I don’t know if capitalism will destroy hate, but I can hope that a weird dynamic that has sprung up within our version of capitalism that will force hate to die out – revenue. In previous posts I’ve railed against the new structure of using advertisements to build revenue for most technology companies. I hate these advertisements because I don’t think I should be subjected to a 15 second advertisement when I want to watch a 2 minute video… however, I am beginning to see an interesting twist. This culture has given the power for choosing web content to the companies that need to advertise – not the consumer (think, who pays the bills, that’s who chooses). But more on that, let’s focus on some assumptions I’ve made in the past. [click “Read More” to dive into the twisted world of revenue]
So in previous posts I’ve brushed against the process in which there is only a single option for an action (for example: YouTube to watch amatuer created content (and apparently professionally created content)). Now, it is going to be very difficult to create a company that can usurp YouTube as most people aren’t dissatisfied enough to try and find another website. Also, that other website will probably leverage YouTube’s model to make money from the content on their site – and do it poorly. As such, one company owns a huge sphere of our lives.
Back in the day, YouTube success was based on the content. We voted it up or down, we shared it, we create an entire event centered around the product – YouTube Parties became a thing in my life after ChromeCast appeared. Now, content providers, the people who create wacky videos and put time and effort into getting you to follow them, are generating their own revenue from each view you perform. Except, these are advertising revenues.
Advertising revenues come from a source, they are not spontaneously created from selling a product. It is from attempting to sell the product. Which means, the true revenue was generated at a different company from the sale of a product or service. The advertiser is only valued based on their ability to generate more sales. Which means, if you are going to affect the other company’s ability to sell more widgets, they aren’t going be paying you to sell their product.
This is the simple exchange that will happen. If I make zero money for my content, and it costs me money to create that content, am I going to keep creating that content? Obviously not… (ignore me in this scenario, I understand I am spending money and not making any to produce blog posts and run my website). So basically, content (in this day and age of advertising revenue funded content) will only exist as long as other companies gain additional sales from your content.
That’s the rub, if you are preaching hate, a company is going to end up with egg on its face. Chick-fil-a is a great example here because of their donation to discriminatory groups (they have corrected this). People backlashed so hard against the company that their leader (who believed certain things) routed the company’s policies and donated to the other side and ceased his donations to the discriminatory groups. But you are going to say: “But that is only half of the population, those who believed the same thing as him started buying Chick-fil-a more!”
I think you are wrong. I think certain people said they would buy more Chick-fil-a but didn’t. And I bet, when Chick-fil-a looked at their books, they saw a drastic decline in sales. Money is god in this country, and Chick-fil-a is a great example of that god exercising its control over humanity to right or exacerbate wrongs.
But back on track, why will Capitalism end hate? Well it all boils down to population and the ideology of the majority. If our ideology as a country was open racism, we wouldn’t give a shit if advertisements were on racist content. But, we apparently aren’t, because we have seen a huge reduction in advertising on certain content: alt-right news sources, YouTube videos full of men screaming about immigrants, Facebook videos. This isn’t something the companies that manage the content are controlling – the companies that advertise on these sites have said: Don’t put my advertisements on those fucking videos. So YouTube, stopped paying people who produced hateful videos, questionable content videos, and gruesome videos – but they did it because the corporations that pay the bills told them to (power is in the wielder of the check).
So, to bring it full circle, will Capitalism end hate? Maybe. There are other factors – one: those managing advertisements for major corporations have their own agendas (though I feel most are educated through anti-hate systems). However, with outrage comes change. Each time someone yells about a major corporation advertising on some content, that corporation will need to either double down or pull their advertisement. In the end, I foresee capitalism being a good force here… but if the major ideology ever shifted in the wind, capitalism could engorge the ideas that are currently being routed.