 So, the day before I filmed this, I watched a movie called The Princess, which is on Hulu. And it's actually a great movie. It's like, this girl who is obviously a princess is kidnapped by a man who wants to forcibly marry her so he can become king, and then she's transported to the highest room in a tower, and she has to escape. But she's not just a regular princess. It's like, if John Wick was a 17 year old girl, so the whole movie is just a bunch of crazy fight scenes. And it's a great movie. It's a lot of fun. And hey, it was kind of nice to see Joey King in something that doesn't suck. You know, because I feel bad hating on her because even when she's in bad movies, she always seems to be at least trying to give a good performance. But, I mean, it's nice that she was in something good and not the Kissing Booth 1, 2, and 3, or the Slenderman movie, or Wish Upon, or White House Down. Goddamn, this girl is in a lot of shitty movies. Maybe she just got a new agent recently or something. I don't know. But the princess, by the time this video comes out, is also going to be gone from Hulu. Like, just gone forever. Hulu's the only place it's available, is the thing. It's a Hulu original, basically. And Disney is permanently getting rid of a bunch of its streaming-only stuff for tax write-offs. You know, like, it's no longer going to be available legally. Like, I did check earlier and people did pirate it, so like, if you search around, you can still find it. But, like, it's gonna be gone forever, just like what HBO did with a bunch of their original shows just last year. And I only heard about this movie because people mentioned it as one of the movies that was gonna be gone. And a couple people said, oh, that's a really good one, and I just got curious, and I watched it, and yeah, they were right. It is really good. It's like a medieval version of the raid. I loved it so much. But that's the thing, like, there was no online chatter about this, and this came out almost a year ago. There were no ads that I saw, and even though I'm on Hulu semi-regularly, it was never recommended to me. You know, even though I've watched similar stuff to that before, it never popped up and said, hey, maybe you'll like this. It was just, it may as well have not existed until the other day. And it made me realize that The Princess was lost in a tsunami of just stuff. You know, all the stuff that we watch, slash read, slash listen to, there's just so, so much of it. And it makes me wonder, like, how many other gems there are out there that I've never heard of and never will hear of. I mean, like, you can see here, I have two small bookshelves. This one is totally full, this one is only partially full. And then out there, I have a much bigger one, which is like six feet tall, which is also full. And there are several dozen books I own which I haven't read yet. And I'm constantly getting new ones, so I only have so much time, I can't read all of them. Like, I will die having not read all of those. Right over here I have a bunch of video games, some of which I haven't played yet or have only barely played. There's a bunch of movies and TV shows that I want to watch at some point, but I just haven't gotten around to. There's so much stuff constantly coming out. And the pile of to be read, to be consumed, let's say, is just constantly getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But even setting that aside, there's so much stuff that I just don't notice, don't hear about, never will find out about because it's lost in the tsunami. And this realization made me stop and think about how we have finite resources to create all of this and those finite resources are being stretched further and further, and we might be near a breaking point now. Because if we're talking movies, video games and stuff, there are only so many skilled professionals who can work on these things. Like, there's a finite amount of labor, there's a finite amount of time, there's a finite amount of money to fund these things, and there's a finite amount of human attention to consume these. Like, if you've watched recent MCU movies and shows, you probably noticed that a lot of the CGI has been subpar, let's say, and a big part of the reason for that is because visual effects companies are just totally backed up. You know, like, there aren't enough artists and studios and equipment and specialized knowledge and all that. There's just not enough of that to do all of this, and so a lot of the CGI winds up being rushed, and so it doesn't look as good. And on top of that, there are a bunch of shows and stuff that have finished regular filming and they have visual effects that they need to get done, but it's just backed up. So if you're wondering why, hey, that show I liked has another season which is ready to go. It's already been filmed, but it's not coming out anytime soon. What gives? That could very well be a reason for it. And that's just film and television industry. Imagine how this affects other stuff. I don't know a whole lot about video game development. I do not even want to think about how this finite amount of knowledge and specialized labor would affect them because video games as a medium just require so many different specializations. You need artists, music composers, various types of coders who can kind of do each other's jobs, but not really. I can only imagine, or the music industry, or even the publishing industry, because you need people to be editors, agents and stuff, and there's just not enough of them to go around. So I can only imagine that as this tsunami is growing bigger and bigger, we're just going to have even less and less people to make it work. And even when this does work out, and even when this stuff is made and gets thrown in the tsunami and becomes part of the thing constantly competing for our attention, it's hard to find. You know, like I was saying, there's just so much stuff there that it's easy to miss. I mean, have you ever heard of a show called From? Like, most of you probably haven't. It's a really, really good show, by the way. Like, it's only available on MGM+, which is a streaming service that a lot of you probably