Something I can't help but notice during our in-class discussions is how much we, as Stevens students, forget one very important fact. Most people aren't as tech-savvy as us. It's one of the reasons we came to Stevens - to be around people we could easily chat with about our technological interests without having to explain every little detail. The problem, however, is when we're talking to people who don't necessarily know everything we do. These are the people who don't religiously follow certain channels on YouTube, or don't post everything they do on Twitter or Instagram, or buy a physical album rather than buy it on iTunes (I still buy physical albums, so maybe it's not that archaic). These are the people who still get physical newspapers, and watch the evening news, rather than check the headlines online.
This thought comes up when I hear people talking about how "people need to secure their data better," or "people shouldn't use AdBlock." It can be easy for us to forget that to a lot of people, technology is still something of a mystery, left for the nerds to understand so that the general population doesn't have to. Words like "cloud" and "encryption" aren't everyday terms. Telling someone who just got their first smartphone that they need better security for their passwords is like telling a five-year old he needs to better plan his 401K.
But one thing that can be especially hard for the average person to understand is the currency of likes. That is, the idea that someone like Tyler Oakley could make a living based solely on getting people to listen to him talk about some product on YouTube, and then have that product's makers pay him. To these people, the idea that YouTube could be a community rather than just a service is absurd.
To someone like Tyler Oakley, having 5+ million subscribers seems like a lot, and it certainly seems to be to the companies sponsoring him. But Tyler Oakley is an outlier, with the kind of success many people on YouTube aspire to; however, very few even come close. This is due to the inherent flaw in this business model. Why should companies sponsor 100 people who each have 50,000 subscribers, when they can just sponsor one person with 5 million subscribers? The fact is, Tyler Oakley got there first, and in this kind of market, there really doesn't need to be more than a handful of people in it.
In fact, one might call someone like Tyler Oakley an "outlier's outlier," since he holds his position within a minority. He's one of a few that are popular within a comparatively small group, since outside of the YouTube community, hardly anyone in the average population will have any clue who he is. Companies that advertise with him know that their target audience is on YouTube, but other companies, such as W.B. Mason, wouldn't even dream of dropping money on someone like Tyler, since their target audience isn't on YouTube.
While it can be easy for people like Stevens students to assume that the world around us is exactly as it is everywhere else across America, that assumption doesn't make it so. Things like YouTube and personal security simply aren't as important to the average person as they are to us, which is why I can't help but feel our in-class discussions are always lacking. With a class full of tech-y people, maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a couple people who don't follow YouTube channels, or double-encrypt every password they use. It can be easy for us to assume that "the Currency of Likes" is the way of the future, but we need a reminder every once in awhile that we're the minority, and that the currency of the rest of the world isn't going anywhere for quite some time.
Here's what I know. #Russia is buying 100s of tons of #gold. China buying 1000s. Americans could care less. Someone's right, someone's wrong
— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) November 21, 2014
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