Make more money back on the views via ads and sponsors.
Go back to step 1
Exponential profit!
EA can learn from this.
Imagine a Warm Fuzzy economy where the fuzzies themselves are sold and the profit funds the good
The EA castle is good actually
When picking between two equal goods, pick the one that’s more MEMEY
Content is outreach. Content is income
YouTube’s feedback popup is like RLHF. Mr Beast says because of this you can’t game the algo, just have to make good videos that people actually enjoy. Youtube has solved aligning human optimizers, enough that the top YouTuber got there by donating money and helping people.
Mr Beast plans to give all his money away. He eschews luxury in favor of degenerately investing it all.
Unlike FTX it does good now. With his own money.
Mr Beast is scope sensitive
Mr Beast has an international audience.
circle-of-concern of his content has grown to reflect that
The philanthropy is mostly cash transfers. In briefcases.
Isn’t this effective altruism? At least with a lowercase “e” Why isn’t EA talking about this? Should I edit up a real post on this?
As far as I know, Mr Beast is the first who tried this model. I wonder what happens when people notice that this model works, and suddenly he will have a lot of competition? Maybe Moloch will find a way to eat all the money. Like, maybe the most meme-y donations will turn out to be quite useless, but if you keep optimizing for usefulness you will lose the audience.
Other creators are trying videos like “I paid for my friend’s art supplies”. I think Mr. Beast currently has a moat as the person who’s willing to spend the most and therefore get the craziest videos. I hope do-nice-things becomes a content genre that displaces some of the stunts, pranks, reaction videos, mean takedowns etc. common on popular youtube.
People put up with the ads because they want to watch the video. They want to watch the video because it makes them feel warm and happy. Therefore, it is the warm fuzzies, the feeling of caring, love, and empathy, that pays for the philanthropy in the first place. You help the people in the video, ever so slightly, just by wanting them to be helped, and thus clicking the video to see them be helped. It’s altruism and wholesomeness at scale. If this eats 20% of the media economy, I will be glad.
The counterfactual is not that people donate more money or attention to a more effective cause. The counterfactual is people watching other media, or watching less and doing something else.
Yes, Make-a-Wish tier ineffectiveness “I helped this kid with cancer” might be just as compelling content as “1000 blind people see for the first time.” I don’t think that by default the altruism genre has a high impact. Mr Beast just happens to be nerdy and entrepreneurial in effective ways, so far.
I do think there’s an opportunity to shape this genre, contribute to it, and make it have a high impact.
Mr Beast’s philanthropic business model:
Donate money
Use the spectacle to record a banger video
Make more money back on the views via ads and sponsors.
Go back to step 1
Exponential profit!
EA can learn from this.
Imagine a Warm Fuzzy economy where the fuzzies themselves are sold and the profit funds the good
The EA castle is good actually
When picking between two equal goods, pick the one that’s more MEMEY
Content is outreach. Content is income
YouTube’s feedback popup is like RLHF. Mr Beast says because of this you can’t game the algo, just have to make good videos that people actually enjoy. Youtube has solved aligning human optimizers, enough that the top YouTuber got there by donating money and helping people.
Mr Beast plans to give all his money away. He eschews luxury in favor of degenerately investing it all.
Unlike FTX it does good now. With his own money.
Mr Beast is scope sensitive
Mr Beast has an international audience.
circle-of-concern of his content has grown to reflect that
The philanthropy is mostly cash transfers. In briefcases.
Isn’t this effective altruism? At least with a lowercase “e”
Why isn’t EA talking about this?
Should I edit up a real post on this?
As far as I know, Mr Beast is the first who tried this model. I wonder what happens when people notice that this model works, and suddenly he will have a lot of competition? Maybe Moloch will find a way to eat all the money. Like, maybe the most meme-y donations will turn out to be quite useless, but if you keep optimizing for usefulness you will lose the audience.
Other creators are trying videos like “I paid for my friend’s art supplies”. I think Mr. Beast currently has a moat as the person who’s willing to spend the most and therefore get the craziest videos.
I hope do-nice-things becomes a content genre that displaces some of the stunts, pranks, reaction videos, mean takedowns etc. common on popular youtube.
People put up with the ads because they want to watch the video. They want to watch the video because it makes them feel warm and happy. Therefore, it is the warm fuzzies, the feeling of caring, love, and empathy, that pays for the philanthropy in the first place. You help the people in the video, ever so slightly, just by wanting them to be helped, and thus clicking the video to see them be helped. It’s altruism and wholesomeness at scale. If this eats 20% of the media economy, I will be glad.
The counterfactual is not that people donate more money or attention to a more effective cause.
The counterfactual is people watching other media, or watching less and doing something else.
Yes, Make-a-Wish tier ineffectiveness “I helped this kid with cancer” might be just as compelling content as “1000 blind people see for the first time.” I don’t think that by default the altruism genre has a high impact. Mr Beast just happens to be nerdy and entrepreneurial in effective ways, so far.
I do think there’s an opportunity to shape this genre, contribute to it, and make it have a high impact.