A few years ago YouTube (of course others joined in and followed but I think YouTube was a leading force here) established the term “content”. It was no longer about the actual qualities of the medium, not about videos or music or stories or essays etc. Everything one made was just content.This was an interesting development that underlined how strong our culture is already shaped by technological terminology: “Content” is an absolute abstraction, shedding everything specific about the objects it references. All meaning (and everything that goes beyond the most literal output, the most simplistic view on a created artifact) is stripped. No longer are people writers or filmmakers or musicians or whatever: They are “content creators”. Lumped together in spite of having radically different processes, subcultures, communities, values, traditions, etc.
He lost me near the end where he said every human being has a right to food, shelter, health care, etc. From whom are these resources procured and do they have any rights? What gives anyone the right to compel me to work for them? What right do I have to enjoy the fruits of my labor and why is anybody entitled to take them? And who decides? Where does compulsory compassion end and slavery begin? Why are these questions never even brought up?
He lost me near the end where he said every human being has a right to food, shelter, health care, etc. From whom are these resources procured and do they have any rights? What gives anyone the right to compel me to work for them? What right do I have to enjoy the fruits of my labor and why is anybody entitled to take them? And who decides? Where does compulsory compassion end and slavery begin? Why are these questions never even brought up?
From the viewpoint of YouTube and other video hosts, nothing matters except getting viewers to watch ads.
They don’t care if they’re watching music, how-to lectures, they only care that as a byproduct that people see ads.
Read later.