Musing: Youtube gardening channels and the new internet culture of begging

I've learned a good deal from youtube garden videos, especially from two old ones.

And these do a good professional job, and give clear instructions, and that's great. Compared to people just farting around (like me, uploading a couple of crappy videos there just to insert here for a very few friends to see), they deserve to be paid, and they need some money to buy cameras, mics, and editing software to make that high-quality video. You can't do what they do with my $35 camera.

Lately, though, I've been thinking about comparative wealth. And when an active youtube channel has 100,000 subscribers, and some videos that have over a half a million views, you're looking at people who are getting far wealthier right now than I'll ever be. Should I be giving them more money, in any sense?

I also enjoyed the recent rant an English allotment gardener, Dave, let fly about people with Youtube garden channels who have Patreon accounts and Paypal buttons and GoFundMes for their new greenhouse. "If you want a new greenhouse," he said, "Go get a job and pay for one!" He made me laugh, and he also made me nod my head. A lot of people in the begging game with Patreon and GoFundMe and public Amazon wishlists are much wealthier than the people who send them ten dollars every month or buy them a new pasta maker. Some people would say that makes the rich folks clever, that they can both be rich and get money from begging or convincing 100,000 total strangers they're a close buddy. Others would say that it's sad or stupid that the poor are wasting money like that, sending it off to rich folks. I say, it's none of my business either way, but do excuse me if I don't play the donation/begging game from either end.

I could have a Patreon and PayPal button in my own line of work, and I don't. Like English Dave, I was raised to believe you work for your money. You don't scam for it or beg for it or take it from the government simply because that's easier than getting a job, like the people I've met in my life with fake disability claims. Dave and I may be dinosaurs in thinking that, but I don't mind being that sort of dinosaur.

Does money make you happy? Really and truly? If so, I don't understand that. If I have enough to eat and keep the roof intact, enough to buy a pair of shoes every other year and a pair of new eyeglasses every five years, I'm good. I do know this as well: my happiness definitely doesn't come from making the rich richer. So with that in mind, I'm going to limit my viewing there to mostly small, sincere, possibly not monetized channels. I wish the rich folks over there well. I'm just not going to be part of making them rich from now on (I have ad blockers, so I'm not doing much for them, but every view or subscription helps them qualify to earn.). Helping the rich get richer would make me seem sad and stupid in my own eyes.