haven't even heard of. Or rather, it's originally from MGM+, it's an MGM+, original show, and the first season is also on Amazon Prime Video, but the second season, which is currently airing, is only on MGM+. I don't know exactly how that works, but that's where it comes from. And it's a very good show. Like, it's about a bunch of people who wind up trapped in this town, which seems to exist outside of regular space. Like, if you drive from one end of it to the other, you'll eventually just pop back in the same spot where you started, no matter what, and there's also these weird monsters that come out at night and kill people. And it's very reminiscent of Lost, you know, like there's just a bunch of people who were strangers before that are now trapped in this weird supernatural location, and they're trying to figure out what's going on, and every episode has more weird new phenomena happening, which they are trying to figure out. Like, it's just, it's a good show, and I would never, ever have heard of it if my parents hadn't just casually mentioned it to me one day, and I don't know how they found out about it, but they said, yeah, we started watching the show, it's really good, and I checked it out, and it is good. But again, I hadn't heard any chatter about it online, I hadn't seen any ads for it, I didn't get recommendations for it when I was on Amazon Prime Video or anything, like, it's just, it may as well have not existed before my parents mentioned it to me. And that's the thing, if you look at the many, many streaming services which are available now, like, God, there's too many of these things, man, the streaming wars are awful, but if you look at them, each of them has like 45 original shows and movies, which you can't find anywhere else, like Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, MGM+, they all have a whole bunch of original shows and movies in addition to like, you know, regular movies and stuff that you can buy and watch elsewhere, and of those maybe one or two, maybe three sometimes, will achieve mainstream success and will have people, you know, know about them, so you're actually seeing recommendations for it and you're getting ads for it and everything, but there are so many others, like think of Paramount+, try to think of another original show from that besides the Halo show, which I never watched but a lot of people hated it, and that's really only recognizable and only well known because it's based on such a big intellectual property. You might be able to name one or two other original things there, but I guarantee you if you look up right now a list of Paramount+, originals, you're going to find a bunch of stuff there that you've never heard of and you're just going to go, oh, okay, I guess that's a thing. And even when you go onto these various streaming services, these lesser known products that they have are just not recommended. You know, they would rather recommend the same three or four things over and over and over again. Like, you know, Netflix is probably, probably the worst about this of all the streaming services, or at least all the ones that I actually use because I don't use that many, but if you were to only browse the front page of Netflix, you would think that there were only like 40 things on there. And if you go specifically searching for something, then there's tons more stuff on there. You can see it yourself. But it doesn't matter what genre you're looking in or what sort of thing you're looking for or what you've hit like and dislike on, it will only show you a couple of things and it's really annoying. Like, I watched the first season of Bridgerton said this isn't my thing and hit dislike on it. I am still being fucking inundated with ads for Bridgerton, or maybe ads isn't the right word, but saying, hey, watch Bridgerton, watch season two, watch season three. This is out now, this is one of our biggest things. You want to watch it, right? No, fuck off. Like, what's the point of having likes and dislikes if it does not cater your recommendations to it? Like, you have so much other stuff like both Originals and other movies and stuff which you have paid for and licensed for and which I came here for, but you're not showing them to me for some reason. And YouTube is probably the same. Like, just on the page with this video on it, you could with a single click get to like 40 other videos which might interest you and I do appreciate you taking time out of your day to watch this instead of the many, many other things you could be watching on YouTube. I appreciate that, thank you guys. But there's just so, so many other things and yet it will always recommend you the same couple of things over and over again. And apparently like half my audience does not check their subscription box, at least not very often, and well, if we assume that most other users of YouTube are like that and they just constantly complain, oh, I don't see people who I'm subscribed to. Their videos don't show up for me. Like, that's why you idiots, just check your subscription box. Like, I don't mean to sound rude or hostile, but you're all really stupid if you're complaining that you don't see stuff from people you're subscribed to and you're not checking your subscription box. But that is still a problem with YouTube's algorithm is that it is just showing you the same couple of things over and over and over and there's only so many times you can watch the same stuff over and over and over and all the streaming services and everything else has the exact same problem. I used to go on Amazon semi-regularly and just look for recommendations for new books on there. Like, I would search for one thing that I liked or a genre that I liked or something and I would scroll through and I'd click on stuff and then it would say, oh, readers who bought this also enjoyed and looked through other stuff and I would find some good recommendations there. There was some interesting stuff there, which I don't know if I would have found otherwise, but I can't do that anymore. Every single entry for every single book on there is just stuffed with as many keywords as possible. So, like, even if it