The journey that created my YouTube channel started with a goal most unusual for a set of educational videos: My wife has stage 4, metastatic breast cancer. On top of my day jobs (lawyer, IP consultant, inventor, etc.), I now had a more important and stressful job: caregiver for my bride. Even though she is, as of today, doing well (the metastases are not growing, and some appear to be shrinking), the Sword of Damocles hangs. As Thurgood Marshall famously said in dissent, “the value of a sword of Damocles is that it hangs – not that it drops.” As my wife’s cancer means she has about a 1 in 4 chance of surviving five years, the anxiety and sadness became at times unbearable.
I decided that a helpful way to handle the anxiety would be to find a sense of purpose in teaching others how to make a living with their ideas. I started the YouTube channel “Innovation Cafe” (it was channel ID UCj4K79xQvcCeppEqEGTjTpQ), and began uploading videos. These are the same videos I am now starting to upload for hosting on this site. The story of why I had to undergo devastating stress, sadness, betrayal and a loss of trust as Google stripped me of my coping mechanism (and stripped subscribers of the free educational information I was providing) is a straight-up story of letting machines make the decisions and giving the machines the benefit of the doubt even when a human is begging to have another human review the machine’s error. It is a full throated repudiation of Google’s promised approach “Don’t be Evil” and should instill fear in everybody who thinks that humans should not have their speech suppressed by flawed AI algorithms.

Quick Summary of What Happened:
[This “Quick Summary” was added 1/25/2025] I know people don’t like reading “War and Peace” on websites, so here is the summary:
(1) YouTube’s AI flagged a video as needing an age restriction. I appealed and they said it didn’t need an age restriction, and didn’t violate Community Guidelines.
(2) YouTube’s AI soon flagged the same video as violating the Community Guidelines, and they took the video down.
(3) I appealed, and got a nearly immediate rejection. Like such a fast turnaround that I can’t believe a human was involved at all.
(4) YouTube then took down my whole channel. I appealed, same thing, overly quick rejection with no evidence of good faith human review.
(5) The video at issue can be seen below. It was a documentary piece on the role of evolutionary biology and sex in driving innovation from the 1500’s to the present. All nudity was blocked or blurred out.
(6) I tried to convince them to have a human review it, and within about a day they told me that they would no longer respond to communications from me.
(7) I got a Harvard Law classmate on board and we drafted a complaint.
(8) I sent a standard litigation hold letter to their legal department preferred method of communication, their general legal email address.
(9) Hours later, the legal department responded with a completely unrelated piece of information: How I could download my information (pretty much the “Google Takeout” data). No confirmation that they put a litigation hold in place. It’s almost as if their legal department is being run by a drunken AI.
(10) I’ve been a fan of Google for a long time. I hate the idea of suing them. That’s now the only option they’ve left me.
(11) I’ve also spent countless hours putting my content back online, this time on the innovationcafe.us website where no single company will have the ability to silence me, including via a poorly constructed algorithm or AI. Hundreds of hours. It sucked.
(12) Side note: The channel was about intellectual property law and creativity. If somehow they took offense at a video, I’d have happily taken it down. I was never given the courtesy of knowing why they killed the channel, much less the “strike” process that would let me fix the problem. To be clear, I don’t think there ever was a problem, but if they said they had a problem with, I don’t know, my video about Jamie Lee Curtis’ patent on an improved diaper or my overview of IP law, I would have removed it.
For the full story, read on…. And for G-d’s sake, if you are one of YouTube’s lawyers, reach out to me. This is not how a big company should act in the face of their own errors.
Creation of the Channel:
I have long enjoyed teaching people (particularly kids) about the importance of remaining creative and (for adults) understanding how to make a living with creativity. I’ve spoken at everything from conferences for executives to science camps. The idea that I could make my advice available — for free — to anybody who needed it was an amazing one, and one that I was certain would bring me at least periods of calm and a feeling of good Karma. I was excited. I felt, and still feel, like good Karma would be really helpful.
I invested significant amounts of money and even more significant amounts of time getting the knowledge and equipment I would need. I created the channel around August 10, 2024. I also have inventions in the area of photography, and created a second channel, Photography and Innovation, because I did not want to host content about intellectual property generally with content specifically designed to teach a single skill (projected light photography). That second channel peaked with a total of two subscribers, and I quickly decided it would no longer be a real channel, but instead would become my “test” channel. I didn’t know how to live stream, and didn’t want to try it on my 200,000 subscriber Innovation Cafe channel. I wasn’t always sure how a video would look when streaming, and again didn’t want to expose my subscribers to errors.
Between August 10, 2024 and December 18, 2024, I had created, edited, and uploaded 9 hours, 46 minutes of content across around 150 videos. I did numerous videos on the intersection of neurodiversity and invention, copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, the right of publicity, strategic issues in obtaining patents, selling patents, picking a patent lawyer, the power of the subconscious, the history of many inventors and inventions, and even how getting a patent can improve your ability to get a skilled immigrant visa in many countries.
It was a success in that my subscriber base was largely from more impoverished countries. I was getting comments and contacts from people globally who were now looking at their imaginations as a way to get the money they need to live. I felt great while I was working on the channel, My stress never fully went away, but I felt like I was doing a good deed for the world. I decided to double down, and spent a significant amount of money promoting my channel to people living in poor countries using YouTube’s own “promote this video” option. If I could help one person invent or draw or write their way out of poverty, it would be a success.
I was helping people, and at a time I needed all of the good Karma I could get, well, I felt like I was at least doing something.
The A/B/C Test, and Uploading Three Versions of Each Video:
I had come to the conclusion that my YouTube videos were too long, as people were watching only the first minute or so. I decided to run an A/B/C test. For a while, I would upload three versions of each long form video: One that was 3 minutes long or so, one that was 6 minutes long or so, and one that was full length. My theory was that 3 minutes would be the sweet spot for people under age 30, 6 minutes for people between 30 and 45, and full length for those over that age. As it turns out, YouTube’s AI overlord didn’t let me run that test long enough to get answers. I uploaded three versions of educational videos about (a) how to become a more prolific innovator in seven days, and (b) the role of evolutionary biology in driving demand and adult content, which in turn drove demand for innovations. I was never told what triggered my ban from YouTube, but I am fairly sure it was the evolutionary biology video.
I now wonder if the A/B/C test — which would have been obvious to a human — was entirely missed by the AI system. If so, it would think that each of the three versions of the same video was a unique video, so any violations in one video would look like I’d uploaded three different violative videos. This never occurred to me to be a problem, however, because I was being careful to comply with the YouTube Community Guidelines. As it turns out, my compliance with the guidelines was far more accurate than the YouTube AI’s misapplication of those guidelines.
If the termination was based on “repeated” violations and no human reviewed it, I could see the mistake stemming from a poorly programmed AI looking at three different lengths of the same video as three entirely different videos. Even then, though, as they were all educational without nudity, it should not have been an issue.
The Lead-Up to Termination, and YouTube’s Finding That the Content Did Not Violate Community Guidelines:
I was brainstorming ideas for new episodes about some of the stranger aspects of innovation that people might find instructional. I remembered being told, while working at a start-up in 2000, that Yahoo’s early days were funded in large part by banner ads run by adult content internet companies. I had accepted it as true, but I was never sure (and as it turns out my research did not answer whether it was true of Yahoo). I decided that it would be interesting to start to look at some external drivers of creativity. I knew that online gambling was an early driver of innovation in the areas of secure transactions and anti-collusion technology. I knew that online dating was an enormous driver of social network and proximity technology (and how I met my wife!). And I knew that adult content was a huge driver of technology and infrastructure build-out.
I decided that the first video in this “unexpected drivers of technology” documentary series would be the intersection of adult content with technological development. As it turns out, this is what appears to have made Google’s poorly programmed AI think I was uploading pornography. It wasn’t pornography, but even renowned U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart could not define it. Instead, he said his process to determine what was pornographic was simple: “I know it when I see it.” An AI is incapable of exercising Potter Stewart’s test. As it turns out, YouTube’s AI is remarkably incapable. There was no unblurred nudity and the entire video was educational (and to be honest, so educational I’m afraid I managed to make it boring).
I was aware that illustrating the video would require a lot of blurring of content and “censored” bars to remain safe for work, safe for my intended audience, and safe for YouTube, and I was determined to do that. I edited three versions of the video (again, I was still running my experiment, so I created 3 minute, 6 minute, and full length versions of the video).
I did my best to make sure I complied with YouTube’s rules. I uploaded the carefully edited videos to my test channel (innovation & photography, 2 subscribers) in early December. On December 5, I got a warning that their AI had age restricted my content.

