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remeranAuthor wrote

Reply to comment by !deleted20335 in by !deleted20335

I don't understand the difference. Do you think there are rich people who don't exploit their workers? I guess lottery winners?

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Ennui wrote

People who exploit their place in the market by extracting scarcity rents technically fit the category of rich people who don’t exploit their workers.

Celebrities too, but it’s common that they’re indirectly exploiting workers due to the medium they are famous on or their means of monetization. In a sense, being a celebrity is a form of scarcity rent, since they are the good being sold and there’s only one of them.

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ziq wrote

I think any celebrity or rich person is exploiting workers directly since they need maids, cooks, nannies, drivers, pilots, gardeners, private tutors, tailors, private security, etc to maintain their lavish lifestyles and vast estates.

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[deleted] wrote

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remeranAuthor wrote

What means of production are you talking about? Like they should all democratically decide who clicks the "Upload to Youtube" button? That everybody who does a favor for HBomberguy should permanently receive a percentage of the royalties from his patreon in accordance to how much percentage of the total effort put into his entire channel is?

The point of my big rant above was that it isn't helpful to attack the people advocating for what you want to happen for not doing things they wish they could do and be better rewarded for it. It's like if you tell AOC that if she wants to raise taxes she should just donate all of her money to the federal reserve. This wouldn't raise Bezos's taxes, this would only make AOC poorer. While we continue to exist under capitalism, playing by rules other than capitalism's rules just makes you fail while the people who play by capitalism's rules succeed.

Regarding receiving help from friends and family... like... for real, seriously, tell BigJoel's girlfriend to unionize against him. It'll be amazing.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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Artma wrote (edited )

im so confused. free labor. people are volunteering to add captions. they arent being forced to. its a community thing. this is what social anarchy is about. it is for people who need them. youtube is removing them and forcing youtubers to pay for captions. pay youtube. youtube is shifting the blame onto the creators to provide captioning instead of letting the community provide for their own, all for money. sorry to get riled up but this is honestly the dumbest comment ive ever read

youtube is taking away a feature for the community to provide for those disabled or impaired for the sake of money, and youre calling it free labor and that this is a good thing? this is literally capitalistic greed. this is like calling charity work free labor.

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[deleted] wrote

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Artma wrote

I wouldn't care if there wouldn't be evidence that many breadtubers are being exploitative in other ways.

I'm very uneducated on the subject can you explain how else they are being exploitative?

Volunteering to improve a product for someone who makes six figures or more living a lavish life of luxury is exploitation.

Possibly, yeah. I wouldn't call it exploitative but I would say that at that point they could afford to do it themselves, but as a whole removing community captions for a paid alternative is 100% worst for the community and more money for YouTube. For small youtubers who cant afford to pay for captions or non youtubers who just post songs or anime episodes, they wouldn't be able to pay for captions. I think that makes sense, they should be providing for their own but it is 100% an awful choice for the whole platform.

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masque wrote (edited )

When it comes to the topic of "free labour," I think it's sometimes tempting to frame this as exploitative in cases where I'm not sure that characterization holds up.

I mean, consider captioning. Realistically, PhilosophyTube is not going to pay for translation to, say, Czech; it's simply not reasonable to suggest that a creator who makes work available in one language inherently has a responsibility to make it available in all languages. But given that Olly does not have a duty (or intention) to provide Czech translation, does it really make sense to frame Olly as the person this labour is for, suggesting that it is exploitative for him to not pay for it?

There are basically three possible arguments for why captioners are working for Olly:

  • Olly benefits from their work
  • Their work improves Olly's product, rather than standing alone
  • Olly is in a position of power which makes the situation not truly voluntary

With respect to the first point, I doubt Olly benefits more from Czech translations than, say, his Czech viewers do. The only reason we pick him out as the beneficiary in particular is because the benefit to him comes in monetary form, but suggesting that the work is therefore "for" him and not the Czech viewers kinda reflects a capitalist thought process where the only "real" value is monetary value.

With respect to the second point, we have to ask: does it really make sense to suggest that anyone who improves on your work is entitled to compensation from you? I'm not sure it does. Should game companies be paying modders? Should authors be paying fanfic writers for helping to grow the "fanon," which is essentially an extension of the original canon?

With respect to the third point: Olly's fans are not relying on him for financial support (as in the case of an employer/employee power dynamic), or even some sort of academic or career advancement (as in an unpaid internship), so it's not clear exactly what power dynamic he's exploiting - the best bet is some sort of "parasocial relationship" explanation, but even then it's not clear why accepting free captioning is more exploitative than, say, accepting fan mail that includes gifts.

I kinda want to make a separate post about the concept of "free labour" more broadly (e.g. also discussing FOSS software, which is another place this often comes up), although I've already committed to one probably-ill-advised separate post about gender that isn't progressing very quickly, so maybe I should stop saying I'm "going to make a post" about stuff?

Is big joel's girlfriend getting paid or are they doing free labor to help Joel?

I feel like introducing personal relationships complicates things even further. Are we really suggesting that people in a close personal relationship have to either be completely uninvolved in each others' work, or else form a formal business relationship? Do gifts and favours for your loved one become problematic "free labour" as soon as they involve a business or profit? This is all ignoring the possibility of a serious long-term relationship in which assets are pooled, which renders the issue of payment kinda moot.

If they are getting paid will them breaking up take away one of cubmoths source of income?

To be honest, I'm not sure this is meaningfully different from a marriage or long-term relationship in which one partner earns substantially more and supports the other partner financially. In theory, this is the problem that alimony etc. seeks to alleviate.

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