Comment by emn13
1 year ago
Was the market asking for tech review videos, or was the market asking for a platform that helps select, curate, and present content?
If this trend were merely about format, then websites that just host videos would be a viable model - they're not really. I think this is more about the power of platforms than of the format.
I'm sure the format _also_ helps, given how donation-dependent small-scale publishers are which works best if publishers are humanized, but I'd guess the more impactful matter is the way platforms can keep consumers onboard and help them discover new publishers than the format.
My experience is that for 95% of people under the age of 30, their media consumption is almost entirely video. That's simply the way it is, fortunately or unfortunately. And these tech review YouTube channels seems to do quite well for themselves, dramatically better than the equivalent text-only sites.
A large portion of people are genuinely or functionally illiterate. Like we're supposed to pitch general material at ~ a 5th or 6th grade reading level because that's the average. Half of people can't even do that. I have daily encounters with adults who work corporate jobs/own businesses who can't interpret compound sentences. I can't use conjunctions or sentences with multiple clauses, etc.
This is going to get worse: the elementary and middle school teachers/education professionals have been screaming at us that there's a major issue with reading in the upcoming generation due to a change in how many schools taught reading for several years that turned out to be a horrible idea. Add the pandemic on top of it (because losing a year of learning is a big deal at the elementary school level), and now we have a generation who can't read.
I think we're going back to having a literate class and a non-literate class, honestly. I can't see us putting in the time, money, and effort to fix the situation. Instead we'll just change formats (and probably have a bunch of middle men pop up that turn text into video with AI for the illiterate).
We're never going to see general purpose text again as a culture. Text will only be primary in certain audiences. (Lawyers, software people, librarians, etc.)
Can confirm, English teacher friends report that reading ability is dropping with each year and is now so bad they’re concerned about the survival of literate society, period. “Advanced” kids struggle with books that were considered normal for their age in the 80s or 90s. Compound sentences are exactly part of the problem these teachers have highlighted—the kids can’t keep enough context in their heads to track what’s going on through multiple clauses, even the simple sort that were common in writing for kids within the last 50 years.
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Well, one trend that seems to be going in the opposite direction is how many videos / shorts now have subtitles and text by default. So that will still presumably have an effect on literacy.
Even then, I think readers overestimate the amount of people that are/were actually reading serious literature. Even when literacy and books were at their peaks, most people were reading pulp novels and other low-end books.
So while I don't really disagree with you per se, I do think it's unnecessarily pessimistic, and it's a better approach to try and approach this new media format with fresh eyes and optimism.
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Maybe rebuses will come back in a big way.
OT: you are the same mezzie as mezzie was?
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