Guy Gambit

There's a lot of talk right now about demonetization or reduced reach on several popular platforms. Whether it's here on X, whether it's YouTube or Instagram - it's happening. A lot of potential reasons are possible and the most widely given reasons by the platforms themselves is that content that is produced with AI, content that is aggregated or re-shared or content that is not genuine in some way, is demonetized and has it's reach curtailed. There are a lot of aggrieved creators across multiple platforms who are crying foul after building large followings based on their content and content production methods for years and years. Methods which are now failing foul of these platforms. They say they are being treated unfairly. This post isn't to judge whether that's true or not, but to explain a far more logical reason why this is happening across multiple platforms in parallel. The most logical reason why this is happening is because of the AI data center build out. Every one of these major platform companies is spending record amounts of cash on AI data center builds. They are all blowing tons and tons of cash and there's absolutely zero guarantee that they will ever recoup that expenditure. In fact it's more likely that vast AI data center capacity will be underutilized and the GPU hardware obsolete before any ROI is ever achieved. That's exactly why they are picking low hanging fruit now to reduce their expenses in whatever ways they can. Senior finance people in all of these companies know the rush is real that cash on hand is going to reduce dramatically given the pace of spend so savings in every other expense silo are required. They are picking off the low hanging fruit to keep cash within their respective companies. You, the content creator, are a type of low hanging fruit. These platforms have never seen you or your content as valuable, they have only leveraged it to make money for themselves. Now they are pushing the lever the other way to save themselves money so they can burn that money on the AI data center build out. The worst part about it is that while your content may be demonetized or reach inhibited, these platforms will still use your content and collect advertising revenue on the back of your hard work. There's nothing you can do about it either. Because all these platforms are a protected species in the USA. Without an antitrust investigation and subsequent break-up of these companies, the abuse of monopoly and market power will continue. You, the content creator, were never important to them no matter how high your payouts were or how many trophies they sent you. For example, if you've been using a cookie cutter approach that's worked for you for a decade to make YouTube content, a creator that they have consistently paid over that decade, well that's a cost that they now want to avoid because they are trying to offset the AI data center build out.