I immediately appealed, explaining that is was educational, all nudity was fully blurred out, and was appropriate for publication without an age restriction. I was really glad I hadn’t exposed my viewers to this content because I didn’t want to contravene YouTube’s rules. However, within an hour of filing an appeal, they expressly told me that the content did not violate any YouTube Community Guidelines:

With YouTube’s confirmation that I had properly edited the content so it complied with YouTube’s Community Guidelines, and was so acceptable that they even removed any age restrictions, I was certain that the content would be acceptable to upload to my real channel, Innovation Cafe. I uploaded all three versions to Innovation Cafe. Out of an abundance of caution, I also created and uploaded an even more censored version than what YouTube had originally approved in that first appeal as compliant with Community Guidelines. This, I thought, would avoid an unnecessary repeat of the age restriction followed by winning an appeal. If they changed their minds on the age restriction of the first version, at least I would have the wildly over sanitized version without an age restriction. Just so you can see what the video at issue was (I’m guessing the video is the one at issue in the Innovation Cafe takedown, although YouTube never told me), I’m embedding it here. Don’t worry, there is no nudity and it is educational (it is the original version, not the one with additional unnecessary censorship):
I happily moved on to my next uploads, spending many more hours (and buying new video editing tools and equipment), knowing that I had literally already had the video approved by YouTube as not violating their community guidelines. I forgot to delete the videos from my test channel, but since they were already approved, this should not have been an issue. I should clarify, there should not have been an issue if a human reviewed it. I didn’t realize that YouTube was run by AI overlords and not people, a terrible error on my part.
On December 10, 2024, five days after YouTube wrote to me that the video did not violate their Community Guidelines and did not even need an age restriction, YouTube sent me a notice that they had age-restricted two of the three versions of the video on my main channel, Innovation Cafe. Oddly, the notices were for the two shorter versions of the video. The full version, with far more content, was apparently just fine with the AI — even though it was a superset of the two shorter videos and contained all of the same content and more. Here is one of the age restriction notices:

I immediately appealed, and two hours later the appeal — of the more censored video than the one they had earlier said did not violate community guidelines — was granted, while the one identical to the version uploaded to the test channel and previously approved by YouTube for all ages was denied, and remained age restricted. To be clear: At this point, the same video had been age restricted twice. The first time, they confirmed it was safe for all ages and complied with Community Guidelines. The second time, they thought it should remain age restricted, but that it did not violate Community Guidelines
On December 15, 2024, ten days after YouTube wrote to me that the video did not violate their Community Guidelines and did not even need an age restriction, YouTube sent me a new notice for my test channel:

This is literally the only communication they sent that had any indication of what they thought was a problem. [Edit 1/22/2025: the only URL present at that timestamp was BoobScan.com, which currently redirects to a web page that has no images of humans, no sexual content, and simply seeks to sell the domain name as anodyne an external link as you could imagine.] They were complaining about a page that had appeared on an educational site that documents web design history, including for adult sites (uncensored link here, use caution). This is what the video showed at 00:00:32:

You’ll note that all nudity was blurred out. You’ll also note the words “Massive Infrastructure Improvements”, in keeping with the educational mission of the video. These were the sites included among those that created the demand for better server performance and more bandwidth infrastructure, and in part funded a lot of the internet’s infrastructure build-out in the late 1990’s.
The portion of the transcript of the video discussing internet adult content was quite an anodyne and educational passage: “With the rise of the internet, the adult industry was among the first to harness this potential. It drove early web traffic and drove demand for higher speeds, better streaming, and secure online payments. These advancements laid the groundwork for the high speed, content rich internet we enjoy today. They influenced e-commerce, they influenced streaming systems. Most of the stuff you use on the internet was developed, at least in part, with funds generated from adults.” If this isn’t considered educational, nothing is considered educational.
I immediately appealed. Prior to any decision on the appeal, I took their online course about compliance with YouTube guidelines. I was very confused, since any reasonable person would conclude, after taking the course, that the content complained about was in compliance. I was even more confused when YouTube told me that they would not reinstate the very content that, 10 days earlier, they said did not even require an age restriction:

