Hail and Welcome!
As last week I am fresh from a beach basking in Winters breezy breath and a hazy cloud that obscures the setting Sun behind-its creamy saffron scarf. I have been casting my customary spells for peace. Still very much on my mind this week as last.
My students are amazed and perplexed somewhat that I remember YouTube before advertising interrupted each piece of content whether you want it or not. That my first search engine was Ask Jeeves and not Google.
They are also completely nonchalant when it comes to their own personal data, their pictures, their choices in life that are now all, at the best interpretation, catalogued and mined for a third party company planning its marketing. Or at worst directly monitored by various State actors and agencies that may well not be bulwarks of freedom and free expression.
That vision of freedom of expression and sharing content has quickly become a commercial and political market of control. A model based on selling data. The costs (and thus potential profits) are either your user data handed over when you sign up for a “free” social media network or advertisers serving you their product whenever you visit a site or listen to a podcast. I notice many are in fact both! The latter is now impacting me the more. For very few of my podcasts now are free from some kind of advertising whereas they used to be.
Into this mix I find myself navigating with difficulty I admit. I personally gave up YouTube when the new advertising interrupted everything. So frustrating to be taken to the very heights of Mount Olympus on the wings of Faure’s piano nocturne being sublimely performed…to being suddenly, disconcertingly, broken into by an advert that was itself inordinately loud about the latest online war game! The beautiful moment destroyed. YouTube’s point and purposes destroyed along with that advert, for me.
Yet I have mostly always acknowledged that nothing is for free. As a child and a teen we had one, yes just one, commercial Television Station in the UK. It was, and still is, called ITV. It relied upon advertising for funding. The other choice was the BBC which relies on a license fee collected under law and with sanctions by the State and a pliant and grateful population that knows its place.
Thus into the Satellite age (late 80s-1990s) the UK market opened up under a diligent ‘watchdog’ which is British parlance for a regulatory body deriving its powers from Parliament. In the USA I think they are called Alphabet Agencies since the time of FDR. As a result advertising abounded!
Then the internet age arrived with its promise of a wild west full of freedom and aspiration and the idea that everyone would now become a local journalist or a commentator or content provider! Democracy in action! Democratisation of the means of communication. It has not lasted. Making money and taking control offer too big a reward and far too big a risk to all and any ideological, puritanical ideals, if left alone.
I also notice that slowly but surely the independent providers are now facing a reality: turn followers into paying subscribers or just take advertising or perhaps now join an established aggregated content provider. I have heard Triggernometry state just that case to their viewers and listeners and it is compelling. I like them a lot. I am tempted to add them to my notional spreadsheet spend.
Actually I used to like Lex Fridman’s attitude on this score for his podcast. He did a reading of adverts at the beginning of his conversations: all done in one go. The conversation that follows is uninterrupted.
I love Spiked for its written content and contributors and have become a “supporter” which entails a modest £60 p.a. This is a good choice for me. I feel very good about it!
I like Ben Shapiro’s commentary upon USA and so I have a subscription to the Daily Wire worth some £100 p.a. or so. If you dear readers look at Syre Byrd recommendations here on SubStack: you will see that most of them have a subscribers fee for ‘complete access’ as the euphemism goes. Though my recommendations for each stands. They are all good and worthy of some time.
I simply cannot subscribe to them all. So now, I have to be content to read incomplete articles. Or listen to podcasts with sales pitches about life insurances. Like the traditional newspapers that give you a paragraph before the subscription page appears. I have to decide exactly where I will spend the money that I want too (in my head) on the new Media that I desire. The BBC costs £170 p.a. I don’t have that BBC license by choice. I rejected their offerings years ago. Yet just two of my alternatives above…..have cost nearly as much.
I subscribe to the Gramophone Magazine. I subscribe to various history teaching sites to help in my work. In fact I am dreading actually sitting down and creating that spreadsheet. I think I will have to. It is time to examine what my priorities for news, views, entertainment are and the attendant costs? What do I actually use regularly? Is it value for money or just a luxury? I have just stopped my subscription to Medici TV on that basis. I love classical music and performances. Over the year I was not actually watching it. Just a luxury item with an occasion viewing. I simply listen to music still, first. Old fashioned guy!
None is free. Yet I need control as well! I suppose at the start of a new year is a good reminder to evaluate and prioritise. Spend what is necessary and save on those that have become superfluous.
This SubStack does not represent anyone in the public eye. It is not famous nor indeed infamous. I write what is on my mind in any given week. So do the contributors. I write the occasional poem in the Poesy Tab above and use the Note Tab above, rarely. I just want to talk to you really. Engage with you in these articles and blogs and poems. I would love to be a millionaire.
Yet trying to do this is, in itself for me at the moment, its own reward. Though I am grateful for your pledges. It is nice, never forget, to be appreciated.
So now, let me see how to use the Apple “Numbers” app and create some order I my financial life.
Have a Blessed Week everyone.
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