Hank Green

So there's like a business model problem there.

And then the other is like the attention competition world.

And we want to compete in that space, but there's different areas of that.

And so we would like people to be using our content because they know that it's good in addition to it being something that grabs your attention.

And thus, we don't have to be like, you know, what if the aliens made the pyramids and then use that as the leverage into teaching you about Egypt?

No, that's not the world we want to be existing in.

Let me ask you about that, kind of all together.

Every time you've come on the show, you and I have talked about how to make money in media and how to support good work in media.

That's been a real theme of our conversations, regardless of who is interviewing who, which again, you're the only guest where it has been the other way around.

I look at YouTube and I hear you say you can't make educational content here at the quality you need to for the classroom and certainly not without doing brand deals.

To me, this just feels like the biggest indictment of this platform possible.

Here's one of the richest companies in the world.

They're going to spend another trillion dollars on data centers to build AI systems.

They have so much money.

Some of those are my dollars.

Right?

They have so much money and they've extracted it all from advertising, from other creators.

I tell this joke all the time that every YouTuber gets their wings and realizes that they run a business when they get demonetized for the first time or they make the video about how mad they are at YouTube.

Have you ever had a conversation with a YouTuber where you're like, hey, you should at least pay more per view for the good educational content?

Or has it always just been, look, you're just like everyone else regardless of what business you want to be in?