So today we're doing something a little bit different going for a hike I got to give my
shoulder a rest for a couple of weeks but I wanted to weigh in on something that's been
going on if you're in the cycling industry you may have lost your job you might know people
who have lost their jobs we've seen entire Brands shuttered race teams vanish it's been a heavy year
in cycling and in my world it's really interesting because also something's happening with YouTubers
I'm seeing creators that I've watched for the better part of a decade just up and quit and
so today I want to give you my perspective and tell you what's happening here on Burn
Peak even if you're a YouTube Creator that's not quitting what's going on right now is definitely
affecting you we've seen a lot of creators weigh in on this they all have different perspectives
and I've actually gotten private text messages from creators I know along the lines of I can't
do this anymore and something's going to have to change and really what's changed is the incentive
structure on YouTube so what the changing of the incentive structures is a tale as old as
YouTube actually a tale as old as media and it's not always Doom and Gloom there are always losers
and winners every time something changes I'll give you several examples back in 2015 when I
started YouTube everybody was cancelling their cable plans because there was so much media to
consume online and on streaming platforms and if you were on YouTube and you were making content
you were riding the wave up I definitely was but that's not the only thing that's happened over
the last decade there was the ad apocalypse if you remember the ad apocalypse people just
basically stopped getting paid if they were making content that was edgy at all they were
demonetizing people for all sorts of stuff and YouTube changed a lot as a result I rode that
wave up too I had familyfriendly content and I had a really large viewership and so channels
like mine were getting all you can eat premium advertising it was working out really good so
now there's another change taking place it's a little bit more difficult to articulate there are
winners and losers but this time it's a little bit different see YouTube as a platform has
matured and so nowadays it's absolutely normal to see a channel like mine with two editors a
Communications manager maybe somebody who works only on thumbnails I'm responsible for my own
well-being my family college tuition retirements and then I have a whole bunch of people who work
for me who rely on me for their livelihood as well and so we're all under pressure to adapt and
make this work and that's not a very good recipe for funny entertaining relaxed confident content
and so you have a Channel with huge overhead lose like 30% of their revenue overnight uh sometimes
the Creator wants to just stop the bleeding and shut the doors and go do something else with their
time so what's actually going on what's fueling this change well on any platform on the internet
there's a variety of factors that are weighted differently for that platform to choose what
content you want to watch let me start with an interesting example from a video I did a
couple of months back the fridge algorithm I'll just play it for you so let's say I come home
and I load my fridge up with all of these healthy and enriching Foods the ones that
I chose to buy but then I come back to find that the fridge algorithm has optimized my
selection might sound completely ridiculous but that is exactly what apps like Tik Tok
and Instagram do and yes YouTube does it a little bit as [Music] well these apps ask you for your
interest when you sign up they let you subscribe to people follow people and then as soon as you
start watching stuff and they see what you will watch if it served to you all those suggestions go
out the window and you know what I think it might be bad for you so the fridge algorithm that's one
way to look at it but then look at other media platforms like television HGTV will show you a
Home Remodeling show where you watch because at the end they're going to show you this room that
was completed and so you sit through three or four commercial breaks to get to that and they don't
really show you anything in between they could have condensed that into a 10-minute video easily
but they didn't because they want you to watch for as long as possible the parameter that is
weighted most heavily right now is watch time it used to be that you would like the video you would
engage in the comments maybe you would subscribe to the Creator there were a whole bunch of factors
that were waited to choose the video for you now watch time is up here and all those other
factors are down here and it's not just happening on YouTube it's across all platforms and a lot of
people would have you think that that's the best way to go I mean after all if you're willing to
sit there and watch it that's better right well that HGTV example I gave you obviously that's
not best for the user YouTube is happy to serve you a 40 minute discussion between two people and
maybe you get one little nugget of information from that and you feel accomplished but what
about a Kurzgesagt video that's 10 minutes long with densely packed information wouldn't you
rather watch that and then use the 20 minutes for something else I'm not saying saying that podcasts
or discussions are bad I consume a lot of them but I'm saying that maybe watch time shouldn't
be the only thing that they wait now truth be told YouTube has to adapt if this strategy
works better to keep users on the platform and serve them more ads somebody else will do it and
YouTube will cease to exist so we can't really hold it against YouTube we as YouTubers have to
adapt now there are a lot of creators that I watch that make really excellent engaging long content
40 minutes 90 minutes seems like there's nothing in between on YouTube anymore you either have the
shorts that are 90 seconds or videos that are 90 minutes and then you have the 10-minute videos
