Nilay Patel talking with Hank Green on Decoder podcast:
The way I think about it is that I don’t have anyone else’s algorithm to think about. And that is really important to me.
But, then, I look at all of the most important creators, and the most influential members of the new media, and what they are, is so successful that they have transcended algorithms on other peoples’ platforms.
So, I’ll just point to Marques Brownlee, who I think is an amazing reviewer and great tech YouTuber. He has transcended the YouTube algorithm.
And that has afforded him a kind of success that I think a lot of people are, frankly, jealous of. Sometimes, I’m jealous of it.
But, I never think about YouTube. And I am very happy with never really thinking about YouTube in that way.
I think there’s a tension there, where that’s what a website affords you — if you can build an audience for the website. But, building an audience for a website is almost impossible.*
Later, at minute 11:08:
Nilay:
Like, it’s you trying to entertain yourself, and trying to entertain just a handful of other people, you’re gonna go really— much farther then trying to satisfy the robot.
Hank:
It does feel like there was a time, like, when blog posts were first a thing when it was very sort of, like, ‘I have a blog. This is me. And I have this relationship with my audience.’
And there was a lot of, like, you know— there was snark, and there was creativity. I see this tossed in with stuff at The Verge, today, that— that influence still sort of, like, comes through.
It feels like — and, like, I struggle with this as a YouTuber and, you know, like, this sort of transcendent— transcending the algorithm kind of thing — it feels like that the way to do that is to have a community.
Not just, like, numbers. Not just views. Not just impressions but, like, humans who you have a relationship with, somehow.
How do you imagine those people?
Nilay:
Let me answer that question in two different ways.
You’re touching on something that we talk about a lot — people might have heard Casey Newton get at this the last time he was on the show:
It’s pretty easy to get traffic in the world.
You can go on TikTok today and get some traffic, and get some views.
It is really hard to build an audience. And I think a lot of the destruction we see in the media community right now is: No one built an audience.
They try to get traffic, and then they try to sell that traffic. And they assume the traffic would last forever.
The platforms have no incentives to let you keep having traffic forever.
And they absolutely do not have incentive for you to have so much audience that you get leverage over the platform, such that they might have to pay you a higher rate.
Great interview of the characteristically cogent Nilay, highlighting an observation that, sadly, few creators have yet to make:
- It’s against the business interests of the platform you’ve been uploading on to let your reach and audience growth go unchecked.
Giving so much of your life to platforms you don’t own simply doesn’t make financial sense.
It’s time you owned your influence.
— Tang
*Btw, I’d argue that building an audience for a website is infinitely easier for creators who already have the attention of a large, parasocially-bonded YouTube fanbase than it would be for any journalist whose main social audience was on Twitter.
Nilay Patel’s owned platform is The Verge.
Hank Green’s owned platforms include: Crash Course, Complexly, Nerdfighteria, and HankGreen.com.
