtube, I’ve been noticing more and more people doing the “pivot” to video. It’s assumed that no one like to read anymore (if periodical circulation is any indication), and vivid visual media is where the money’s at. The barrier to entry is certainly minimal; anyone can start a vlog channel with their smartphone or laptop. With enough hustle and charisma, money from Google AdSense will start rolling in massively.

And there’s plenty of people chasing those AdSense dollars. Within the automotive genre alone are seemingly hundreds of Youtube channels with a bloke, a car, and a camera putting out videos everyday. Due to sheer volume of output, the production value is not that great; the content can be best described as disposable. You can tell their ultimate goal is monetization because in every video they’d pander the audience to click ‘thumbs up’ and subscribe.

Not everyone is like that obviously. Some truly do it for the art and passion, where view counts don’t matter at all. A particular automotive channel I highly respect is SavageGeese.

Far be it for me to criticize people for thinking only in dollars and cents; it doesn’t interest me how another person choose to make a living, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my business, or harm society. When the time comes for me to produce video content, the ethos will be the same as my writing and photography: for the enjoyment of creating art, and sharing a piece of myself with the world.

And yet the floor still sparkles.

Disney launching it's own streaming service

Disney has announced that it will soon pull its library of films off Netflix and will start it’s own streaming service, ostensibly with a monthly free just like every other provider out there. 

It never occurred to me until I read the news, but it’s kind of amazing that Disney, the media juggernaut with vast amount of IPs from its own production house, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and ESPN, doesn’t yet have its own online streaming platform. I've no doubts whatsoever the service Disney plans to put out would be a tremendous success. Wouldn’t you sign up if the only place to stream Pixar or MCU movies was on Disney’s own online property? ESPN’s entire 30 for 30 documentary collection?

Here’s the problem: it’s starting to get to be too many streaming platforms, compounded by the fact they all respectively have in-house original content. Therefore if you’re a TV and movie buff and want to stream a great majority of it, you’re looking at a potential monthly outlay similar to having a cable subscription, at which point isn’t the endgame of ‘cutting the cord’ completely lost? 

Of course, some tech-bro in the Bay Area will create an app that aggregates all the services together and sell it in an omnibus package priced from $70-$100. It’ll be christened as innovation while the Twitter hoard will lambast it for being a logically circular facsimile of the age old cable tv package. It’ll be like that whole ride-sharing app ‘bus’ episode a few months back all over again. 

As the online streaming fracture continues on, those of us without the financial means to subscribe to say more than two services at a time, the selecting process will be met with more scrutiny. With that I predict comes the battle for exclusives: ‘only on Neflix’ or ‘only on Hulu’ slogan in adverts will be a common thing. Console gaming has been like that for years: I’ve got a Playstation and not an XBOX because I value playing Gran Turismo, which is a Sony exclusive. 

It’ll be interesting to see how Neflix plans to fill that gaping void Disney will vacate in its library.