>>108763412Twitter, Facebook, Youtube - it's all the same algorithm-driven, engagement-driven model.
The issue is that the business model for all the major aggregates is ads, and every ad click is worth the same amount no matter where it comes from. That means that if you click an ad on something Ringo Star drew, versus clicking an ad on something uploaded by Banksy, the website doesn't really give a fuck about the quality of either. Ultimately, what they wind up doing is they look at who's posting the most, therefore running the most ads, and then promote that guy because he makes the most money.
It's a hostile environment for art. About a decade ago, things were much better these major aggregates hadn't captured the market. People still had their own websites, and they would upload to these sites in the hope of directing traffic from the aggregates to their personal sites. But this just fed the aggregates, and now the aggregate sites is where 90% of the traffic is. So with an ordinary comic, you're stuck in the Facebook/Twitter model.
Porn's a little different. The major online players didn't try to corner that market. The closest anyone came to holding it on a mass level was Tumblr, but then they cracked down on porn. Additionally, a lot of porn artists get paid large amounts of money for commissions because people want to see their personal fantasies. Because the prices are hire and paid more directly, it's easier to get by as a pornographer with way fewer viewers. You just need a few dedicated whales willing to spend real bank on a wank bank. You hear it a lot, but porn is more forgiving than mainstream media right now, and it's not as badly cornered by powerful corporations.
However, even that's not perfect because there are still a lot of porn aggregators, and those aggregators work on that very same ad model as Twitter.
Anyway this post will be likely deleted but if you can read, it's the state of the online comics and cartoon market.
