I'm the Chris Who Plays Games, and this is your CPG Rant of the evening.
You know how much you want to have a verified checkmark on YouTube?
How about Twitter?
How neat would it be to be a Twitch partner?
Or be one of the few indie titles on the Nintendo Switch in its first year?
All of those would be pretty cool, right?
You know what's the same between all of them?
They're all forms of artificial scarcity.
YouTube could give everyone the checkmark tomorrow.
So could Twitter.
Technically speaking, these items cost no money; and since they have (almost) no features
attached to them, they have almost no cost at all.
They're likely a single column in a single database somewhere.
One well-crafted SQL statement later, and you're on track to fame and fortune… except
not.
As The Incredibles taught us: "If everyone's special: No one is."
These items have value *because they are scarce*.
By intentionally limiting the number of people who have been granted these features, they
gain value: By being one of the 'lucky few', you gain prominence… and *how much* prominence
you gain correlates directly with the perceived scarcity or availability.
The more people who have a verified tickmark on Twitter, the less value it has, because
you're no longer special.
This is one of the biggest problems I've always had with people who demand a verified
tick on YouTube, or Twitter, while being smaller creators, or non-notable personalities on
the YouTube platform: it's the type of request that can only make sense *if you believe that
you are somehow special*.
Because if everyone with more than 10,000 subscribers on YouTube got the verified checkmark,
or everyone with more than 5000 followers on Twitter… you'd have millions.
And it applying to you would have no value.
This notion of artificial scarcity is hardly unique.
It applies across a broad spectrum of spaces.
Any place where you have humans doing manual selection, people attempt to game the system
-- to gain favor, to work around whatever criteria there are, to gain in a way that
is *outside the norms*.
(This is why on YouTube, you used to be able to 'purchase' a verification tickmark
for $50 -- users would use their access to the YouTube Partner Management System to request
a verification tickmark for you, working around the normal process.)
Artificial scarcity isn't by default a bad thing.
By applying human judgement to situations, it's possible to apply human judgement to
some thresholds.
But when there's an idea that these mechanisms are straightforward and egalitarian, it can
be misleading -- and can lead people to dangerous decision making.
"If I just get enough followers, I'll get the Twitter checkmark!"
Well, maybe… but don't expect "enough" to be "as many as other people who already
have it."
(Same for YouTube's checkmark, which demonstrably has channels which have 0 content or subscribers
who have the feature.)
This sense of artificial scarcity seems to be a major piece of the Twitch cult, as far
as I can tell.
"Partner" status is coveted, and not just on-platform; it carries over into the physical
world as well.
At PAX East, in their (relatively large) booth, something like 1/3rd of the total space was
dedicated to a space which was only available or accessible to partners.
The partner lounge had full time staff guarding the entrance, ensuring that none of the rabble
were allowed to enter the space.
Which means that Twitch was literally paying to keep others out of their booth.
Most of the time when I walked by, this 'partner lounge' was empty; like an airplane flying
with empty first class seats while every seat in coach is full.
Of course, not every aspect of Twitch partner status is artificial: Many of their partner
features are technical restrictions, where actual scarcity plays a role.
There's no guarantee of encoding for your content, many of the most exciting features
are not available; and of course, there's no opportunity for on-platform revenue generation
if you're not one of the chosen few.
(Ads, Twitch Bits, Subscriptions, and their integration into getting a cut if you sell
games are all attached to partner status.)
But there's still an artificial aspect which is encouraged as well.
And this approach seems to work.
People aspire to this level of greatness, despite the fact that only .7% of Twitch streamers
in 2016 were partnered.
In many cases, the same group of people who would have hung out at an early-stage Occupy
Wall Street rally and shouted "We are the 99%!" in asking for rights, will gladly
cheer for features only for the 1% of people will get on the website that they "bleed
purple" for.
It works.
And why?
Likely for the same reason that so many will vote for lower taxes for the rich while not
lowering them for the middle class -- even when they're in the middle class!
In the same way that every middle class family is a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire",
every aspiring streamer on Twitch is a temporarily embarrassed non-partner.
Everyone sees themselves as having the ability to grow into that role.
That if they tough it out, and do the work, they will be seen; they'll get partnership
status if they can just put in the hours, and everything will be great, because they'll
be among that upper class atmosphere.
It's likely not *true*, but it is what they think.
On YouTube, of course, there's a slightly more egalitarian approach.
While it is certainly the case that all platforms have some level of special treatment -- again,
look only to channels with zero subscribers and a verification tickmark for examples -- YouTube
has always taken the approach of attempting to maximize the ability for even the smallest
creator to be rewarded by the platform.
Monetization?
Enable it on day one.
Before you ever upload a video, you can be in a situation where you can make money from
it.
You're only going to have one popular piece of content ever?
No worries, you can still monetize it.
(This is exactly what I did with my one viral video -- which made me thousands of dollars.)
If you don't want to make money?
No problem.
If you're not making money, *YouTube doesn't run ads on your content*; unlike Twitch, where
they run the ads anyway, and pocket the cash (as far as I know).
There's no limits to features like higher bitrates; there's simple and relatively
low limits on things like Custom URLs at 100 subs (to prevent abuse) or Super Chat/Paid
Content (so that creators don't get tons of money stuck behind an AdSense payout wall
in nowheresville).
At various, now well-defined levels of a specific metric, you get access to more features -- for
example, access to YouTube creator event invites at 1000 subs, spaces at 10,000, and to a verification
tickmark at 100,000.
Heck, YouTube even started offering direct creator support to 10s of millions of channels
in June of last year -- every channel that monetizes has a direct, email based support
option.
Now, as I've said: YouTube wasn't always this egalitarian.
Over the past years, there's been a lot of normalization of the various requirements
-- with the "Opal, Bronze" etc. sub system; with open access to partner support.
It wasn't always consistent.
And there are still systems where "who you know" is important.
Getting your own YouTube Red Original Show doesn't happen based on the number of subs
you have. and don't even get me started on the sponsor button.
But it's a goal: "Broadcast Yourself" applies to *everyone*.
And to see artificial scarcity held up as an ideal; to see people aspire to a height
they'll never reach; get excited about features they will never have; instead of embracing
a more egalitarian platform where many of those features are available for everyone…
it hurts!
Not just for me (because we know I "bleed red" in the same way that many Twitch fans
"bleed purple"; alternatively, I'm a terrible corporate shill).
But I worry about all those people aspiring to a goal that they'll probably never reach.
Because they want to reach that coveted status, and they're most likely going to fail, by
sheer force of numbers.
The majority of people aren't in the top 1%.
Don't be fooled by artificial scarcity, or platforms that target the best only for
the top 1%.
Don't be lulled, thinking it's egalitarian, or fair, or right.
It's not.
It's not just based on success; it's not a level playing field.
Instead, when humans get involved in the decision-making process, it's something else entirely: It's
a judgement on what they want to do with the platform.
It's not about your success: It's about your success combined with someone else's
ideal.
And when you strive for that scarcity… you're playing right into the hands of those who
created it.
I'm the Chris Who Plays Games, this has been your CPG rant of the evening on Artificial
Scarcity.
You can check out some of my other rants on Twitch vs. YouTube Gaming, and other things
like that on my channel.
Thank you very much and have a good night!
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