I regularly watch economically prosperous content on youtube that would have had zero chance of distribution 10 years ago.
The game is different and it's too early to tell if things are better now than before. We're seeing a lot of no-talent rich kids ("influencers") as they take over the commons. Facebook used to be a way that anyone, in theory, could gain social influence. Now, it seems to ratify one's lack of influence; if people (e.g., employers, literary agents) look you up on Twitter and see less than 5,000 followers, they assume they can get away with shit.
This being said, I think we are past the nadir. We're going from an age in which we had incompetent curators to one in which we don't know who the curators are. As they say about traditional vs. self-publishing, the problem for self-publishing is that there are no gatekeepers, and the problem with traditional publishing is that it has lousy gatekeepers (lousy because they care more about short-term marketability than literary merit). How this is all going to shake out is anybody's guess.
What concerns me is the amount of power tech companies now have. It's great that a talented nobody can become a Youtube star, at least now... but what happens if Youtube decides to change its algorithm to punish leftist content? How do we prevent spurious copyright strikes? How do people who are de-platformed for illegitimate reasons (this literally happened to me) seek justice? How do we make sure we're not just building another reputation market that rich people will corner? That's what the tech companies want, after all, for the sole reason that it's most profitable.
The game is different and it's too early to tell if things are better now than before. We're seeing a lot of no-talent rich kids ("influencers") as they take over the commons. Facebook used to be a way that anyone, in theory, could gain social influence. Now, it seems to ratify one's lack of influence; if people (e.g., employers, literary agents) look you up on Twitter and see less than 5,000 followers, they assume they can get away with shit.
This being said, I think we are past the nadir. We're going from an age in which we had incompetent curators to one in which we don't know who the curators are. As they say about traditional vs. self-publishing, the problem for self-publishing is that there are no gatekeepers, and the problem with traditional publishing is that it has lousy gatekeepers (lousy because they care more about short-term marketability than literary merit). How this is all going to shake out is anybody's guess.
What concerns me is the amount of power tech companies now have. It's great that a talented nobody can become a Youtube star, at least now... but what happens if Youtube decides to change its algorithm to punish leftist content? How do we prevent spurious copyright strikes? How do people who are de-platformed for illegitimate reasons (this literally happened to me) seek justice? How do we make sure we're not just building another reputation market that rich people will corner? That's what the tech companies want, after all, for the sole reason that it's most profitable.