Yes, successful streamers are literally one in a million, if that’s even enough.

There are basically two approaches:

• Social media agencies that manage company accounts on behalf of their clients and have their employees produce content for them.
• Agencies that operate their own accounts, which are financed through product placement, e-commerce (mostly dropshipping), or affiliate marketing.

Typically, these companies pursue both approaches simultaneously.

What they offer the actual content producers, i.e., the (sometimes even pseudo-self-employed) employees, is the following:

• A salary or at least project-based remuneration
• A network of contacts to advertising customers and thus lucrative sources of revenue that are pretty much unattainable for individuals without significant reach (they have sales people to protect those contracts from the people that do the content of course - usually these people are called account managers or something tacky along those lines)
• A network of contacts to other “influencers” in order to gain subscribers, etc. through strategic cooperation
• Know-how on how to build up accounts
• Professional equipment (cameras, dongles, drones, video editing applications and so on) as well as social media marketing tools for reporting, planning, and automation, which are not exactly cheap
• In some cases, substantial advertising budgets for ads to promote new accounts (performance marketing) and, in the case of campaigns for external clients, “seals of approval” from meta and other Plattforms (meta, Google or TikTok “Business Partner” for example — these seals are exclusively issued to companies who spend a significant amount on ads on the respective platform)
• Opportunities to collaborate with other employees of the company, which can also create network effects.

There are certainly other advantages, but the key point is the contact with advertising customers, i.e., companies that want to engage in social media marketing. These contacts are only accessible to private individuals if they already have one or multiple successful accounts, which unfortunately only very few of those aspiring to a professional career in this field ever achieve.

Exactly, it’s the American dream that has always been propagated to conceal the true circumstances and thus ensure that everything stays the same.

Sometimes I get the impression that social media fame is continuing the narrative of the American dream worldwide: strangely enough, many people assume that it happens regularly that someone steps out of their parent’s bedroom, records a few videos, and overnight, without much effort, becomes a multimillionaire – just like that.

This is the absolute exception and has hardly happened at all for a long time. Online, it’s long been like the real world economy: without the support of powerful players, it’s basically impossible for anyone to become successful. It’s a tough business with an endless number of competing content producers, from whom influential financiers can choose the content and the faces to go with it and pocket the lion’s share.

And there is yet another misconception underlying the illusion of quick money: you only earn enough to live on once you have a certain reach – something very few people achieve. Most work hard for ridiculously low income, if they earn anything at all.

Consumers, on the other hand, persist in the attitude that the internet has taught them over the last twenty years: they expect high-quality content on a daily basis without having to pay anything for that. They assume that the producers of this content earn good money from it, but in the vast majority of cases - and if there is any money made in the first place - this is not true at all, because it is not the creative people who earn big, but those who exploit them.

Anyone who believes that content producers can finance themselves through voluntary donations is usually completely wrong — Wikipedia’s fundraising campaigns, in which only a tiny percentage of users contribute anything, are just one example of many, even though Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in many countries around the world.

Sonic 3: Ice Cap Zone Act 1

Then I fear that the US will soon become a dictatorship in all but name. I don’t see how this can be prevented. One thing is certain, however: in a repressive autocracy, there will be many more, much more tangible reasons to put up with everything the rulers do.

That’s all well and good, but it’ll take more than memes to finally get rid of this despot, US folks—why isn’t there any serious resistance?

You said that philanthropy is not misused to avoid taxes—that is definitely wrong, but if you want to believe it, please do.

You need to be more specific. I’m not going to waste my time refuting your statement because I can’t even begin to imagine how you came up with that.

But (classic) Google provides links that can be traced. LLMs do not do this consistently - and they are frequently hallucinating. Don’t you want to contribute anything to my core statement?

Theoretically, yes, just as poor content is still content - but that only applies until someone takes the time to engage with it.

I’m not saying that the internet isn’t a good thing. Everything you say is possible, desirable, and happens every day. But it comes at a price because people don’t know how to use it. Misinformation and hate are rampant because people see the internet (rightly so, given their informational independence - if they have any) as their primary source of information. However, things like quality journalism are no longer possible here because the business model no longer works at all. This means that there is no one left that does investigative journalism and that people have to inform themselves independently - which most just can’t and won’t do. The situation in the US is the logical result of that.

And as for Batman: I don’t even want to get started on Palantir and their Gotham project…

I don’t think you have any idea how bad it’s going to get in the future - Grok is already giving us a glimpse, but LLMs haven’t replaced search engines like Google yet (has AI already) - but it’s definitely heading in that direction. Then the answers will be given even more strongly and with far less transparency by those who control the LLMs - and they are all multi-billion companies, because only they can afford the necessary computing power.

Oh, companies will definitely provide content - much more than you could ever read, see, or hear (they already do provide more than you could ever comprehend using AI). And companies have done this in the past.

The difference, however, will be that it will be a sequence of existing content. The reason: AI companies claim that their LLMs would behave like humans - and that’s halfway understandable if you believe this narrative: Imagine a musician - it would be unrealistic to think that they have no influences - every musician will say that they have been inspired by Jimmy Hendrix, Kraftwerk or some other influential artist in their work. And yes, that’s what the narratives about neural networks are aiming for: machines learn just like humans: they take some input (training data) and make something extraordinary of it.

The thing is, though, most of it is just empty marketing. AI or rather LLMs are in fact not capable of producing new things the way humans can - not now, and as things stand, probably never. Nevertheless, the economy is adapting as if it were.

For everyone who actually creates content - musicians, scientists, writers, journalists, graphic designers, painters, even civil servants and many others - this means that in the future, they will no longer be able to make a living from their profession. Their valuable content can’t compete with AI because it is too expensive.

For employers, this may be absolute fulfillment - for everyone else, it means the end of the information age, because AI is not capable of producing anything new. And when there is noone able to make a living from their intellectual work, nothing of any worth new will be produced - just variants of thing that were already there.

Yes, that’s true, but AI, such as meta LLMs, definitely makes use of it—and not to expand human knowledge, but for profit and also for what you call attention-economy (they will and in fact already do base their propaganda machines on sites like Anna’s archive since they don’t have to pay a dime to train their LLMs from these (of course) very valuable sources)

I’ve seen this news story so many times – months ago. And considering the inhumanity of this administration, the blatant violations of the law it commits, the blatant racism, and how it tramples on constitutional democracy, I am constantly amazed that it seems to be this stirring up American sentiment. That’s probably how it is in the age of social media. Not reason but a sob story with a puppy dog is what it takes to reach people.

Edit just to be on the safe side: This does not only apply to the US, of course—it is the same worldwide.

I can’t say how the tax avoidance strategies of the super-rich work in practice, but in any case, their feigned philanthropy is a key part of it.

I assume that tax avoidance is also a factor.

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Wouldn’t Kinder Surprise me at all.