First of all, those who read my articles or listened to my Chinese language programs know that I am a believer of market, where the most reliable signal to direct people’s actions is price. Wherever the government allows the market force to function, a person who provides a meaningful service should get sufficient market response for him to make a reasonable living.
For me to produce a program on YouTube, I need, at the very minimum, 100,000 views for each video (actually, 500,000 is a number that would make the endeavor “attractive” to me). So, even if I get 4,000 clicks for each video (the more typical number is around 2,000), that is only 4% of what I need, or less than 1% of what is attractive. I picked up those 4,000 subscribers in four years. How long do I need to continur doing the same to pick up the rest 96,000? Another 200 years to make the minimum? Or another 1,000 to make it attractive?
Mr. T used the word “valuable.” I don’t know what value he has in mind, but the value through market is that there is no demand for my videos. In other words, the market signals me that I should do something else.
The market in the U.S. (at least where the government is not interested in micro-regulating) is generally flat, which means that the market rewards all efforts fairly, across different industries. The impossibility for me to support the activities from its earnings is a demonstration that the market does not have the need, although certain individuals may really want the activity.
In fact, there is another model for this to work out other than the advertising model, i.e., paid subscription model. The chance for that to happen is precisely zero.
Mt. T is right that even 4,000 is a big number these days, representing the fragmented information dissimilation market, but it is nonetheless the nature of the market, i.e., what people want. The market, as a big voting machine, is voting me out. In fact, the fragmented market is voting this entire species of programs out. Today’s people think that short attention span is only normal, something to be accepted, in a world where technologies are taking charge. Who is there to say that the newspapers, printing ever shortened articles, are not digging its own graves?
Certainly, there are other sources of money to produce programs. The U.S. government is one possibility. The Chinese government is another. But since you serve the people who pay you, receiving payment from third parties means that I must serve those masters, rather than the viewers.
For instance, if I take money from the U.S. government, I cannot say anything truly damaging to the Chinese government, for democracy in China would render the entire U.S. propaganda apparatus obsolete and turn the people therein out to the streets. Also, I am not interested in being any government’s mouth piece.
My four-year AM1300/YouTube run showed that Chinese language programming is hopeless.
After writing in English for a year, it is clear that my English writing has even less market power.
The last option is for me to write for existing publications. It is the same idea of working for AM1300. By using other people’s platforms, I can speak to their captured audience. Since the Chinese language media is so heavily poluted, I tried the English media. I have gotten some positive feedbacks, which means that the submissions have been read, but nobody wanted to use any article. In other words, I would be writing to entertain only the editors.
I know a few Chinese who have press connections and asked them for help. None did. Obviously, it is a crowd that does not help one another. When I tried to build a legal practice, many lawyers helped me. Today, with the hindsight, I don’t think that I could have set up my practice without their help. Obviously, in the field of writing on China, people do not help one another. That may explain why there are always so much in-fighting in this group. The only right thing for me to do is to put these people together with the professors, and stay away from them.
There I come to the end of the road.
Mr. T said, “It is not surprising that comments for the blog or videos are not common for you because the involved issues are so deep that the views are new to most people. People needs time to digest them.” Together, I had done this for five years. If five years are not enough for people to digest my ideas and get interested, would enough people ever going to be interested?
All my failures in writing demonstrate an unmistakable market signal: there is no market for me in public writing or program production.
Market is always a comparative mechanism. In other words, all market participants compare one opportunity with another that is available to him. For me, the competing idea is art. The nice feature about art is that, unlike broadcasting, I don’t need 100,000 clients, or even 5,000. Five hundred, or even 100, would do splendidly.
In addition, I could still afford the patience to try art for five or even 10 years.
For us living in a somewhat free society, our decision are often forced by the market, making us do something not necessarily our own planning. However, who is there to say that we are smarter than the market. Insofar as agreeability in character, temperament, the amount of pleasure, and the market reward, I am the last person to argue against the market that writing is better than art. Democracy (through the voting machine) has its powers. I am not going to ignore the advice given to me by the market.
Last, but not least, I need something to balance my legal writing. Pursuing art seems far better than public writing.
“Ὁ βίος βραχύς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρή, ὁ δὲ καιρὸς ὀξύς,” as Hippocrates put it. So there it is. I quit.
---- original posting:
Please do not Stop. If you could check your channel at youtube, there are more than 4000 subscribers, and there are thousands of times of watches for every single video. As for the blog, I guess there are at least many readers from China if lots of clicks comes from Russia (there could be a result of vpn or other means of wall-breaking). These seems to be the most obvious evidences that your effort is much more valuable than your thought. I believe what you are doing here is working in the Chinese community.
It is not surprising that comments for the blog or videos are not common for you because the involved issues are so deep that the views are new to most people. People needs time to digest them. If you are not expecting to be a superstar in entertainment industry(like music, movie, sports, etc), the current status for the videos and blogs is totally reasonable.
---- end of original posting
By Pujie Zheng
Pujie Zheng is an attorney in Los Angeles.
First published on October 24, 2017
For discussions: http://www.facebook.com/pujie.zheng
For past articles: http://pujielaw.blogspot.com/
For past AM1300 (KAZN) programs in Chinese language: http://www.youtube.com/user/pujiezheng
For law firm business (business, patent, trademark, and business-based immigration), please write to info@pujielaw.com or call 626-279-7200.
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