Since YouTube’s first appeal’s AI seemed to disagree with the second appeal’s AI, I decided it was too big a risk to leave any of this up, so I deleted it all. To be clear, all of the educational content documenting the connection between sex, evolutionary biology, and innovation was now gone.
Shockingly, post-deletion of content, on December 17, 2024, I received a notice that YouTube was taking down my test channel:

I filed and lost an appeal of the termination. I was now in a panic because the termination notice looked like it was telling me I couldn’t use my primary channel because it stated “Going forward, you won’t be able to access, possess, or create any other YouTube channels.”
Termination of Innovation Cafe, My Primary Channel Serving 200,000 Subscribers:
After receiving the notice that they were taking down the video on Innovation and Photography (the test channel), I realized that YouTube’s algorithm was out of control and making severe errors. Rather than risk it, I immediately deleted all versions of that video from Innovation Cafe. I then (On Dec. 17) wrote to support to find out how the ban on my test channel would impact my primary channel. Here is the relevant part of the conversation (entire chat in italics, bold emphasis added, repetitive content removed):
10:06:33 AM Gary Shuster: I had a channel only used to test live streams and uploading. It had 2 videos on it (a 3 part video&one with the same video in different lengths, <10 views in total). One was about the challenges in projected light photography&how to do it [this is the test channel].Other was documentary/educational about how adult content drove tech development, cave paintings leading to better dyes, adult 16th century books&printing press improvements, adult websites in the 1990s leading to more infrastructure innovations and investments. I thought an educational video with all nudity blurred fell within the “documentary and educational” exceptions. Apparently not, I got a warning last night, I took down all of the content from the channel, and subsequently got a notice that the channel was terminated and “Going forward, you won’t be able to access, possess, or create any other YouTube channels.” Does this mean that @innovationcafe is dead? I’ve put in ~1000 hours making high quality educational videos. Do I just stop work?
10:07:59 AM Charles: I’m sorry to hear that your channel was terminated.
10:08:10 AM Charles: Thanks for sharing your concern.
10:08:15 AM Gary Shuster: The other [test] channel got a warning last night and this morning I got a notice saying it was taken down and “Going forward, you won’t be able to access, possess, or create any other YouTube channels.”
I’ve put in many hundreds of hours creating high quality educational content about intellectual property law and innovation on my primary channel. Am I correct that the primary channel is going to be killed off by YouTube in keeping with “Going forward, you won’t be able to access, possess, or create any other YouTube channels”? I don’t want to waste time creating high quality content for a channel you’re just going to kill.
10:09:14 AM Gary Shuster: This was the URL for my test/inactive channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjugJSTkHUvgbQUXBirBv_g
That’s the one that got a warning and then a permanent takedown, all within 12 hours of each other
10:10:15 AM Charles: Thanks for the additional information.
10:10:47 AM Gary Shuster: My option is to just move the content to a platform like Udemy. I’d rather it be on YouTube where it is accessible without cost to people who can’t afford to pay Udemy, but do I even have a choice anymore?
10:10:58 AM Charles: Do you mean that you want to know if this channel will also be suspended, is that correct? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj4K79xQvcCeppEqEGTjTpQ
10:11:44 AM Gary Shuster: Yes. That’s the question. Not suspended but deleted. That’s what the email I got this morning said: ” Going forward, you won’t be able to access, possess, or create any other YouTube channels.”
10:12:49 AM Charles: I see. Thanks for confirming.
10:14:12 AM Charles: Let me go ahead and check this for you.
10:18:28 AM Charles: To help you better with this concern, I’ll go ahead and check this matter further on my end. Is it okay if I place this chat on hold for 3-5 minutes while I look into this?
10:18:41 AM Gary Shuster: The real bummer is that I’ve got about 10 hours of long form ready to upload, mostly talking about patent law developments.
On hold is fine.
10:30:28 AM Charles: As per checking here, your main channel will not be suspended along with your other channel.
YouTube turned this promise into a lie within hours. As it turns out, Charles (and whichever supervisor he talked with while leaving me on hold) was quite wrong. This arrived on December 18 (Idea Forge was somehow the account name for “Innovation Cafe”):

A few hours later, they denied my appeal:

I had deleted the only content that I thought could possibly have triggered the warning (although I did have a lot of content critical of the efficient infringement patent strategy that big tech companies use to avoid licensing inventions from small companies and individuals, and I suppose a political reason could be the real reason behind the action, thinly hidden by the pretextual termination based on mischaracterizing content that cleanly complies with their guidelines).
I went through many additional rounds of support requests, begging to just have one human being review the channel. Arthur C. Clark might have appreciated the horror when I realized that the AI decided “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
The channel was gone, and Google’s errant AI was not going to have its judgment questioned.
What Do YouTube’s Community Guidelines Say?
Rather than edit or attempt to summarize them, I will simply post the relevant portions below:

You’ll notice that nothing in the video or the portion that they identified violated these policies. Nothing about the page was meant for “sexual gratification”, there was no nudity, and everything was blurred to the point where it was clearly compliant with the guidelines.

The video was clearly educational, a documentary about one of the drivers of innovation. The first paragraph of the transcript isn’t exactly the stuff of pornography: “We’re going to look at how the adult entertainment industry has been a powerful driver of technological innovation. Now, you might ask, what does adult content have to do with technological progress? A lot, because there’s money in it. And where the money goes, technological advancements usually followed. Throughout history, the adult industry has catalyzed significant advancements in technology. Starting with Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century….” Was it educational? Yes, of course, even to the point of making a discussion that touches on reproduction somewhat boring.

Even if the video did violate YouTube policy (which is exactly opposite of what their decision on my first appeal found), termination of the channel fell well outside of their policy. There was no “severe abuse”, and the channel was dedicated to intellectual property, hardly a policy violation.
Other than having had content critical of the negative impact of large technology companies on IP law, and their use of the “efficient infringement” tactic, whereby big tech companies intentionally infringe patents because they know most inventors don’t have the millions of dollars required to litigate an infringement case against them, I can’t think of any reason why they would want to terminate a channel that has ten hours of high quality educational content about intellectual property and zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds of nudity.
What Comes Next?
If you’ve read this far, you’re either awesome (thank you!) or you’re facing the same issue as I did — wrongful termination of your channel, or both. I’m not going to provide legal advice (although I’m licensed to practice law in California, and after I resolve this with YouTube, I may have interest in taking cases on behalf of other people in a similar situation), so please understand that this is not legal advice, and might not apply in your case.
The only way to force a company to reverse course is to have a court order it or lawmakers mandate it. I’m not a lawmaker, so my options have dwindled to where litigation is my only option. I had assumed that YouTube’s Terms of Service would prevent me from doing anything. Usually big companies draft terms of service so that they force you to pay for expensive arbitrators and resolve everything outside of court, in a non-public arbitration forum. They normally also prohibit you from acting in any kind of class action or representative action, so you cannot split your attorney’s fees expenses with anybody. YouTube is only 1 for 2. They do not force you into arbitration. They do prohibit class actions.
What do their terms of service (which they treat as a contract) say about deleting content and violation of guidelines? I was surprised to see that it says they must do so based on a “reasonable” belief:


