The New Donbas Line has been already breached.
X/ Clement Molin: x.com/clement_molin/status/1954947175512727726
‼️Russian 🇷🇺 breakthrough has been confirmed, ukrainian "New Donbass Line" bypassed in the most vulnerable point. Russian assault platoons are rushing behind ukrainian lines. They can now turn west and threathen Dobropilla or continue North and Kramatorsk will be in danger.
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Hello,
First of all – thank you for your time and effort you put into giving us the feedback. 500! comments in less than 24h. Shows how great community we have built. I actually have read all the comments, and although couldn't reply to most of them – I really value your input and criticism.
Some of you preemptively warned me from going into AI voiceover, and we won't do that for sure :) But I indeed took all the comments and uploaded them to Claude for a summary. Results are clear – video length is by far the most common reason provided. Claude estimates it at 40%, but in fact points 2 (YouTube shows less videos that keep low retention rates) & 3 are also a derivative of that. So that's 85%(!) of all the reasons provided.
That's a strong signal. We won't switch to 15min videos only, but making them more concise and packed is probably a good idea. Maybe making my voiceover to 1.1x the speed wouldn't be noticeable, but it would save almost 3 minutes in a 30min video. I don't want to totally abandon making long videos, so making them into 'series' also seems valid.
Also almost 34% of you mentioned being too busy/having no time, and lots of people are simply tired of the madness of this world. Believe it or not I'd be in the same category, as the watcher (I actually watch very little YT from our niche). That also supports the making shorter videos point, but also presses us to finally deliver the Good Times part of the name. Pressure is on.
We'll probably analyze our course correction more intensively, but these are the key takeaway conclusions that stand out. Currently we have 3 videos already in production (fortunately none is 60min :) 2x 30min 1x20min), but with new ones we'll probably start adjusting a bit.
Claude conclusions, if anyone interested:
Top 10 Most Common Reasons for Channel Decline:
1. Video Length (39.8%)
The most frequently mentioned issue - people consistently say your videos are too long (30-60+ minutes). Many viewers want 15-20 minute videos instead.
2. Algorithm/YouTube Issues (26.6%)
Many viewers report not seeing your videos in their feeds, despite being subscribed. Potential shadowbanning or algorithm changes affecting reach.
3. TikTok-ization/Short Attention Spans (18.5%)
General decline in attention spans affecting all long-form content creators. Modern audiences prefer shorter, more digestible content.
4. Timing/Relevance Issues (12.2%)
Some viewers feel your coverage comes too late - by the time your analysis is published, they've already seen the topic covered elsewhere.
5. Voiceover/Accent Criticism (10.0%)
A minority say your Polish accent is a barrier, though notably more people (23.9%) actively defend your voice as authentic and distinctive.
6. Topic Selection Issues (9.5%)
Some feel topics are repetitive or don't offer new insights compared to competitors.
7. Increased Competition (7.6%)
The geopolitics YouTube space has become much more crowded since 2022.
8. Bias/Partisan Concerns (5.4%)
Some viewers perceive pro-Western bias or want more neutral coverage.
9. Ukraine/Russia War Fatigue (4.6%)
Audience fatigue with war coverage, though this was less mentioned than expected.
10. News Burnout/Mental Health (4.6%)
Viewers taking breaks from heavy geopolitical content for mental health reasons.
Key Insights:
Video Length is by far the biggest issue - nearly 40% of respondents mentioned it. Many suggest splitting longer videos into parts or keeping them under 20 minutes.
Your Voice is actually more of an asset than liability - more than twice as many people defend it (23.9%) compared to those who criticize it (10.0%).
Content Quality receives praise from 19% of respondents - people consistently say your analysis and production values are excellent.
Algorithm Issues are a major factor outside your control, with many loyal viewers saying they simply don't see your videos anymore.
The data strongly suggests video length and algorithm visibility are your primary challenges, not content quality or voice-over issue
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Critical Behavioral Patterns:
1. Work-Life Balance Crisis (33.9%)
This is HUGE - 1/3 of your audience mentions being too busy/having no time. This isn't just about attention spans - it's about people's lives becoming more demanding. Your content requires dedicated focus time that many simply can't spare anymore.
