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Aug. 29, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
10:52
My Options： An Update
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Hey everyone, right, so I have to think about what is happening.
It directly affects me.
I don't really like talking shop because I don't want people to think that I'm concerned more about money than I am about what I'm doing.
I'm more way more interested in the work I'm doing.
But unfortunately, given the changes that are underway and the risks that I'm running by doing what I'm doing, I have to think about these things.
And the last thing I want to do is just throw something at you without giving you any warning on what I'm doing.
Because I'm genuinely interested in what my audience thinks.
And I genuinely think that your opinions matter, which is why I read my comments.
And so I'm at a position where I need to start thinking outside of the box.
But I don't want to compromise the ethical standard to which I have run my channel.
So I've been thinking about ways of improving things on my end without trying to extract anything from you.
I think the most obvious thing is the t-shirt sales, which have been very good actually.
And I will be doing another batch of those.
I've also got in contact with the chap who won third place to send him his money, which isn't a problem, obviously.
But t-shirt sales aren't really something I can do forever.
They're a temporary measure, as far as I can see.
And I think that there are probably other ways of doing this that are beneficial to both parties.
Not just because you get a show, obviously.
The first thing I was thinking is as an affiliate link with audible.co.uk, I actually do have an Audible account.
So it's not a company that I would have a problem operating with.
And I think that if I'm going to be doing book reviews, which I do, I can make these slightly more regular, maybe say once a month.
And I could put an affiliate link to the book.
So if the book sounded interesting from my review of it or my analysis of it, then you could go and pick up a copy on Audible if that was the sort of thing you like.
this wouldn't cost you any more money, and I would make a small percentage on each sale, which would make me some money.
So I would be doing work that you would benefit from, and you purchasing the book for yourself would help me out financially.
This seems like a completely ethical way to do things.
One thing I won't be doing is sponsored videos.
I've never done any sponsored videos and I will never be doing any in the future.
I just don't want to be paid to make content like that.
I just don't, I, it's not even necessary.
It's unethical if you're disclosing it, but it's just not a pool I wish to dabble my toes into.
No matter how minimal you make it, you end up getting wet.
And so I don't want to involve myself with that.
I like being independent.
I don't want to give anyone any kind of control over me like that.
And I don't think that an Amazon affiliate link would, an Audible affiliate link would.
I don't really have an Amazon wish list or anything.
I don't really want to get one of those.
I'd just like to take a moment to thank everyone who supports me on Patreon, by the way.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
I was trying to set up a Patreon live stream the other day, but apparently it's still in beta and for some reason didn't work.
But it's something I'll continue to work on so my patrons can talk to me.
Although I do try not to use Patreon for communication.
I try to reply to people just regularly, wherever, because I don't want the fact that someone denies money to me to be the reason I speak to them.
It's not...
I'm not comfortable with that.
I don't want...
Want people to feel that there's a financial barrier to talking to me.
There isn't.
I try to talk to anyone regardless.
Another thing that I've been doing is live streams with super chats and people who donate, thank you.
I honestly cannot tell you how much that helps because a lot of my videos are now in the yellow state where they're not approved for all advertisers, which means that a lot of the time they don't get adverts, which means my ad revenue has just dropped off.
It's no longer the majority of my earnings by a long way.
So, which is disturbing.
And when this all started first going down, I didn't think it was going to get like this.
I mean, this is a lot worse than you'd expect.
And I think that contractually with Google, I'm not allowed to show you these things.
So I can't, obviously.
And I'm sure that you're aware that I may have trouble ahead.
So, yeah, I need to start thinking seriously about how I make money if only to keep my family in this house.
So, yeah, I'm all for ideas.
The other one was setting up live events, which is actually something I'm quite interested in.
As long as you guys understand, it's just going to be me talking shit like I usually do.
It's not going to be anything spectacular.
It'll just be me talking about things I've found and want to talk about.
I'm not a performer, or at least I never thought of myself as one.
But I'd be more than happy to set things up, and we can just talk about stuff.
And I'm sure I could have questions from the audience and meet and greets and stuff like that.
I have no problem at all with any of that.
What I need is some kind of agent who can set all of this up because I have no experience dealing with any of these people or how to arrange this in any way, shape, or form.
I don't know how to set it up.
But if an agent wishes to get in contact with me via my Gmail account, which is sagon of a cad100 at gmail.com, then that would be wonderful.
You know, I'm sure that whatever we can discuss terms and however it wants to be done, I'm more than happy to do these things.
In fact, the live shows sound like a lot of fun.
They sound like be quite high energy.
And I do quite like the sound of it.
And I have some other things in the work, but they're long-term plans.
I need to think more immediately.
So let me know what you think.
Because I do love what I do, and I put a lot of work into it.
And I think that what I'm suggesting is the most ethical and reciprocal methods of keeping my channel funded and providing you with content that's worthwhile.
Because I don't really want to think about this.
I don't want to spend my time worrying about this sort of thing.
Say, I'm terrible at bureaucracy and administration.
I am absolutely awful.
As anyone who's ever tried to organize anything with me can attest.
Because I like thinking about the actual material that I'm working on.
That's more important.
I like spending my brain power on that rather than spending on dates and figures and money.
It's just not something that drives me.
But like I said, I have to be realistic and pragmatic.
So, yeah, please do give me your opinions.
And let me know what you think.
And if you've got any ideas of what I could do or anything like that, please let me know because I do have some stormy seas ahead and I want to navigate them without simply panhandling, which I'm not going to be.
I'm not going to lie, it may end up coming to that.
I don't want to pretend that this is just something that won't end up happening.
I don't like it, but holy shit, I've never been sued for $150,000 before, and I certainly don't have $150,000 just laying around.
But I figure that I'd rather try and make some money legitimately and offer something that people might want to pay for.
And I think doing the affiliate links and live shows is a much better way of trying to raise money because I don't like taking things I don't feel like I've worked for.
You know, I do a lot of work.
I work all the time, in fact.
And it's the sort of thing that pisses off my wife that I work so much.
But I keep telling her, look, there's nothing but my work keeping us afloat.
And so I feel the need to work a lot.
But I like my work.
I like it a lot.
And I like speaking to everyone.
And I like being able to do what I do.
I want to continue doing what I do.
And I don't, I mean, I'm not going to just shut down my channel or anything like that.
It's, you know, I'm not going to give up the fight.
And this is something that annoys me in many regards when people say, well, we should just abandon this and go somewhere else.
Well, if we abandon it, then we're conceding that they win.
And that means basically in their minds, they're going to think they're right.
I don't think they're right.
I think that we should continue the struggle, regardless of how difficult it gets and regardless of how much they try to demonetize us, which they will continue to do, until the bitter end.
I mean, we seem to have a very large engaged community in the sort of alternative mere immediate skeptosphere.
I don't see why we can't fight back.
I don't see why we can't maintain ourselves even without this institutional power.
And I think that eventually things will change as long as we are persistent.
If we give up the ghost, there's no pressure to make things change.
But if we continue on like we are, I think we can change this.
And in the meantime, the people who are making the media have to continue making the media and the people who are enjoying it, please continue to enjoy it.
But we have to be realistic about our immediate financial situations.
And I'm sorry it's come to this.
I really am.
I never thought.
I mean, I didn't think Google was going to start clamping down like they are.
But apparently they are.
So it's definitely something we need to be aware of and we need to plan for.
I will do another match of t-shirts soon.
I will keep you all updated if anything changes.
And thanks for watching.
And hopefully we can weather this.
Hopefully we can do something about all of this.
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