got an interesting question today.

"would you turn on ads if one of your videos went viral?"

i would, but i'd have to be sure of it and it would be temporary.

am i being a fool? am i getting ripped off? given that i have a little less than 15,000 views, if i had ads on i'd have generated around $15 since december, 2013 - and i'd have to give half to the government. for that amount, it's not worth alienating possible listeners. as i've stated before: the video *is* an ad. the product is at bandcamp. youtube is an advertising portal to try and generate bandcamp traffic. it's worked about as well as i could hope it might, but hasn't generated any actual income. you have to be realistic in this market - an independent, abstract artist that manages to sell even one album in this climate of entitlement to free downloads is extremely lucky. that's reality. there's some talent involved in herding the horses, but it's just bullshit luck underlying any decision to or not to drink.

so, i slap an ad for some movie or something on the video that is itself an ad, and i'm just redirecting traffic away from bandcamp. that's a far worse proposal than the $7.50 i might have in my pocket right now could justify offsetting for.

if i ever see anything start to pick up at over a few hundred hits a day then the whole calculus changes and i have to be rational about accepting revenue. but that's not realistic, given the nature of the music. there's really little reason to think i'm ever going to be in a position where generating ad revenue from youtube becomes more attractive to me than directing traffic to bandcamp and consequently little reason to think there'll ever be ads on anything.

but, would i, if it made sense? sure. there's no principle underlying the decision other than rejecting putting somebody else's ad on my ad.

and, i mean, i used a movie as an example. even worse would be google using it's algorithms to place another music video in front of mine that is specifically tailored to the individual's tastes. that is just about the *worst* thing i could possibly do.

it's like, "great, i've got your attention. now, listen to this other person's music instead.". derp?

i really only need to sell a handful of records to make up that $15 in "lost" revenue. it hasn't happened yet, but i think it's better to place my hopes in that than to think i'm ever going to generate anything worthwhile from ads.