Recently cut Insta and Twitter out of my life and it has been a massive net positive.

However, a large part of my business revenue comes from the reach I get from posting videos to YouTube. I am forced to play that game because I want my audience to see my films. Content is no longer King on Youtube. I try and make the most 'clickable' titles and thumbnails I can, if this "baits" someone into watching one of my videos, i don't feel guilty, because they are a wrapper for the quality content i produce.

Lets be honest, there is no alternative to YouTube at the moment (Rumble is a joke, and ultimately the same model). If I left YouTube (which I would love to do) my revenue would drop by over 50%.......only a crazy person, or very wealthy person, would do this. I am neither of these things.

My goal is to transition 100% to value for value. But this is a slow process.

The fiat system has utterly warped how (digital) content is monetised. People still believe the fiat platforms are "free" and it's a tiny portion of people who understand the trade-offs and are willing to pay creators directly for the content we produce.

Nostr, zaps and donations from my audience are extremely exciting but it's NOT sustaining me right now. I really hope systems like this will help the world transition to a genuine 'value' metric, rather than an 'attention' metric. But I can't be a 'starving artist'. I have children and want to live a full and humble life.

Even on a bitcoin standard there will be marketing and advertising. I don't think there is a utopia with all of this. Like anything, it'll be about finding a balance, living in the messy middle, and being as open and authentic with people as possible.