Today I will put together a schedule for posting things to Substack on a slightly more organized basis. Am I going to post to YouTube at all? There are about 3,800 people who subscribe to my "channel" there. Not that many watch my videos. The top five in the last month have been:
1. My reaction to the "Neoslavery" video (278 views)
2. Lahontan and Kandiaronk (179, with an 8 minute average watch time)
3. Zettelkasten on Paper (127)
4. Notes on Memmi, Colonizers and Colonized (73)
5. Notes on 1981 Luhmann article (59)
Number ten was my video of my conversation with Scott Scheper, which got 45 views. The book club videos are getting a couple of dozen views. So it's a bit of effort without much return.
One possibility is that I might abandon YouTube and start putting my videos on Substack. This wouldn't really cost me anything. My monthly revenue from YouTube is averaging between $5 and $10. So I'm not really blowing up. The question is, is there something I'm not doing yet, or not doing well enough, that if I began my channel would blow up? Is it something I'd enjoy doing? Seems to me it would probably involve ginning up controversy. Not sure that's the best thing for my peace of mind. Will some of these viewers follow me to Substack? I'll notify them with a video, and we'll see.
Another question is, should I move some of these existing videos over to Substack? Part of that, I suspect, involves whether or not people on Substack will accept podcast and video? There seems to have been some pushback from a "purist" contingent who wish the platform would remain text-centric. One thing about having my videos on Substack, if they were in their own bucket, is that it might enhance my "platform" a bit. Most of the content would be behind the paywall, unless I can figure out a way to put different paywall dates on different folders.
I guess the decision is really pretty simple. YouTube doesn't really buy me anything, as far as I can tell. Substack videos may not either, but I should at least try. Then that's decided. I'll move my Book Club videos to Lifelong Learners and make a folder for them, and put my note-making videos in the folder that already exists for that. And I'll move my history content to MakingHistory. Then I'll start removing it from YouTube. I suppose an argument could be made that I ought to leave it up there. But then it's just an annuity for Google, which I don't much like.
Migrating from YouTube