I Googled a bit (I'm not a consumer of these types of YouTube videos) and apparently this guy is pretty rich by now. He identified a path to wealth that clearly works and exploited it well, so he is definitely smart. Well deserved from that point of view.
However, it makes me sad that we as a society even let what he does (a zero-net as many pointed out) be a path to wealth on the first place. The fact that we reward so much something that is so void of value is our fault and IMHO what needs to be corrected somehow. It's sad to think we throw so much money at people covered by ketchup, but many PhD's barely make any money and we cannot figure out how to make open-source sustainable.
If our reward schemes were more aligned with actually providing value to society, this guy might have applied his intelligence and amassed his wealth doing something more worthwhile for everybody.
Mr Beasts YouTube videos make significant amounts of ad revenue. Some of that money goes to YouTube. But there is nothing wrong with having most of that money go to the creator of the videos.
You can apply this logic to other forms of entertainment too. You can say LeBron James or Michael Jordan just play basketball. But their basketball games generated enormous ad revenue. Shouldn’t a sizable chunk of that go to them and other NBA players that play the game?
Same logic for late night show comedians, all other big entertainment YouTube channels, tv stars, movie stars, movie directors, podcasters like Joe Rogan and so on.
All of these have a thing in common. They release content in some media like traditional tv or newer media like YouTube and they are primarily supported by advertising in their content and through merchandise sales.
I think it’s actually more moral for these people to be making lots of money than otherwise. Because otherwise the money generated by their content just goes to YouTube executives or tv executives or Spotify executives or some other corporate big wigs.
If ANY entertainment makes a ton of money shouldn’t the money go to the ones who create it?
In tv and movies, the Writer’s Guild and the Directors Guild routinely go on strikes for this issue.
Also I think it’s great George Lucas made billions of dollars on Star Wars. Many adults in the 1970’s thought Star Wars was junk for the mind…
However, it makes me sad that we as a society even let what he does (a zero-net as many pointed out) be a path to wealth on the first place. The fact that we reward so much something that is so void of value is our fault and IMHO what needs to be corrected somehow. It's sad to think we throw so much money at people covered by ketchup, but many PhD's barely make any money and we cannot figure out how to make open-source sustainable.
If our reward schemes were more aligned with actually providing value to society, this guy might have applied his intelligence and amassed his wealth doing something more worthwhile for everybody.