In general I have seen the work/result correlation hold true. And yet, we all know how luck plays its role. I personally like to think some events are meant to happen or not. Especially when it goes bad - when my startup lost a client in the early days for example it was extremely tough... but we learned so much that the next bigger one went well. Would working more hours have changed anything, I doubt it, so there is more to it than work.
More than this, working many hours is sometimes just a way to reduce anxiety of success or failure, at least for me. What's tricky is understanding which hours not to do, how to make more of the ones I do, and being confident that cutting the hours won't affect the bigger picture output too much. Easier said than done.
If this is so bad (which I am not technically capable of understanding...), what shall we DO about it?
Signing the petition is probably not enough. Get people to have a minute of 'no internet' across the world? Similar to the Anti-SOPA movement? Suggestions welcome.
1) Find a way to MAINTAIN gaming during the video (e.g. live comments adds of people in the room to the images?). That's because right now its fun to vote every 1:30minutes but then kind of boring to watch.. Althrough I stayed 3X more than initially planned ;-) This would allow maintaing people on site too since many people left/stopped voting after 1st video.
2) POINTS need to be prominent & STATUS linked: it's not about the money for me but the challenge & game. Many sites followed this model. When I win, the reward of points would need to incenvize me somehow. Make it big/prominent? What about leveraging STATUS with points too: status changes with results from say commoner to king to rock-star...
3) Consider Consumer Goods ads for site monetization: FMCG would pay to have their ads displayed (what about an ad of 10'' every few where people vote too???). I know that's old model but still there is something in the voting that could be a way for consumer research or brand 'interraction' of sort
Overall will be big, well done and keep it up!