We’ll start with the breaches of contract: First, they must “reasonably believe” that content is in breach of the agreement or harmful before they take it down. As they reviewed the content and said it did not violate their guidelines, and then had a customer service agent promise me that it would not impact my primary channel in any event, it is hard to see how going from “it’s safe even for minors” to “it’s such a severe violation that you’re terminated” is reasonable. Second, they are required to provide the “reason for [their] action”, which they failed to do.
Turning to the termination of the channel, they can only terminate a channel contractually if there is a “material” or “repeated” breach of the agreement, if they are legally required to do so, or if they “believe that there has been conduct that creates (or could create) liability or harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or [their] Affiliates.”
YouTube wrote on December 5 that “After taking another look, we can confirm that your content does not violate our Community Guidelines.” They wrote on December 17 that “As per checking here, your main channel [Innovation Cafe] will not be suspended along with your other channel.” That YouTube later looked at the same video and found it to be so damaging, and the same channel they reviewed on December 17 as one that “will not be suspended” to be so damaging that it would constitute a material breach is not credible. It is similarly without credibility that a single video (in three different lengths and at one point approved by YouTube as not violating Community Guidelines) constitutes “repeated” breach.
There is no legal requirement or court order I am aware of requiring that Innovation Cafe be suspended, nor would such an order pass muster under either the First Amendment (and as a US Citizen operating under a California choice of law, it is hard to see how that would not apply) or the Charter of Rights (Canada’s version of the Bill of Rights, and as a dual citizen with Canadian citizenship living in Canada, that would apply). A channel that is strictly educational, with no obscene content (or even nudity) is protected speech such that a court could not order YouTube to silence it (of course, the First Amendment is limited to governmental and court action).
The only remaining prong upon which an account termination could be predicated is if YouTube “believe[s] that there has been conduct that creates (or could create) liability or harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or [their] Affiliates.” Given that they literally twice said that the content at issue was compliant with their guidelines, this is also unavailable as a cause permitting them to terminate the contract. This kind of arbitrary and capricious decision-making where what is fine one day is channel-death-penalty material the next day at minimum violates the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing — in addition to a violation of the contract terms themselves.
I know what the internet lawyers are thinking. “They can do whatever they want under Section 230”. Not so. While the Communications Decency Act gives service providers wide latitude in deleting content, it does not relieve them of contractual duties. Where a party “alleges a breach of contract claim … subsection 230(c)(1) of the [Communications Decency] Act does not preclude her cause of action.” Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc. (9th Cir. 2009) 570 F.3d 1096, 1109, as amended (Sept. 28, 2009).
At the outset, this is at least a breach of contract claim, including a breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Is there fraud or negligent misrepresentation? Maybe. That is what the discovery process is for during litigation. Is there some other claim that isn’t precluded by the prohibition on representative actions? Maybe.
Given that the agreement has a California choice of law and that I’m licensed to practice law in California, I’ll likely proceed in California. However, I already have Canadian counsel looking into the matter as well.
It may also be the case that the class action waiver renders the California choice of law and venue provision illegal as a violation of Canadian public policy. From a high-level academic perspective, Canadian courts can (and often do) disregard choice of law and venue clauses when they contravene public policy or statutory protections, especially in consumer or standard-form agreements. A contractual waiver of class action rights can be seen by Canadian courts as infringing on important procedural safeguards under provincial or federal law, potentially rendering the clause unenforceable. Furthermore, if the clause at issue offends Canadian public policy, it may also cause the broader choice of law and venue clause to fail—meaning a B.C. court could assert jurisdiction and apply local law to permit a class action.
In thinking further about this, I thought of an interesting legal theory that is, as best I can tell, novel. The theory is that any contractual requirement that a party act “reasonably” or based on “reasonable belief” may only be met by a human exercising reasonable belief. After all, only a human can “reason”. A computer just predicts what word should come next (at least in large language models for AI). I intend to advocate for a rule that it is per se unreasonable to take action without a human exercising reason, and that an AI review may never comprise “reasoning” sufficient to meet any test of “reasonable” belief or action. Now I’m thinking that in addition to my own channel, I’d like to set precedent that binds all tech companies to a standard whereby humans must be involved in exercising any required discretion as to what is “reasonable”. So it is worth suing and taking it up on appeal if I lose in hopes of getting a published, precedential opinion.
I will post updates as Shuster v. Google LLC develops.
Important Notice: This is my attempt to summarize what happened after an informal review. This is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the evidence or causes of action, and a more complete review of the evidence is going to happen. When this matter is turned into a complaint and filed, I expect a complete review of the evidence and the law will reveal additional evidence. Put another way, this is a first attempt to turn YouTube’s disjointed AI channel and content termination process into a narrative. This should be understood as a draft, and not a definitive statement of the facts or law.
Update 1 (Jan. 15, 2025): It looks like Dr. Drew Pinsky has had videos taken down for spreading “medical misinformation”. YouTube needs to stop letting machines silence human speech.