doesn't match what the actual book is about, like, if there's no romance in there, they'll still mark it as romance so that they can get more people to check it out and hopefully buy it. And, like, they're just desperate to stand out from the tsunami of stuff that's out there. And I kind of get that, but that doesn't make it less fricking annoying. Like, all media on some level makes its money by attracting attention, you know? Whether it's movies, TV, books, whatever. Like, you need to attract somebody's attention so that they will buy it or you need to attract somebody's attention so that they will watch your thing and view ads while they're watching it and you make money from that. Like, YouTube, again, if you're watching this, it's on YouTube, so you may very well have viewed ads before you watch this. And I appreciate that again. Thanks. Thanks for the help. But I had to attract your attention in order to make any sort of compensation from this video. And all of this stuff makes money by attracting attention, but there is a finite amount of human attention to go around. Like, there's only so many people, we all have only so much free time, and there's some stuff which we're just not interested in, and of the stuff we are interested in, we can only watch so much of it, either because some of it's low quality and we don't want to watch it, we don't enjoy it, or because we just, you know, only have so much time on Earth. And that is part of why Netflix cancels so many shows so prematurely. Like, they're infamous for that now, you know? Like, they canceled Fate to the Winx saga after two seasons, which, I mean, I wasn't, like, I don't really care about that show, but I'm sure there were fans that were upset. Same with the Cowboy Bebop show that was gone after one season. Shadow and Bone might be gone after two seasons now. Like, I don't believe they've officially announced anything, but like, people are just desperately, you know, watching and rewatching it over and over again in order to pump up its numbers and make Netflix think, okay, yes, this is attracting a lot of attention. That means it's profitable, but like, there's just so much stuff, again, on Netflix and elsewhere computing for our attention that it's divided amongst everything and so little of it is profitable. And that's why Netflix cancels stuff because it's not free to make and if it's not helping them to make their money back, then they just say, okay, well, why are we doing this? And that's also why things are being removed for tax break purposes and also possibly for not having to pay residuals to writers and directors and stuff. Like, again, the Princess and Willow and a bunch of other stuff is being removed from Stuff Disney Owns and HBO removed a bunch of stuff last year. And all of these services are exclusively focusing on what they know works, which is, again, really popular shows. Netflix is really just pouring absolutely everything they have into Stranger Things and into, I forgot the name, uh, Bridgerton, there we go. Like, again, that show is haunting my dreams. I don't know why I forgot the name for a second. But like, they're only putting any attention on those popular shows. Like, they're only putting money that they have for budgets that they show into those, even if those shows don't really require the massive budgets they're giving them, in many cases, but whatever, that's not important. They're only spending their marketing money on that. They're only trying to drum up buzz on social media for that. And they are only recommending that to people. Like, they only have a couple of things that they just think will work or that they know already have a pretty big audience and they are just hammering those over and over and over again. And they could, you know, have well-rounded content. You know, they could have those big shows and then also have a bunch of niche things out there so that people who aren't really interested in those will still have a reason to pay for your service and check these out. And while these extra audiences are hanging around, they might eventually break down and say, Okay, fine, I will finally watch Bridgerton, which again, I did watch the first season after months and months of being... I seriously felt like I was being nagged. Like, I've never felt like I was being nagged by Netflix before, but them trying to get me to watch Bridgerton has felt like I'm being nagged. And for a long time, that really has been the case though. Like, they've had all these smaller niche things which have attracted a lot of different audiences and they've had these much bigger ones which have been kind of holding everything up. Like, it's keeping them afloat and it's been a symbiotic relationship. They have helped each other out. But I don't know if the people in charge of all these various services realize this. And you can also extrapolate this to other things. You know, like you can extrapolate this to publishing companies and music companies and everything. Like, a music company may have a bunch of smaller artists they work with but they are largely going to focus on the ones which are already really popular and they already know a bunch of people will listen to and pay money to. But I don't know if all these companies even realize that that's what they're doing or maybe they do realize that and the idea of just leaving it in that state where they can just make steady profits, maybe not anything massive but steady and they're staying afloat maybe that's just not enough and they just want to gamble on massive hits. You know, and maybe it's just compulsive in a way. Like, they can't conceive of a different way to do business. Like, they just have to throw everything in in order to make it big. Like, they have to take the high risk, high reward like it has to be the absolute highest risk for the absolute highest reward. It's like taking their entire retirement fund and gambling it on roulette at a casino. You know, like, sure you could make it really big you could double, triple, quadruple the money you have there or you could lose everything so why not just leave it and let it grow slowly. But I think a lot of