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submitted 5 months ago by What_Religion_R_They@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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[-] plinky@hexbear.net 60 points 5 months ago

modern problems require modern solutions - let ai watch adds

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Wouldn't surprise me if that is already over 50% of ad "watches" on youtube. People setting up a server that just watches tons of youtube videos simultaneously to boost their ad revenue.

EDIT: Did some quick maffs, if a PC is running 24/7 it would use about $4.8 worth of electricity per day, and internet may cost around $2 per day, (We can assume unlimited broadband for simplicity). Youtube pays out an average of 0.018 cents per ad watch, so taking that as a quick and dirty amount gives us 378 ad watches per day, or 16 per hour, which isn't really a huge amount for an program set up to just watch multiple videos in multiple tabs (I haven't checked to see if youtube will not pay out for ads watched in a different tab). It probably wouldn't be worth doing it though, as this would just be an amount to break even, and even doubling this amount would only be a profit of less than $7 per day. You'd probably have better luck just wandering around the streets looking for loose change. Unless you could do this in such a way to get tens of thousands of views per day (and not trigger any bot detection on youtube), it is probably just easier to make Elsagate content if you want to try a get rich quick scheme off of youtube.

[-] alexandra_kollontai@hexbear.net 4 points 5 months ago

No one was really watching the trailers, but Netflix didn't need to know that. The goal was to passively run these phones 24/7, with each collecting a fraction of a penny for each ad they "watched." Hobbyists and those looking to make a bit of money across the U.S. have been doing the same, buying dozens or hundreds of phones to generate revenue so they can afford some extra household goods, cover a bill, buy a case of beer, or earn more income without driving for Uber or delivering for Grubhub. The farms are similar to those found overseas, often in China , where rows and rows of phones click and scroll through social media or other apps to simulate the engagement of a real human. Every few months, a video of these Chinese farms goes viral, but in bedroom cupboards, stacks in corners of living rooms, or custom setups in their garage, American phone farmers are doing a similar thing, albeit on a smaller scale.