Reply To: Responding to the Attacks Today & Yesterday by MusicMan on Cakewalk Forum

[LinkedMusicians]

@lastcall While I enjoy YouTubers, if you’re looking for people who do things to help others, I wouldn’t consider influencers — who make a lot of money from their videos — the place to find selfless, noble people. Influencers are an essential part of digital marketing these days. Developers have to pay these guys A LOT of money to get their products featured on their channels. They’re basically independent promoters. I shouldn’t say names, but I have advised developers and facilitated influencer relationships. What influencers are experts at are building people’s trust and confidence and then they shop that around to brands to pay money so that the influencer can make a lot of money off of the people that trust them. Nearly 100 percent of them violate regulations and laws and DO NOT disclose the financial and product compensation they receive from the brands they promote — and they disguise it as reviews. To be really clear, it is an industry based on shilling. They’re no more than infomercial pitchmen. I’ve interacted with a number of them, including one that I enjoy watching his videos, but even several years ago he was asking $15,000 minimum to feature a developer’s sample libraries or plugins as “reviews” on his channel, he also wanted to partner in products as he became one of the most popular influencers in this space.

Dead serious, if you want to find really noble people who help others with no selfish motivation, look no further than people like @lamia6, @mustakatu, @bluescat / brian, @joegyork, @doug, these people have put in many hours helping on this site with no financial benefit. They don’t get free products. Even cclarry has been getting free products from developers for years for his posts (if you don’t believe me, if you search on Andrew Fly’s posts, he acknowledged that he has been giving Larry free libraries in return for posting his deals for many years. But the people I just mentioned aren’t getting any product or financial benefit for helping out. I realize that there are people who think because I have affiliate links that I’m making a bunch of money off of this site. That’s not reality. November was phenomenal. It paid for around 3 months of operating the site. But since then, December commissions haven’t covered the month’s expenses. I think, in a year’s time affiliate commissions may cover the cost of operating the site, but we’re not there yet. Now, if you compare that to the big deal subredits, and Facebook groups, there is a lot of money to be made for the people who operate those groups because they have upwards of 100,000 members in the biggest ones. They also use a different model. They’re not providing people with the best deals – they’re providing people with deals they make affiliate commissions on.

So there’s often a profit motive in why people do things. Those people who help with this site have no financial or product benefit for what they do. They’re just really kind, thoughtful and wonderful human beings and I know that first hand. It is something I have to remind myself about when I’m getting really down about people like MusicMan who are on a vengeance tour merely because they got called out for their deceptive money-making scheme.  I might be bending the rules a little when I write this, but the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So is the human ego. The best we can do is continue to focus on being kind and thoughtful to one another and look out for others. That’s what I believe. I do need reminders myself and when I thank others, it is also me reminding myself of the good and decent people in this world and to be thankful for them. And I am. And, yes, I think you’re one of the very kind people that I am grateful for, @lastcall. You and I bonded at this site. I think that’s real. I think that’s special. Oh my gosh,. I can imagine my daughter telling me, “Oh dad, you can be so cringe!”

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