2. American vs European Audience Split (18.5% vs 9.3%)
Your American audience mentions are twice as frequent, suggesting the decline might be particularly acute in the US market - potentially due to domestic political focus under Trump administration.
3. Background Listening Preference (8.3%)
Many use your videos as "podcasts" while driving/working. This suggests your content works well as audio-only, which could inform format decisions.
Competitive Landscape Insights:
Caspian Report Comparison (5.1% mentions)
Most frequently mentioned competitor
Viewers consistently praise their shorter, more digestible format
Your content is seen as more detailed but less accessible
Content Timing Issue
Viewers often say they've already seen topics covered elsewhere before your video releases
Your deeper analysis arrives after initial interest has peaked
Hidden Strengths:
1. Strong Word-of-Mouth (6.1%)
Despite declining views, people actively recommend your channel - indicates loyal core audience
2. Unique Eastern European Perspective (10.7%)
Your Polish viewpoint is seen as valuable differentiator, especially for understanding regional dynamics
3. Deep Analysis Appreciation (11.5%)
Viewers specifically value your analytical depth - this is your key competitive advantage
Surprising Findings:
1. Woke Video Impact is Minimal (1.0%)
Despite some vocal criticism, the "woke" video only affected a tiny fraction of your audience
2. Voiceover is Actually a Strength
23.9% defend it vs 10.0% criticize - your accent is more asset than liability
3. Quality Recognition (7.1%)
People consistently acknowledge your production values have improved
Strategic Implications:
The 20-minute rule isn't arbitrary - it's driven by real lifestyle constraints, not just short attention spans
Your timing disadvantage - longer production times mean you're often covering "old news"
Audio-first approach could work - many treat your videos as podcasts anyway
American market fatigue - domestic focus under new administration may be reducing international interest
Multi-part series solution - viewers actively suggest this as keeping depth while improving accessibility
The data suggests your decline isn't about quality degradation but rather market saturation, lifestyle changes, and timing challenges in an increasingly competitive space.
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The Letter to GTBT Audience
Hey everyone,
I wanted to have an honest conversation with you about the GTBT EN channel and get your perspective on where we stand.
Our channel has been experiencing a noticeable decline for some time now, and I'm trying to understand the reasons behind this trend. I'd really value your observations and thoughts on what might be happening.
For about two years, our channel consistently generated 100-200k views per video, with some episodes reaching 300-400k+ levels [pic1]. Recently, we've been struggling to reach even the 100k mark—we haven't hit that threshold in our last 20 episodes, averaging 50-60k views.
Fortunately, we're diversified and produce content in several languages. Our Polish channel remains our foundation, keeping us sustainable with 200-300k+ views per episode. Our Ukrainian and Russian channels are also performing significantly better.
Yet for obvious reasons, the Global channel has always represented our biggest growth potential. Instead of expanding, however, it's begun to contract.
The reasons for this decline could be numerous. Let me share some possibilities I've been considering:
1) Content quality decline (analytical or audiovisual). Personally, I believe we're more professional now than before, though perhaps less "YouTube-friendly" in our approach.
2) Over-dependence on Ukraine-Russia war content. This may be partially true. Our focus on this conflict did draw significant attention, and as global audiences have grown weary of the topic, it's affected us too. However, only 3 of our 11 most popular episodes directly covered the war, and we were generating high views even before the conflict began.
3) Mediocre topic selection. There's a difference between choosing topics that "perform well on YouTube" and writing content that serves the video format versus "analysis first approach". We've always maintained the latter. The "text-first" approach seems natural for me, but this might not align with what works best for the platform.
4) The "TikTok-ization" of content. This broader trend makes our longer-form content less competitive. We should probably focus on 15-20 minute episodes rather than 35-45 minute ones, given declining attention spans. However, this would mean omitting crucial details in many material— take our recent USA-Europe-China analysis, for example. We couldn't possibly be compressed from 60 minutes to 20 without losing essential context. I'm not really fond of that.
