They say content is free, so it’s the best investment.
But while ten dollars can buy you Bitcoin or stock fractions, it doesn’t even cover a screen protector. If you are filming with your phone. That’s before scripting, recording, perhaps re-recording, and editing as best as you can so that the algorithm spits in your face.
Using my ten years of experience, we’ll deconstruct a notion gurus like to rub in your face:
“Investing is pointless for most people, while content is the best investment.”
Is it actually true, and does it apply to you?
DCA
If you have ever dabbled with investing, you know that there is a difference between low-friction growth and full-friction self-reinvention.
Take dollar-cost averaging (DCA). You can start DCA-ing in Bitcoin or the S&P with 10 bucks a week. You commit and automate it once. And you never touch it again. Said differently, you set it and forget it.
No further decision-making or action is required. Over time, your investments compound and start working for you, generating revenue.
Remember, we’re speaking about investing, not trading, which, conversely, takes plenty of time, skills, knowledge, and hides risks.
Content
With content, and I mean quality long-form video, you need a substantial amount just to get started. If you don’t have a background in videography, you need pretty extensive research to get the best bang for your buck. Quite an investment. Isn’t it?
When that’s done, you have to learn how to use your gear at least semi-decently. And if you are a foreign creator, you have to learn to articulate yourself in English if you want to speak to the world.
Then comes going in front of the camera, which may turn out to be one of the most energy-draining and stressful things you’ve done. No, it’s not difficult per se, you just press record (ThinkMedia’s words), right?
The Confidence Illusion
So, you do it just to find out what this actually means. The challenge is not in confidence or being or not being yourself. You simply have to navigate simultaneously:
- A teleprompter,
- A mic and audio interface and software, or a mic and a sound recorder.
- The limitations of your room, which you have to optimize.
- Camera and autofocus with proper settings.
- Many other tiny details and peculiarities, your viewers will never know about, and the algorithm won’t care about.
All, while looking precisely in the lens, which you technically don’t see because of the teleprompter.
You shift your gaze a notch, and your viewers start feeling you are not really speaking to them. Maybe to the person next to them. Forget one of the mentioned, and you have to re-record. And while not every week, gear updates stay somewhat consistent throughout the year, preceded by nerve-wracking dilemmas to get the most out of your money.
Because, unlike those telling you content is the best investment, you are not sponsored by Sony, Canon, Rode, or whatever, and maybe pay higher taxes to get the solutions you need, if you are not based in the US, UK, or Canada.
Decentralization
With investing, you can buy fractions of currencies regardless of where you are. There might be taxes and alternative index-mimicking funds. You can also use decentralized exchanges and have a real ‘decentralized’ experience, at least financially. So location doesn’t matter. At least, not that much
With content, especially video, algorithms predetermine the fate of your work. And things like globalization and decentralization really don’t fly.
Content is first tested locally; if it engages the locals, the reach is expanded. If it doesn’t, it gets killed prematurely. No, it’s not the locals. It’s Big Tech.
Good luck improving your thinking and eloquence in English, to share the depths of your soul with the world. Good luck with your creamy Log footage to convey your sense of aesthetics and taste.
Algorithms only care about Gestalt principles like proximity and figure-ground, perceiving you as a shape.
Compounding
After years, your videos are supposed to start generating revenue, kinda like the compound effect we’ve mentioned. But is this really the case?
If you’ve been around for a while, you know that they either don’t, as the algorithm buried them due to lack of immediate local engagement, or if they do, it’s on a topic you likely no longer focus on.
It’s natural, you moved on. You had no option, as the eternal principles of IAO and Jupiter, aka the Fortune card, permeate you, even if you don’t realize it.
But suppose your old videos start getting traction. Finally. Does this new engagement bring actual customers and supporters? If it doesn’t, it’s not just useless, but harmful, as it boxes you into what you were 3 years ago.
- Constant self-reinvention.
- Perpetual change.
A mindless machine won’t comprehend until its code is rewritten or another one replaces it.
It is why some of those preaching that content is your best investment also tell you to build an email list, independent of the algorithm, asap. Maybe that’s like moving your coins to your ledger.
Meanwhile, your twenties and early thirties are gone, you have developed one or two phobias, and spent what an average middle-class person would call a substantial amount, because ‘content is free.’
Plain Gambling
Cal Newport calls social media platforms slot machines. Every video you make is like hitting the casino. Not day-trading but plain gambling.
Once in a while, someone gets extremely rich and starts rubbing six figures in your face. Maybe it was the main reason for doing what they do. Millions of others don’t. And while you see those others in actual casinos, on social media, they are well hidden by algorithms.
You
What does this all mean for you? It means that getting into video purely as an investment is likely a poor investment strategy.
On the contrary, if backing up your ideas and art as a thinker and artist with video, and your actual face, gives you a special meaning, then absolutely go for it. Maybe you’ll unravel uncanny love for videography.
Plus, as we know from Viktor Frankl, Meaning is always present, regardless of suffering caused by Nazis, Big Tech, or whatever. And maybe you finally started like your A-roll shots. Kudos!
Writing
When it comes to content and investment, I think writing is the best coin. It literally costs nothing. Crypto transactions are basically immediate. With writing, you write and publish. That’s it.
No fancy preparation, no spending, nor nerve-wrecking aroll. You build a list and send emails to actual people.
No algorithm stays between you and your readers, which is why I started my Substack publication, ElevenBeams, to expand beyond my name and bring light to others from broken self-helpers and creatives, to confused esotericists, and even modern thinkers.
Subscribe or don’t.
— POTB