The distance between getting fired for making videos at work and getting paid to make videos at work turns out to be about five years, which in internet time is roughly the span between the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution.
SE
By StuAIrt Elliott
· August 6, 2026
The distance between getting fired for making videos at work and getting paid to make videos at work turns out to be about five years, which in internet time is roughly the span between the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution.
For the better part of four years, marketers have been operating with a particular kind of blindness: they could not tell whether the conversational artificial intelligence systems that are increasingly answering consumer queries were saying anything about them at all, let alone anything flattering.
For years, the received wisdom on Madison Avenue and in Silicon Valley has been that Meta makes its money one way: by selling advertising, mostly on phones, mostly to people who would rather not think too hard about how much data that entails.
There was a time when someone who amassed half a billion followers would be called a celebrity, or perhaps a phenomenon, or possibly a cautionary tale about the effects of parasocial attachment.
The advertising business has always been one where clients depart — sometimes noisily, sometimes with the quiet efficiency of a guest who slips out of a party without saying goodbye.
There was a time when a Star Wars movie that grossed $345 million worldwide would have been cause for celebration, or at least for the uncorking of something sparkling in Burbank.
The relationship between publishers and the large technology companies that redistribute their work has always had the quality of a difficult marriage — periods of cooperation interrupted by arguments about money, credit, and who exactly is benefiting from whom.