5) The voiceover [boomarang] issue. Every decline makes me wonder whether the channel would benefit from someone else presenting in a clearer, more natural manner for English-speaking audiences. While I appreciate that many of you prefer my delivery, if our 50k core subscribers enjoy it but 100-200k+ potential viewers skip our content because of the voiceover, that's a significant problem we need to address.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on these points and any other factors you think might be contributing to our situation.
Thanks
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Danish experts propose military alliance of Nordic, Baltic and Polish countries
Experts in the Berlingske newspaper propose the creation of a military alliance of Nordic, Baltic and Polish countries. In their opinion, such an alliance would have a chance to oppose Russia.
Larger piece (use translate function): x.com/Po_nordycku/status/1897246197817204895
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My comment in Polish after the Trump-Zelensky spat yesterday:
Yesterday we all collectively stated that Zelensky should have been more composed and played it cool (myself included). But...
Let's remember one thing - Zelensky, like most (independent) leaders, operates on instinct. It was this instinct that made him engage in that exchange of arguments, and the same instinct that told him to stay in Kyiv 3 years ago and dismiss the "American taxi" outright.
Now if we replaced Zelensky with a compliant Mr. X - he would most likely have nodded to the Americans in Washington and signed the deal. But in that different dimension of the multiverse, perhaps this meeting wouldn't have happened at all, because the compliant Mr. X would have simply gotten into the American taxi in 2022. We take everything, or nothing.
If we assume that this instinct tells him that Trump wants to roll over Ukraine (e.g., by trying a reverse Kissinger/Nixon, which is increasingly suggested by statements from Rubio, Kellogg, Waltz) - then it's clear that he's defending against this.
Someone will say - okay, he could have simply played it up for the cameras, refused behind the scenes and that's it. The PROBABILITY that such a move would bring Ukraine greater benefits/smaller losses would be greater than after what happened yesterday.
Except that we don't know this. And one can easily list a series of factors that say something opposite. Europe received a clear signal, like a transmission from the first edition of Big Brother, about the Americans' attitude. Again - most will say that Europe won't do anything anyway. Empirically, yes, evidence contradicts the idea that Europe will get its act together, because it has failed to do so so many times in recent history.
However, every event has a certain critical mass after which it breaks down. It's like that turkey that, being fed abundantly, believes it will always be this way. Maybe Europe will remain in lethargy, or maybe Trump's show is just breaking something (we don't know).
Moreover, we don't know how Zelensky's attitude will affect the Ukrainian nation. He clearly is a man that has one of the most cross-sectional views of this war. If instinct told him not to be pushed around, then this instinct doesn't come from nowhere. Ukraine has survived for 3 years under his leadership, which is based precisely on this instinct.
All 'realists' say that Trump only understands tough players. So we just had an example of someone standing up to him. Trump believes that Zelensky "has too weak cards," but he himself doesn't notice that by antagonizing Europe, the West, Russia, China, he's left with only 77 million supporters in the USA - a bit weak to rule the world having only 1% of the population on his side. Besides, if all these Grand Strategies end up in the trash because politician X said a few sentences that the imperial majesty didn't like, what kind of grand strategy/realpolitik/realism is it that is so easily overturned?
The conclusion is that we all base our views on certain probabilities. We assume that the probability of event X, after move Y, is Z. Our entire discussion is based on this. The best take into account the largest number of factors and apply appropriate weights to them. Of course, there are infinitely many factors, so we are often like children in the fog. But the weights save us somewhat.
But one can very easily show that even a very high probability felt instinctively may not mean that a given event will materialize. A simple example (that was written for the Polish public).
If on February 23, 2022, we had asked Poles whether a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine was in the interest of Polish national security - 95% of respondents would have answered "of course not."
Meanwhile today our position vis-à-vis the Russian Federation is the best in centuries. Economically we are almost 50% (despite the colossal difference in potential), militarily Russia has reset itself in Ukraine, antagonized Europe. Cynically (taking into account the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians) perceived Polish interest has greatly benefited from this.
