His videos make enough to justify the expense risk ?.
I mean others wouldn't likely make money in projects like this. They do it because they need/want the actual tunnel. He really only the videos of him making one.
I don't believe these kind of projects are designed to be economical :). He is building this to drive traffic to his youtube channel, which in turns, pays for the next outlandish project.
I must be jaded to assume everyone posting videos on youtube is doing so for profit, but... judging by the amount of expensive professional equipment he has, I suspect he is doing this for profit, and not just "entertainment"
I'm not familiar enough with the topic to know if you're correct or not, but I don't watch his channel to see his project work out, seeing him learn small things along the way and share that journey but also him connecting with himself and the community around his land in unique ways through his project is intriguing and hopeful. A mad dream pushed forward by a mad man, which may not come to fruition, but it's a whole lot more entertaining than watching people take on small projects that are guaranteed to succeed.
He’s obviously saying that the views he gets from some video doesn’t always pull in the money it took to create that video which is mostly a point of how much he invests into zany sets, huge giveaways, and such.
I'm sure he is making a profit off it but whatever good is happening is still getting done. He could be a famous YouTuber by playing pranks or video games and make millions too - is that better?
I share an unsettled feeling about this. I think it is because things like this are a visceral reminder of differences between the rich and poor. A life altering struggle for a poor person is a solved by ten minutes of amusement from a rich person - "here, take my card and buy whatever you need."
But there is a way for the primitive technology channel to be monetized. For him to gain recognition, as opposed to him just building his wooden houses in isolation. Without anyone knowing. It is not as if he's unaware of people making millions off of youtube(or being famous, whatever), or the internet. We can't separate youtube no matter how "primitive" the action being filmed is. He may be doing it out of pure love, but if it was true love, why does he feel the need to film it? To help others? Why do any of us need to know how to do this, and how does a video help? He most likely got good at building a log house from building hundreds of shitty log houses from before.
And still there is nothing else that gets him close in reach and monetization. Even if only one out of ten videos is monetized that's most likely still better than anything else.
That's not the impression I got. To me it sounded like he was hoping to earn money from it. He said the same thing about his youtube channel, which also seemed very unlikely.
I'm glad he made some money on it. His mind will be blown when the 'long tail' kicks in (people buying this video 3 years from now, still). He mentions "This [$200,000] is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video."
Here is the part where this can go off the rails. So the long tail will hit, people will 'discover' him (maybe on his second or third video) and will download this one. There will be many copies out there in circulation. The temptation will be to think "Gee if people couldn't just get one of those copies out there already I would be making even more money!" Completely losing sight of the fact that the videos out there are an agent for discovery and 'tasting' which is bringing more people to his web site.
People sometimes go all green with greed when that happens. Money can do that to people sadly.
That being said, the really cool thing is it adds another 'success' story to Trent Raznor's Radiohead (I don't think they were ever this transparent with the numbers there but I may be wrong) and makes it harder to dismiss the successes as 'anomalous' rather than 'reasonable expectation'. It is the presence of success stories that will get more and more people to move this way.
I wish it wasn't like water eroding a rock though, progress will be rapid when the flood starts but for now it is just a trickle.
Yeah, but it’s strange to spinning it like “I don’t even make a profit on many of these but I still do it!”
That’s nothing special at all, he simply rediscovered the concept of “loss leader”. He not doing those videos despite their lack of profit, he’s doing the because they’re the reason he has profitable content to begin with. It would be like a shaving company saying “I know it seems crazy, but we lose so much money on these shaving handles, but we do it anyway!” Everyone knows what’s really going on there, what the business model really is.
Since this is now somewhat famous, LPL will get a lot of views for opening this. As long as he can make a video about it, he should be able to do it free and turn a tidy profit.
His videos make enough to justify the expense risk ?.
I mean others wouldn't likely make money in projects like this. They do it because they need/want the actual tunnel. He really only the videos of him making one.
reply