Update 2: 1-22-2025
The complaint is drafted and we’re preparing to file it. In the meantime, YouTube continues to use AI in a way that badly fails their customers and themselves. In preparation for the litigation, I sent the standard litigation hold letter, which is a letter that tells the defendant that they must preserve evidence. This is particularly important with internet companies, as things like access logs are often deleted on a schedule.
I followed the instructions at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6154232?hl=en, emailing the litigation hold notice at 9:04 am on January 21, 2025 to legal@support.youtube.com. In response, 14 hours later they sent me this complete non-sequitur in response:

In my opinion, it is obvious that no human reviewed that email. I created a second litigation hold letter and sent it by fax. I wonder if human beings work at YouTube.
Section 230 Immunity Does Not Apply Here:
I know what my fellow IP lawyers are thinking — how can you possibly win given Section 230 Immunity? Section 230(c)(1) provides that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” Section 230(c)(2)(A) provides that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of … any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be … objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.” This section did preclude claims against YouTube back when the terms of service provided that:
Those terms of service gave YouTube unfettered discretion in making publishing decisions. However, a total lack of accountability for random deletion of accounts is not exactly the way to drive creators to YouTube, or have them stay on YouTube. YouTube did the right thing and modified the terms of service to limit when it may delete content or terminate accounts by providing contractually that “If we reasonably believe that any of your Content (1) is in breach of this Agreement or (2) may cause harm to YouTube, our users, or third parties, we reserve the right to remove or take down that Content in accordance with applicable law.” Those are the terms of service that apply to their deletion of my content and channel.
It turns out that in the Ninth Circuit (the federal court of appeals that covers California and many other Western states), “insofar as [a party] alleges a breach of contract claim … subsection 230(c)(1) of the Act does not preclude her cause of action“. The same logic applies to subsection 230(c)(2). A contract written by Google/YouTube imposing requirements on YouTube that limit their ability to take down content acts as a waiver of immunity under that section.
In the context of Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc. (9th Cir. 2009) 570 F.3d 1096, 1108, as amended (Sept. 28, 2009), the Court put it simply: It is “easy for Yahoo to avoid liability: it need only disclaim any intention to be bound” by contractual obligations that vary from the statute’s immunity provisions.
YouTube can’t have its cake and eat it too. It cannot contractually promise and reassure creators considering moving to other platforms that they are protected from deletion of content or channels in the absence of a “reasonable belief” that the contract has been violated and then insist that YouTube is protected from the very promise they made by a statute that they would have been protected by in the absence of that promise.
The Ninth Circuit reaffirmed that Barnes remains good law last year in Calise v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (9th Cir. 2024) 103 F.4th 732, 740, stating that “where the duty springs from another source—for example, a contract—the plaintiff is not seeking to hold the defendant as a publisher or speaker, and § 230 does not apply.”
The key questions presented by the case will not be whether Section 230 immunity applies — it does not. Rather, the questions seem to be (of course, as litigation progresses it is not uncommon for new or modified issues to arise) (1) may an artificial intelligence or algorithm determine what is reasonable under a contract, or is that a determination a machine cannot make; (2) may an artificial intelligence or algorithm hold a required “belief” under a contract, or is that something only a human can do; (3) even if the answer to the foregoing two questions is “yes” (or if a human had made the decisions instead of allowing an AI to deplatform humans), is it reasonable under the contract to delete a channel, with no warnings or strikes, based on a video that is objectively within the terms of service — one about which YouTube itself stated, on appeal, that “we can confirm that your content does not violate our Community Guidelines”?
I tried unbelievably hard to get a human to look at this. Google has done a lot of good for the world, and I have no desire to be adverse to them. But even YouTube’s legal department does not seem to have a human look at legal documents, such as a litigation hold letter (see above). Ultimately, computers should not have the ability to silence humans. Section 230 might protect such arbitrary and unreasonable acts, but when YouTube changed its terms of service to require that it act based on a “reasonable belief” only, it waived that protection.
In any event, that is my opinion on the matter (these aren’t statements of fact, only my legal opinion, but it is my hope that a court, in a published opinion, agrees with me). I believe that the weight of authority and common sense are consistent with my position. I also wish that YouTube would have made a human available to actively, in good faith, and de novo, review the materials with me so that we never got to this point. We’re here, though, and the next step is filing the complaint. Stay tuned.
Update 3:
I have uploaded one of the Exhibits from the complaint. I hope that YouTube/Google finally have a human reach out. At this point, getting rejected by algorithms and AI is just getting old. I got rejected enough over my life by humans, I sure don’t need an AI to join in.
Update 4:
I realize that I should have uploaded all three versions of the video that I think (YouTube never said for sure) were the cause of the ban of my “no strikes, no warnings channel. Here they are:
Short version (3 minutes, same as linked above).
Medium version (6 minutes).
Long version
Please, go ahead and watch the videos (don’t worry, despite YouTube’s freak out, they’re safe for work). Ask yourself whether they are so horrific, so extreme, that YouTube could reasonably believe that they merited deletion of the entire channel without any warnings or strikes. Ask yourself whether they are educational, because that is something that YouTube permits to have nudity in (even those these videos blur it all out). And while you’re at it, take at look at the other videos on this website. My terribly offensive tutorial on trademarks? My utterly lewd and inappropriate video discussing whether you should file for a provisional patent application before filing a utility patent application? My pathetically safe for work overview of IP law? Maybe they misread my trade secrets video and confused it with Victoria’s Secret? Seriously, I can’t figure out what they think I did wrong (because I think their AI just screwed up and they didn’t have a human team give a good faith review, but for now, pending litigation and discovery, that’s just how it looks to me). Why don’t you poke around the videos on this site. As of January 25, 2025, they are all videos that were up on my YouTube channel. It’s kind of like playing “Where’s Waldo”, but Waldo doesn’t exist.
Update 5:
I made transcripts of each of the videos in advance of filing the litigation. I might as well post them here so you can evaluate whether the videos were educational or not. I truly hope they didn’t take down the channel because of the closing message on the long form of the video: “But ultimately we’re all humans. We’re all trying to get through the day. And let’s use innovation to make the world better for all of us.” That said, we aren’t all humans. My belief is that YouTube is primarily, perhaps wholly, moderated by machines. And you can see how machines wouldn’t respond to a message about humans making the world better for each other.
Here they are:
EXHIBIT A:
TRANSCRIPT OF THE VIDEO
The 3 Minute Version of the VIDEO:
00:00:43:25 – 00:01:12:06
