Tom was one of the fellow moderators with me on the G+ 3D printing community, and one of the very few people I would actually trust with advice regarding this stuff. He basically reached the same conclusions that I have about these, and I’m glad to see he’s still making content.
We ended up helping thousands of people with nothing but bad descriptions and worse pictures/videos for around 8 years. He was one of the people who were the most active, besides myself - the others being Whosawhatsis and Gina Haubage
That was enjoyable to watch. I like how he could respect it even if he couldn’t recommend it.
He used to be an Audio engineer at either Harman Kardon or Bose, if I remember correctly. After only about a year of youtube, he was able to hire a guy from our community (Nils) to help him with videos, and I think after 2 years or so, surpassed his salary as an audio engineer. Honestly, really helpful and awesome guy in person - though he tends to be short because whenever you see him in public, he’s usually shooting footage. Still, awesome guy and I’d say a pivotal mentor in the early days of 3D printing. He knows what he’s talking about…unlike…say…CHEP; who continues to swindle unsuspecting users into his bullshit “E-Leveler”…
What’s G+?
Google+ - it was Google’s attempt at a competing social network to Facebook. They pushed it hard, tried to force everyone to use their real names, attempted to tie YouTube channels to it, etc. Until it ultimately bombed and it was discovered that they had HUGE data leak issues. So they shuttered the whole thing some years back.
The community we ended up building ended up being something like 5000 active daily participants, with 430k who had ‘joined’ the community.