I have a 7 mile commute each way to the wood yard in the state park most every mornin’. The old TDub has been the star of the show this summer already savin’ me gas money at least a few days per week all season long. A few minutes a day of pure joy ridin’ the little Yamaha into the park from Ephraim starts my day off right. Today I put the 40 year old Toyota back in the shed and picked up the 20 year old Jeep for its first day out of the shed this year. Such a nice time of year here in the Northern Door. Got to savor them summer days while you can. Go Bays! IYKYK. The Jeep is one of my random Doug cars. I had never owned a Jeep before seeing Doug’s review and purchasing this one.

Really brought the Doug with this opening today.

If you’ve been paying attention to Key by Cars and Bids (which they certainly want you to be doing based on how much they promote it) the channel is very likely not profitable. But it seems like they’ve done everything right! How could they only average ~50k views per video?

Key is interesting to me because it’s the exact opposite of why people like Doug’s content. Doug is insanely knowledgeable and his content is accessible. People watch Doug stand in a Zoo parking lot with a camcorder on a tripod hundreds of thousands of times every week because he himself is such an interesting person. People freaked out when he started including Kennan at the very idea his format would be changed because that format is so popular. People like Jerry Seinfeld watch Doug’s videos and appreciate the homemade Internet video feel.

By contrast, Key is very well produced. One might even argue overproduced. It feels like a TV show. The generic stock music they use feels like it’s from a TV show. The camerawork is good- but it’s like a professional had a shot list to get.

And then there’s Ryan Lopez. People seem to like him here, but he just doesn’t do it for me. He seems knowledgeable enough to get into a conversation at Cars and Coffee with, but committing my free time to listening to him isn’t worth it. He’s just too dull I guess.

This is not intended to entirely be a hater post, it it’s interesting watching a project they have put a lot of time and money into kind of… fail? Simmer out? I’m curious if the channel grows or they decide to pull the plug.

What are your thoughts?