We’re going to look at how the adult entertainment industry has been a powerful driver of technological innovation. Now, you might ask, what does adult content have to do with technological progress? A lot. Because there’s money in it. And where the money goes, technological advancements usually follow. Now throughout history, the adult industry has catalyzed significant advancements in technology. Starting with Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century.
00:01:12:13 – 00:01:38:11
It revolutionized book production, but erotic literature had enough demand that it pushed printers to refine techniques for better quality and efficiency. In the 19th century, we had the advent of photography. And wouldn’t you know it, people were taking intimate images almost right away after the first photographic systems were created. This demand drove innovations in photographic equipment, lighting and photographic techniques.
00:01:38:12 – 00:02:05:09
The pattern continued with motion pictures. The adult industry’s interest in movies spurred advancements in camera technology and production methods. By the late 20th century, the video format war was the new front line for adult. Here we have VHS and Betamax. Betamax was technologically superior, but VHS had the support of the adult industry, and that helped to influence consumer adoption on a massive scale, leaving VHS the victor.
00:02:05:09 – 00:02:33:02
With the rise of the internet, the adult industry was among the first to harness potential. It drove early web traffic and drove demand for higher speeds, better streaming and secure online payments. These advancements laid the groundwork for the high speed, content-rich internet we enjoy today. They influenced e-commerce. They influenced streaming systems. Most of the stuff you use on the internet was developed, at least in part, with funds generated from adult.
00:02:33:04 – 00:03:03:27
So what’s the takeaway? Humans want to pass their genes on to the next generation. That’s evolutionary biology for you. And anything related to that is going to be a high priority in the brains of a lot of humans, and that includes sex. So, unsurprisingly, adult content was a huge driver of innovation. The adult industry’s pursuit of this consumer interest pushed technological boundaries and led to advancements that permeate our lives today,
00:03:04:00 – 00:03:24:26
even if you never look at a single intimate image. Thank you for joining me on this brief exploration of the role of adult content in innovation. If you found this interesting, hit the link for the longform video of this and do a really deep dive. Until next time, stay engaged, stay innovative, stay curious, and stay awesome.
The 6 Minute Version of the VIDEO:
00:00:00:00 – 00:01:16:00
Welcome back to Innovation Cafe. Today we are going to look into how adult content has driven the development of technology. Evolutionary biology tells you all we’re trying to do as humans is pass our genes on to the next generation. And that makes anything having to do with reproduction very interesting to humans. As a result, adult content has the ability to bring in money and attention and those two things also happen to be things that supercharge the speed of innovation.
00:01:16:05 – 00:01:42:17
Before we get going, I am doing multiple versions of the same video. For the deep dive, you’re going to click the card above you. So let’s hit it. Throughout history, adult content has been a powerful catalyst for advancements in technology. Our journey begins in the 1400s with Gutenberg’s printing press. It is well known for having turned out the Gutenberg Bible, but it’s less well known for having turned out a lot of different books.
00:01:42:24 – 00:02:14:09
Erotic literature found a very substantial audience and pushed printers to refine their techniques for higher quality and efficiency. This demand accelerated the evolution of printing technology. Fast forward to the 19th century and the birth of photography. Almost as soon as cameras were invented, people began to use them to capture intimate images. This shouldn’t be surprising for anyone who lived through the smartphone revolution, where smartphones were delivered on a Monday and by Wednesday or even earlier
00:02:14:16 – 00:02:42:27
people were taking intimate images. The demand for intimate images on film back in the 1800s drove significant innovations in photographic techniques, in lighting and equipment, and pushed the boundaries of what cameras could do. This continued with motion pictures. The adult industry’s interest in movies spurred advancements in camera technology, film production and projection methods. An interesting figure in this is Hedy Lamarr.
00:02:43:00 – 00:03:08:23
She was a famous actress and appeared in one of the first mainstream films to feature significant nudity. Beyond her acting career, she was a patented inventor who co-developed frequency hopping spread spectrum technology. It is what made possible modern wireless communications like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Moving into the late 20th century, we encounter the video format war between VHS and Betamax.
00:03:08:24 – 00:03:34:07
Betamax was technologically superior, but VHS won the market. Why? The adult industry adopted VHS. This choice influenced consumer adoption on a pretty massive scale and, combined with other factors, made VHS the household standard. Wasn’t too long before we entered the digital age. The adult industry was among the first to recognize and capitalize on the potential of the internet.
00:03:34:10 – 00:04:12:18
Adult websites drove a substantial portion of early web traffic. If you’re downloading adult images, you don’t want to wait for hours for each image. So of course, this demand pushed tech companies to improve infrastructure at an unbelievable pace. Innovations in video compression, streaming technologies and cybersecurity measures were accelerated. The adult industry needed a way to drive traffic to their sites where they would charge them, and as a result, there was a ton of money going from adult content websites to more mainstream websites in exchange for hosting banner ads.
00:04:12:24 – 00:04:41:13
And that helped fund some of the earliest internet companies. But with the introduction of adult tube sites, the old model where people paid for content was essentially demolished. So what was the industry to do? Turns out that performers exercised control over their destiny. How? Sites like OnlyFans. Unlike a tube site on OnlyFans, the adult model can interact with their fans.
00:04:41:14 – 00:05:10:08
They can create content that their fans ask for. They develop a relationship from the fan to the adult actor. That relationship helped drive traffic and funds directly to that actor. This model drove more advancements in live streaming technology, microtransaction processing, and robust authentication systems. The demand for high quality, efficient video streaming pushed the development of content delivery networks, and advanced buffering solutions.
00:05:10:15 – 00:05:33:20
There are a couple of areas where the mainstream still hasn’t caught up with the adult, and the biggest one probably is virtual reality video. There is a ton of VR content in the adult space, but mainstream studios have been very slow to adopt virtual reality. Similarly, metaverse technology is driven in large part by adult. So what’s the takeaway?
00:05:33:21 – 00:06:01:16
Innovations sprout from places closely tied to fundamental human desires. If there’s enough demand and there’s enough funding as a result of that demand, wherever that funding is going, it’s going to be well situated to push technological progress. And in this case, it was the adult industry. Thank you for joining me. If you found this discussion interesting but still want more, go ahead and click the video for the long form.
00:06:01:17 – 00:06:09:02
Until next time, stay engaged. Stay creative. Stay curious. Stay awesome. We’ll catch you next time.
The Full-Length Version of the VIDEO:
00:00:00:00 – 00:01:10:04
Ault content and intimate images have been enormous drivers of technological advancement throughout history. From an evolutionary biology point of view, anything that involves procreation is going to be top of the list in terms of what’s important to people. Food, shelter, all that stuff is designed to pass our genes on to the next generation. And one of the most concrete expressions of that is sex.
00:01:10:04 – 00:01:33:28