Second example - Prigozhin's raid. In Q1 2023, we did a mini-series about the potential collapse of Russia. Three months later, we had Prigozhin's rebellion. Today, I often receive smirks - "and where is this collapse of Russia, buddy" ;)
Meanwhile, the fact that Russia did not collapse does not mean that the probability of such an event was zero. In fact, the raid itself showed that it was relatively very high (even if it was really 10%). Even if the Russian Federation would not have disintegrated, a coup at the Kremlin was a very real event - which the Americans later very tangibly blocked (perhaps also hence Zelensky's yesterdays instinct?).
That's why all of us who try to predict what's happening are practicing more sophisticated fortune-telling. By reading, keeping up with the news, we try to make it more accurate than that of a random taxi driver, and usually it is. But absolute certainty is dangerous.
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Vuhladar has fallen.
A report on the situation in the Middle East is underway.
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For the first time since World War II, a regular Western (from the Russian POV) army is occupying Russian lands.
The rapid 'mapped' episode is coming from us today.
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niech będzie
1.2K - 178
We touched on the nuclear debate in Germany very briefly in this episode, but the topic is gaining momentum:
This text by Ulrich Kuhn sheds some more light: thebulletin.org/2024/03/germany-debates-nuclear-we…
Especially this part is ehkm interesting ;) "One such proposal suggests a “Eurobomb,” with the nuclear command-and-control suitcase constantly “roaming” between EU capitals. Another recommends that Europeans immediately buy 1,000 “nonactive” US strategic warheads and missiles in conjunction with Germany revoking its membership in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the ban treaty. (Germany never signed the treaty.)"
Whereas Britain is developing its new, sovereign (of the US) nuclear warhead:
ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-developing-new-sov…
--
We present the background for all that noise in the episode below.
btw. Thanks for all the applications for the narrator gig - we'll review all of them and get in touch with all the applicants regardless of the decision
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Would you like to be a narrator of Good Times Bad Times? Actually, we might be looking for one.
It would be great to have a voice actor do the job, who actually knows the channel and likes it. Obviously, we are looking for people with experience in this field and proper hardware (mic, etc.)
Anyone interested, please send us an email titled "GTBT Narrator [Your name]" and attach a sample of your recording of the following text. E-mail address: office@gt-bt.com
It is the intro from our "Geopolitics 2024" episode:
"For two years, Europe has been plunged into the biggest war in 80 years between the continent's two largest countries. On 7 October, Israel and the Gaza Strip went up in flames, and the whole Middle East is on the verge of exploding. In Africa, one government after another is falling, taken over by putschists backed by, among others, Russian proxies. In South America, Venezuela is preparing to invade its much smaller neighbour. And all this is overshadowed by the vision of a major war in the Pacific in defence of Taiwan, involving the two most powerful states of this century - the United States of America and the People's Republic of China. How, after, a dozen years, did we go from a relatively peaceful time, when the main problem was to find the straw hut where the leader of a certain terrorist group was hiding, to a situation of international chaos, with several peripheral wars and the real prospect of a world war? What is the state of the world in 2024 and why is it the way it is? Welcome to the Twenties Report"
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Also, to answer a potential question about why we are changing the channel voice, it is basically a workload type of thing. I'm currently narrating two channels (PL and EN), writing scripts, researching, managing a small team of people & a couple of channels, supervising visuals, etc.
I want to delegate what is possible to delegate to spend more time of what matters the most - the quality of the script. Meanwhile, e.g. a 40min script to narrate is quite exhausting for me to record, to be honest.
Possibly I will narrate videos from time to time, as I do enjoy it, but a helping hand from someone with a great voice would be great.
Cheers
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Channel tackling global issues from the fields of geopolitics, international relations, economy, technology, which shape the world of today.
To sponsor my channel, you can see my price, availability, and stats: app.thoughtleaders.io/#/reserve/Good-Times-Bad-Tim…
For sponsorship questions and more info, contact goodtimesbadtimes@thoughtleaders.io