The Problem with Donut Media 👀

[ohnne]

I'm glad these guys made their money. The private equity channels will atrophy and die. New independent channels will grow

[mitchj]

"The ones who can't be named" ....Fitment industries 😂

[Thishandlehasalreadybeentaken]

This is why mighty car mods still stands above the rest. They never sold out and they’ve only done partnerships to help out the fans, not themselves

[Spencer]

A former donut media writer also explained that the equity group added a lot more corporate structural bloat, who were also drawing a salary. Making the company too top heavy while simultaneously becoming risk adverse to making unique “risky” content as well as making more and more bland sponsored content.

TLDR extremely smart investment groups bought a golden goose and then cut it open to get the eggs out quicker.

[NateDog_WDE]

Alex is literally the perfect person to help explain this between his background in business as well as his own personal experience with fitment he knows exactly what is going on behind the scenes at these channels and why everyone is leaving.

[ayoitsyayo]

These private equity firms think constant growth will always be there that they force it and ruin everything

[ohnoitsandrew]

I'm glad these guys got to fuck over the private equity firms like this honestly. I hope they all find success in their future endeavors

[ushwallman]

Rip Hoonigan and Donut. I hope Cleetus sticks to his guns and never sells out!

[ALC]

I still don’t get how all of you guys got Machinama’d like 20 years later

[glennbeiling]

Private equity firms ruin literally everything

[hershelwalkerjr]

Reminds me of the old fitment industry guys

[bzilla-di]

AutoAlex has explained this pretty well, leaving CarThrottle freed him up and his channel is now bigger than CarThrottle

[dylanheyl]

Such is the nature of private equity. Growth at all costs.

[jeast]

Yes, I do think that is a huge problem that is complicated further by people not being able to afford the basics. If you are struggling with the basics, you can spend $ on fun stuff, which is what the car hobby is, and it's really not a good idea to go into debt just to have fun. So, with the pressure to sell more to an audience who can't afford to buy the big channels become more dependent on ad revenue and end up doing a 20 min ad disguised as a vid on a garbage Chinese ev, which takes the heart out of the business.

[bwinston]

So happy about this, all the channels that have spawned since the breakups are 10x better than the parent channels ever were ❤

[RS-ofom]

Don't sell out Alex. You guys are doing a great job.

[coldcoffeegaming]

Private equity doing what they do best, coming in to generally make things worse for everyone involved without adding anything of value.

[banysyahban]

This is the most clear and on point explanation about why happen to automotive youtube

[smcd]

The AutoTea guy explains why very well. EBITDA is a financial term, but it's not the reason.

[ibraheemmonks]

I think another factor to consider is that these individuals want to build something for themselves. They've worked for these channels for years but are only 'employees' so they dont own anything. Once they've worked there for 5/10 yrs they've seen everything thats involved and know how to grow a channel and they know their skillset is good enough to make entertaining videos. With more and more youtube channels popping up it only makes sense these guys do so too.