So of course, sex drives a lot of human behavior, and innovation is no different. A lot of innovation was birthed, pardon the pun, through sex. So let’s start in the early days. Now you’re thinking, what does adult content have to do with technological progress? And the answer is a huge amount. Throughout history, adult has been a silent but powerful catalyst for technological advancement.
00:01:33:28 – 00:01:57:17
So grab your favorite drink, settle in, and let’s explore this amazing connection. Now, I bet you thought I was going to start with the internet, because that’s of course, what most people associate adult content with, but this goes back a lot further than that. In fact, we go all the way back to the first printing presses. Our journey begins in the 15th century with Gutenberg’s printing press.
00:01:57:18 – 00:02:20:04
It was a groundbreaking invention. I mean, think about it. Instead of having people sit for their entire lives copying just a handful of books by hand, you can roll out books en mass. Well, it turns out that it wasn’t just for religious texts like the Bible. It also opened the floodgates for the mass production of all kinds of literature, including erotic content.
00:02:20:05 – 00:02:45:10
The appetite for these materials pushed printers to refine their techniques, and led to higher quality prints and more efficient production methods. In striving to satisfy diverse human interests, and frankly, the thing that evolutionary biology tells us is the driving factor behind a lot of human behavior, the demand for content accelerated the evolution of printing tech. The advancement wasn’t isolated.
00:02:45:11 – 00:03:15:22
It benefited the dissemination of scientific knowledge, philosophical ideas, educational ideas by supercharging the creation of mass content, making it easier, cheaper, faster, simpler. Adult content brought along with it a lot of content that by itself might not have had the level of interest necessary to drive that level of rapid technological innovation. Jumping ahead to the 1800s, we encountered the birth of photography.
00:03:15:27 – 00:03:36:03
Almost as soon as cameras were invented, people began to use them to capture intimate images. Now this is echoed in what every parent worries about today, which is you put a cellphone with a camera on it in a teen’s pocket, and they are likely to use it for things that are not very smart to put up on the internet.
00:03:36:04 – 00:04:02:08
It was no different back then. It’s just that instead of using a tiny handheld camera, it was a huge device with plates of film. But people used these early photographic breakthroughs to capture nude images. This demand drove significant innovations in photographic techniques and equipment, and pushed the boundaries of what cameras could do. Not it wasn’t too long before history repeated itself with motion pictures.
00:04:02:09 – 00:04:30:07
The adult industry’s interest in film spurred amazing advancements in camera technology, film production, and projection methods. These leaps, again, weren’t confined to any genre. Although a lot of money came into research as a result of demand for adult content, the benefits of the research spread far and wide. They produced a film industry with realms of possibility and really enriched options for entertainment outside of the bedroom, as well as in.
00:04:30:12 – 00:05:02:09
There is an amazing coincidence? Overlap? between one of history’s greatest inventors, Hedy Lamarr, and adult film. Hers was the first mainstream film with a significant amount of nudity, and that more or less ushered in an era of censorship and the rating system. She also happened to come up with frequency hopping, which she patented and is incorporated into almost every device that we have now that uses any kind of radio transmission.
00:05:02:11 – 00:05:27:07
So your cell phone, your Bluetooth, all that stuff — you can thank Hattie Lamarr for taking time out from her busy film career to revolutionize telecommunications. If you remember from my video about copyright and fair use, the video recorder played a really key role in an early Supreme Court case deciding that using a video recorder to timeshift shows was a fair use. Close call 5 to 4.
00:05:27:08 – 00:05:56:23
In addition to pioneering concepts of fair use, video recorders pioneered adult content. Now, do you remember or have you heard? If you’re my age, you remember. If you’re younger, you’ve heard about the videotaped format war between VHS and Betamax. Betamax was considered to be technologically superior, but VHS did one thing that BetaMax didn’t. VHS permitted the creation of adult content and distribution of adult content using the VHS technology.
00:05:57:00 – 00:06:24:10
Sony, which had created Betamax, strongly discouraged it. So, unsurprisingly, the technologically superior device, the Betamax recorder, lost the format wars to VHS because of adult demand. The adult industry decided to distribute content on VHS, and it played a significant role in VHS becoming the dominant format. The preference didn’t just tip the scales, though, it influenced consumer adoption on a massive scale.
00:06:24:10 – 00:06:54:15
Mainstream media quickly followed, and VHS became the household standard, and it is a prime example of how industry choices can sway technological outcomes in ways that resonate for decades. So we’re navigating the digital frontier of the late 20th century. The adult industry was among the first to recognize and capitalize on the potential of the World Wide Web. Adult websites quickly became some of the most visited sites on the internet, and drove a substantial portion of early web traffic.
00:06:54:16 – 00:07:17:23
They also had an interesting side effect. They wanted to run ads to get people to their sites. So by hiking demand for internet advertising, they created a sustainable model, which is you can provide free content and run ads. And that model lasted for a very long time. In fact, it’s still in place. And people complain when paywalls go up because it’s deviating from that model.
00:07:17:24 – 00:07:47:21
The immense demand for faster download speeds and better video streaming pushed internet service providers and tech companies to improve infrastructure at an unprecedented pace. Innovations in video compression, streaming technologies and cybersecurity measures were accelerated in part by the needs of this industry. The advancements laid the groundwork for the high speed, content rich internet we enjoyed today. Now, if you are only downloading text based books and web pages and news, you wouldn’t need that fast of a connection.
00:07:47:21 – 00:08:11:04
But when you’re downloading full color images, you need a fast connection. When you’re downloading moving images, you need a much faster connection. It makes no sense to pay for advertising to drive people to a website where they can’t spend money. So, unsurprisingly, e-commerce and online payment systems were critically supported by the adult industry, and they also critically supported the adult industry.
00:08:11:04 – 00:08:45:23
It was a very symbiotic relationship. Secure online payment systems are the backbone of today’s e-commerce landscape, and the adult industry’s necessity for discreet, reliable and secure transaction methods led to early advancements in credit card verification, encryption, and e-commerce, things like Secure Sockets Layer SSL technologies. By pioneering these technologies, the industry helped build consumer trust in online transactions. This trust was critical for the emergence and success of e-commerce giants like Amazon, and it’s made online shopping for everything a seamless part of our daily lives.
00:08:45:23 – 00:09:12:17
But it all started with the question how do I pay for adult content? And that really was a huge financial catalyst behind the development of those systems. Now, in the early days of the internet, adult internet sites mimicked more or less traditional adult film studios. There were a few big companies. People were hired by production companies to perform on camera, and that was the end of it.
00:09:12:17 – 00:09:36:22
They got paid and they didn’t get any backend or residuals from that. And that model sustained itself for a couple of decades until it was challenged by the creation of tube sites like Pornhub or Red tube, and those sites all of a sudden need adult content more or less free. So once again, adult content drove technology. And how did it drive it?