which is what my entire catalog consists of uh they just don't show up as much but they still
do so I don't know if this incentive structure is actually all that bad what was really burning out
creators is having to come up with something new every single week so working really hard
on longer content and posting a little bit less might not be such a bad thing but if we
spend a month making something and then it doesn't blow up and get lots of views well
that would be really bad and so we're adapting and we're not putting all our eggs in one basket
I'm actually kind of excited about the prospect of exploring some topics a little deeper making
videos a little longer going to more locations and kind of reducing the frequency of upload a
little bit it's going to take some time for us to develop a format but I think that's a possibility
but we're also doing some different kinds of content not just video some of you are already
aware of the burm Peak substack I'm about to start advertising to you so I want to disclose that we
started a substack page if you don't know what that is it's a lot like patreon but it's more of
a publishing platform and so we can post articles and videos and they come up really really nice
we're actually paying people in the mountain bike Community to write interesting articles
about things they're passionate about not what's in style not about products that are coming down
the pike but rather the things that are firing them up that they want to write about but not just
that we're also posting all my YouTube content burn Peak and burn Peak Express all in the same
place with no ads 2 weeks early sounds a lot like I'm pay Walling my content because I am very Bob
Ross anyway back to pay Walling my videos there are a lot of different ways that we can do that
they're not really paywalled professional Downhill Racing is now paywalled you have to pay to watch
it whereas it used to be free on Red Bull but by doing that they're putting less eyes on
professional downhill Racers and now companies have less reasons to sponsor them the content
on Burn Peak is all going out for free and now we have a different incentive structure the more
people that sign up for substack the less of a reason I have to even care about YouTube's
algorithm I can just make whatever I want and then put it out to YouTube for free after it's
been on substack for 2 weeks and so I don't want to pay wall anything I don't want to make it so
people can't watch it for free I just want to make sure that we have the right incentives in
place to make content we care about oh and actually the whole Downhill Racing pay wall
thing we have an article on my substack right now written by Aaron ly that goes into a little bit
more detail on that and so I'm done advertising to you about my substack but I thought it might
be something you want to know about and like I said it's really going to change change the
incentive structures and secure the future of this YouTube channel without radically changing
the content into something different and so when these social media platforms change the incentives
for creators they're also changing the way your brain works and I'm not just exaggerating think
of your brain as a path maker right let's say we go out into the woods and there's no path and we
keep taking the same route through some trees eventually little branches are going to break
the vegetation is going to stop growing there the leaves are going get packed down and we're going
to end up with a pathway that becomes easier and easier to take your brain actually works a little
bit like that if you keep doing the same thing that neural pathway if I'm saying it correctly
becomes easier and easier and it becomes a habit and so if you keep getting a dopamine Rush from
just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling or vegging out on the couch even though you know
you're better off going for a bike ride it's going to become easier and easier to do and then you're
going to keep doing doing it and then the cycle continues and so a part of me knows that these
changes actually result in people staying on these platforms for longer it's like they know
your brain better than you do but I just keep coming back to this incentive structure for
creators for viewers for everyone and I don't know if it's good but in some ways it can be
there are definitely creators that are riding this wave up there are people that make really
thoughtful engaging long videos that I find really entertaining and educ ational and I actually
consume a lot of them and those creators I want to see succeed another thing we've been doing
is taking older shorter videos and grouping them together into compilations we did this with the
Key West trip that Alex and I took we play them all back to back and add a little context and it
makes a big long video that the algorithm likes this is not a strategy that we can do long term
that's like what you do with Legacy content but it's helping ease the transition into something
different so I love hiking hiking is awesome but I can't wait till the shoulder stops hurting so
I can get back on my bike just wanted to fill you in today give you a little context about
what's going on and let you know that I am most definitely not quitting YouTube I wouldn't do it
unless I absolutely had to this is a dream job I get to create things and then it gets just
judged by completely impartial audience I mean people will just click off of it if they don't
like it and there's no better validation as a creative person than to have something you
made be consumed and enjoyed by next week things are going to look a lot more familiar here on my
YouTube channel going to be posting every week like I normally do but I hope this filled you
in on what is going on if you want to check out my substack I left a link below there are two videos
that you haven't seen yet up on there thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next
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