How Google Buying YouTube Affects Consumers

A nervous reader asks:

I”m still waiting for the consumerist take on the youtoogle deal. what does it mean for ME the consumer? Will this encourage amateur video production in sweatshops across asia?

Yes.

Expect to see a new industry crop up, much in the vein of Chinese sweatshops that go around questing in WarCraft and having Second Life cybersex for their lazy American masters.

In this case, the workers will toil to shoot hundreds of hours of cellphone footage and amateur looking video of people pretending to be your friend.

They will race in shopping carts, try on dresses, and sing popular hiphop tracks in their underwear.

Then they upload the footage to your YouTube account. Voila!

Your own ready-made online representation of your “real world life,” without all that time-consuming interpersonal interaction.

No one will know the difference.

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