executives and whoever else makes decisions just can't conceive of doing it any other way. Maybe it's greed, maybe it's something else but I think a lot of them just don't even have a mental framework to think of it in a different way. And that is why companies like HBO and Disney are beginning to cannibalize themselves. Like, that's what they're doing when they remove stuff permanently for the tax break purposes and to try and save money on other things. Like, they're not trying to do that in order to make money, they're doing it to save money and like that is cannibalism. They are cannibalizing themselves. It's like when you don't eat food for a while your body starts consuming its own fat and muscles and it can do that for a little while and things will work out okay but once you start really starving you start consuming your own organs and everything. Like, you can only do that for short periods of time and then everything will fall apart. Like, if these companies are focused more on saving money than they are on creating stuff which will make them money then they're not going to last that long. And this all comes back to the problem of there just being too much stuff. Like, there's too much media out there. Like, I watched The Princess and that was a fun movie. I really, really enjoyed it. I want to hammer that home. But, like, after I was done with it it made me stop and realize like, how many other gems are out there that I will never be able to find because like, not only is it not being recommended to me but even if I actively search them out they're just kind of being hidden from me because they want to push this more popular stuff on people. Like, how much of that is out there? That, I don't know, probably a lot. And that made me kind of sad but at the same time it made me realize I'm not going to get to do everything I want to do in life. You know, like, I'm not going to get to read all the books I want to read. Like, I'm going to die having a bunch on my shelves which I just never got around to. There's going to be video games that I want to play which I never get around to. There's going to be places I want to travel to that I don't get to go to. I'll never make as many friendships as I want to. Like, there's just, there's so much stuff to experience out there. I'm not going to get to do all of it or even a large fraction of it. And part of that is because, like, I'm not being hit by the tsunami and I'm not riding the tsunami, I'm part of the tsunami. Like, we all are. In some small way we are all contributing to the many, many experiences that are on this planet. Like, obviously I'm making YouTube videos which are just one thing people are consuming out there or thinking, oh man, I gotta go check that out. And if I ever get around to finishing my crap that I'm working on, I will hopefully have books out there that people are going to check by and go, oh, I'll get to that some point and put on their shelves. Like, all of us, even whether it's in a small way or a big way, are part of the tsunami. Not a single one of us is going to be able to see everything. Like, there's just, in the time that you have spent watching this video, many more hours have been uploaded to YouTube. Like, hundreds or thousands of other videos are now there that weren't there before. And you're not going to be able to watch them all or even find them all. Like, you just won't be able to. And I think we all just need to come to terms with that. You know, as much stuff as there is out there that we want to consume or experience, we are not going to be able to do that. And I'm okay with that personally. And I think since I've become okay with that, I've been less affected by choice paralysis. You know, because like, have you ever had that where you're like going through Netflix or something and there's like 50 other things to check out and you just, you don't know which one to go with. Because like, again, you only have so much time and you're like, Oh, I want to make the most of it, but which would be the best? I don't know. And so eventually you wind up not doing anything. But I think if you just acknowledge that you're not going to get to everything and you let go of your fear of missing out on things, then you will no longer have choice paralysis. You'll no longer have that problem. And I know this is different than a lot of videos I make on this channel. Like I know I don't have a whole lot of a central points to this. I don't have much of a thesis, but these are just thoughts that struck me and I felt the need to get them out there. And I don't know, check out The Princess. Like it's on pirate sites out there. You should check them out if you get the chance. And also in cases like that piracy is perfectly fine because that's the only way to experience it. So like, who cares if it's illegal? And I just, I don't know. Like there's a lot of stuff that you'll never experience. Life is short. Just accept that and go with it, I guess. I don't have a great finale for this, but you know, please like the video, comment and subscribe. Look at me promoting myself. Follow me on social media as well. And support me on Patreon, maybe. Here's the end credits. Goodbye. Wow, you're still watching? I mean, I guess I appreciate it, but I'm not sure why. I mean, at this point, all that we have left is all these names here. These are my patrons. And including my ten dollar and up patrons. Appo Savilainen, Olivia Rayan, Brother Santotis, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay, Dan Anceliovic, Dark King, Dawn, Dio, Echo, Flax, Carcat Kitsune, Lexi DeLorm, Liza Rudikova, Lord Tiebreaker, Mycophone, Mistboy, Peep the Toad, RobiReviews, Sad Martigan, Sillier the Vixen, Stone Stairs, Tesla Shark, Vei Victus, and Wesley. These are all great people, you know? Let me just, let me tell you. If you want to get your name on here, then consider donating to me once a month. Become a patron. Or if you don't feel like doing that, or you just can't because, you know, you're like, poor, or whatever, no shame in that. Then just, you know, rate the video, comment on it, subscribe, share it around, spam it to all your friends. And yeah, goodbye.