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Notes -
For the past 3 weeks I have been inundated with ads paid for by USAFacts, a non-profit founded by Steve Balmer. In its own words, it's a "...not-for-profit, nonpartisan civic initiative making government data easy for all Americans to access and understand. We provide a data-driven portrait of the American population, US governments’ finances, and governments’ impact on society."
Some of these videos have a considerable number of views. The videos below have 10 million views each in less than a month, indicative of a large budget and a major media push. YouTube ads targeting the US are not known for being cheap, given that it's a high-SES audience. YouTube counts a view as someone who clicks the link and watches at least 10 seconds of the video, at a cost of roughly 10 cents a view. By my estimation, he has spent $2-4 million in promoting these videos, among others, in just a month alone. This is pocket change for him, but my question is, what does he hope to accomplish with this?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JXKLoDXmZNo
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1HRu18X0Y
Although it describes itself as non-partisan, this does not preclude some sort of agenda or motive by its founder.
The 2028 US presidential election is still years away. The content itself is not outwardly partisan and it's hard to shoehorn it into any specific agenda. Perhaps he hopes viewers will become better informed about trade, to dissuade them from voting for the presumptive GOP nominee, that being JD Vance, who supports tariffs? But the ads are broadcast everywhere, not just battleground states. Or he's trying to cement a legacy as a lecturer and public intellectual , similar to Milton Friedman or Ray Dalio, who also have popular economics videos. Between this and Bill Gates' philanthropy, it shows that the ultra-wealthy tend to also be workaholics. They are not content just retiring with their money. The last thing I would want to do is get all dressed up and read for hours scripts for many videos. Sounds really tedious and boring.
I don't think it will work though. The era of the 'TV public intellectual', as exemplified by Donahue and Crossfire which pioneered the format, peaked in the 80s and 90s, before the internet.
Ah yes, can't pick a better human representation of inhuman evil than fking Balmer. When I see Balmer I remmember all the shenanigans he got up to back in the day and his roid rage fueled hatred for Linux and open source software.
I still think of that Developers Developers chant that went viral years ago and have a good chuckle. He was probably more but he'll always be a clown to me.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=I-u8fo5esYI?feature=shared
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE or maybe https://youtube.com/watch?v=rRm0NDo1CiY, I can't decide which one is better.
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