00:09:36:23 – 00:10:02:28
Performers realized that they had something special. They could have a connection to their audience and their fans. And this led to the development of a separate way for them to monetize their performances, which is in the form now of OnlyFans. So for a lot of the 21st century, we’ve seen the rise of user generated content platforms. Sites like OnlyFans really revolutionized how content is created, distributed and monetized. The creators,
00:10:02:28 – 00:10:29:11
the people who work in that content are empowered to create their content, produce their content, sell their content directly to consumers, interact with those consumers. And that drove a resurgence in money flowing into the adult industry. Because while some things you can get for free online, you can’t get the feeling of community and interaction with a particular adult performer that OnlyFans seems to provide for people.
00:10:29:12 – 00:11:00:29
The technologies developed to support platforms like OnlyFans include livestreaming technologies that were quite advanced, microtransaction processing, robust authentication systems, anti-piracy systems. They have applications well beyond the adult industry. These technologies have influenced how we interact on social media, how we access entertainment, and even how educators and other professionals deliver content online. No, they’re not, for the most part, delivering their educational content on OnlyFans,
00:11:00:29 – 00:11:23:14
but it’s the same technology, just with different content, in the same way that what you’re watching right now uses the same technology as fails videos, and you know, cats falling off counters and cute dogs. But this is educational, so there are a variety of different types of content that have benefited directly from the rapid development caused by the flow of funds from the adult industry.
00:11:23:15 – 00:11:49:05
Now, let’s talk about streaming a little bit more. Streaming high quality video content efficiently is a technological marvel, and it requires constant innovation as quality of video goes up. We had originally 480 interlaced, which is regular TV. Then you get 480 progressive scan and 720, then 1080p, which is HDTV, then you have 4K, and now 6k and 8k. And all these things eat up bandwidth.
00:11:49:05 – 00:12:21:06
And so they require continual buildout of infrastructure and continual generation of new technologies to handle that level of streaming data. The adult industry’s extensive libraries demanded effective content delivery networks, which are known as CDNs, and advanced buffering solutions, so that users would have a seamless experience. No one wants to be watching something and just wait for it to buffer for half an hour, like in the late 1990s when you tried to download a picture of a cat and it could take an hour.
00:12:21:07 – 00:12:46:01
Adult content companies were some of the heavy users of these technologies, and the industry played a part in developing the streaming services that now power platforms like YouTube, Netflix and Spotify. Would these things have come to life without adult content? Eventually they would have. I think that they would have taken longer to develop because the amount of money flowing into technology development was pretty significant.
00:12:46:03 – 00:13:09:22
And we’ll do a little side move here. And just to say that there was a whole industry that grew up around patents and asserting patents against adult streaming content companies. There were a few people who held early patents on video streaming, and I believe they’re expired now, but for a while in the early 2000’s, adult companies would get letters saying, you got to pay us because you’re using our tech.
00:13:09:26 – 00:13:36:15
And so it didn’t just support technology development and faster internet connections. It also supported patent lawyers and inventors. So how interesting is that? Now there’s yet another area. And this is an up and coming area which is virtual reality. VR essentially puts you in the scene. Typically you wear goggles. I think that those are eventually going to become something close to contact lenses, or at least normal glasses.
00:13:36:15 – 00:14:01:27
But for now, they’re goggles and you’re completely immersed in a scene. And when you think about it, it seemed like an obvious extension for adult content to move into. And they did rapidly. Some of the earliest VR studios producing content were adult. In fact, mainstream Hollywood still has not fully adopted VR as a format, but there is plenty of VR content on the adult side of the internet.
00:14:01:27 – 00:14:25:16
So they are out there right now leading the way in developing the technology to the point where it’ll be usable for mainstream in a way that it isn’t today. There’s yet another industry that’s partly driven by adult content, and that is the metaverse industry that started with Second Life, and they officially did not allow adult content, but plenty of adult content made it in there.
00:14:25:18 – 00:14:47:29
And many metaverse companies have come to life containing adult content. And an interesting thing about that is if a metaverse company intends to create a virtual version of a city, do you want that city to be realistic in that it has everything from supermarkets to strip clubs and avatars that can sensually interact? Or can they only interact in a more pure way?
00:14:48:00 – 00:15:20:05
I think that the demand has shown people want a fully rounded virtual environment, so what’s the takeaway from this piece today? Innovation often sprouts from places that are important to humans. And again, going back to evolutionary biology, the whole idea is for you to pass your genes on to another generation. And as a result, humans are very invested in everything having to do with reproduction, even when it’s in the form of a fantasy that doesn’t actually contribute to real reproduction.
00:15:20:05 – 00:15:53:10
So it underscores how interconnected the world really is. The adult industries pursuit of consumer desires has repeatedly pushed the envelope of technology. We have been advancements that permeate every facet of our lives now, as a result of presence of adult content, the history of adult driving technology shows how interconnected the world is. How developments in one area, even an area it’s considered socially quite stigmatized ripple across everything from industry to education to communication.
00:15:53:13 – 00:16:19:01
They drive progress in ways that we might not have anticipated. Seriously, who would have thought that a erotic literature would supercharge Gutenberg’s printing press? Well, of course it did, because it’s something that’s very interesting to a lot of humans. So progress doesn’t take place in a vacuum. It’s a collective tapestry woven from the diverse threads of human curiosity and experience and enterprise.
00:16:19:01 – 00:16:52:26
And, I might add, evolutionary biology, because, again, the things that drive us are the things that we’re going to spend money on. And as a result, it is very hard to disentangle adult entertainment from technological development. They are intertwined in a way that’s almost impossible, probably actually impossible to decouple. Thank you for joining me on hopefully, one of the more interesting topics that I’ve done, and certainly one of the ones that’s probably going to get me some hate comments and some positive comments, but it really is true.
00:16:52:26 – 00:17:14:14
I mean, this is one of the most traveled routes for innovation, which is appealing to human desire, and we have that to thank for a lot of the technologies we enjoy today. Now if you found this discussion as interesting as I do, give the video a thumbs up. Share it with others who love uncovering the unexpected parts of creativity,
00:17:14:15 – 00:17:37:10
the unexpected drivers. And please don’t forget to subscribe to Innovation Cafe for more deep dives into a world where creativity meets technology meets human needs. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment below. Let’s get the discussion going. And remember we are all on this planet together. I may say things that you don’t like. You may say things that I don’t like.
00:17:37:15 – 00:17:44:18
But ultimately we’re all humans. We’re all trying to get through the day. And let’s use innovation to make the world better for all of us.