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This Quackcast is about the impermanence of online services and the lie that services are provided for fee and providers have no responsibility to the creators and viewers that use them. Hushicho posted in our forum about Tapas newly restricting nudity in comics which suddenly disenfranchises hundreds of creators who've built up followings on that site with comics that were well within the the Tapas content rules. With that one change these comics have been wiped out, destroying all the hard work by creators to build up their audiences over a long period of time. That can happen with ANY digital service, we are at the mercy of the corporations that provide them.
One might say that these things are “free” services and that the hosts have a right to do whatever they like, they provide it all for us and we just use it, but that's not actually true. ALL digital services are completely dependent on their users and content creators for their existence. Sites like YouTube would not exist if it wasn't for the users that content creators bring in through their own hard work and money. And those passive audiences themselves are also responsible for YouTube existing because it's them who bring in the ad revenue and use the services google sells through the site, as well as exploiting them by onselling statistics about their online viewing habits and information about their other online behaviors. Even us on DD, who make no money of off our users and collect zero information about people, we STILL rely on content creators and their audiences for out existence because if there were no people to post comics on our site and no one to read them then we'd have no point and we'd shut down.
What we chat about here is the fact that you can't rely on any one service, no matter how big the company (i.e. Facebook, Google, Apple) to respect your content and to always be around. Services aren't as free as they seem and they're more than happy to exploit you and then discard you. So the answer is to diversify and use as many different ones as possible! Don't be loyal to them because they're not loyal to you! I'd say the one exception is Drunk Duck because we really DO care about and respect our members but the the reality is that no online service is completely safe: even though we are one of the longest running comic sites (18 years and counting), there have been times in our distant past where our service was unreliable and we were even down for almost 3 months once. So mirror your work and do not become reliant on subscription services.
The musical feature this week that Gunwallace has given us is theme to Ingenimia Aus - The start reminds me a bit of Cowboy by Bon Jovi, It has an awesome mystical, exotic medieval guitar sound. This one really takes you away to another place and time with its atmospheric synths, hand drum percussion, and delicate guitar sounds. I love it when the rhythm is taken over by tapping on the guitar strings, it’s a very pretty sound.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Join the Discord server to chat in real time with other DD comics people - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Death-knell for Tapas, by Hushicho - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/178480/
Featured comic:
Filaments a KerBop Story - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/aug/11/featured-comic-filaments-a-kerbop-story/
Featured music:
Ingenimia Aus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ingenimia_Aus/, by DFlimbingo, rated T,
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Pit Face - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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QUACKCAST 492 - Impermanence of the new digital age
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Aug. 18, 2020
Banes,
Drunk duck,
featured comic,
Filaments a KerBop Story,
Gunwallace,
Impermanence of the new digital age,
Ingenimia Aus,
kawaiidaigakusei,
music,
Ozoneocean,
Pitface,
QUACKCAST 492,
Tantz Aerine,
Webcomics
7 likes!
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Ozoneocean at 1:00PM, Aug. 22, 2020
Ya... the Duck has weathered many storms. 18 years worth, longer than all the rest ;)
JillyFoo at 10:57PM, Aug. 20, 2020
2: Even the best cartoonists struggle with the big companies trying to weasel their way out of paying as much as they could. It's always a race for the creators to sniff out the scam and make some new platform to get around it. Then the new platform gets bought out and changed to be less profitable... and so on... Not the Duck so far. :D
JillyFoo at 10:50PM, Aug. 20, 2020
I had predicted that the internet will slowly become more and more restricted on content. I didn't think the webcomic world would change this much. (Remember when SmackJeeves was known as a yaoi webcomic site?) Despite what I thought might happen years so I was so passionately into making pushing the envelope content that I pretty much made comics that can't be hosted on many mainstream webcomic sites. I had shot myself in the foot. I understand the need for that change but at the same time I have pretty much put my comic career into hobbies only compared to the talent that can made good content in those guide lines. Regardless I still feel the desire to present the full uncensored human experience in a story form. The story must go on to completion. EDIT: I didn't mean for it to sound like a "grass is always greener" post. Every path is it's own beast. It's not the end all be all if you can make a profit or not. Even the best cartoonists struggle with the big companies trying to-
Ozoneocean at 6:17PM, Aug. 19, 2020
Glad yiu like it! :D
DFlimbingo at 10:31AM, Aug. 19, 2020
I'm truly amazed by the song made by Gunwallace for my webcomic. What a lovely surprise to hear!
Ozoneocean at 7:35PM, Aug. 18, 2020
Youtube is a great example of the imbalance of control and how unfair it is to users and creators. Google treat it like an extension of their search system rather that what it really is... It's not just about content organisation it's about content creation and human beings.
hushicho at 4:21PM, Aug. 18, 2020
After having listened to the entirety of the extremely absorbing, fantastic conversation of this podcast, I have to say I agree emphatically and I'm so glad it was discussed! I think my very favorite point is that these other sites and companies are looking for clientele -- not creators, not readers, not anything like that -- and looking to cash in on creators. That, I think, hits the issue at its root, and that root is as much profit as they can wring out of well-intentioned creators for free. It's horrifying to think of how many new voices in sequential art have been drained dry and driven completely out of art by the countless companies that have done this over the years, especially in the modern internet age.
hushicho at 2:23PM, Aug. 18, 2020
YouTube never wanted independent vloggers to put content on their site. They never want anyone to put anything on their site if it's anything outside the very narrow region of their approved topics and approaches. They don't want to pay people, and they operate how any payment threshold scam does. YouTube was acquired because Google thought they could be lazy and automate it, and never have to do work but would rake in the money...how wrong they were.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 7:10AM, Aug. 18, 2020
I swear, the way Youtube run things now I get the impression that they don't want independent vloggers to put up video content on their site anymore. Video makers that are too opinonated or even just new (and not on a corporate contract) on the plattform will be buried by the algorithms so that no one can find them. I even found out watching this vlogger on the site that I've been following for a long time that Youtube's administration, during the dawn of the pandemic, came out and said that they will remove hosted videos EVEN IF THEY FOLLOW THE GUIDELINES! These people don't give a damn anymore! The independent, free-speaking content creators on that site that has been making a living off of it, AND made a lot of money for Youtube, cannot talk to administrators about their videos being demonitized or removed. They are completely at the mercy of the algorithms and the flimsy as hell content guidelines. That's as much as I have to say about it. Glad to see you guys adress this👍
Ozoneocean at 1:26AM, Aug. 18, 2020
Thanks for positing about it on the forums! It's a big topic and we didn't fully do justice to it unfortunately.
hushicho at 1:11AM, Aug. 18, 2020
I have to listen to all of this later, but even just what I've heard so far, I'm so glad to see this being discussed. It's so often that people never notice or think about these issues, even though they're major considerations for any creator! Thank you so much for bringing the problem to a wider audience, so people don't just miss that this is happening.