It's becoming more and more clear to me that Youtube's business model is even less ethical than Uber's. Youtube expects you to produce massive amount of content for them free of charge. You may win the lottery and get paid for your work or not. If you get paid you might decide to make a business out of it. Then Youtube can arbitrarily decide to go back to not paying you anymore. At least with Uber you're going to get paid something.
> Youtube expects you to produce massive amount of content for them free of charge.
I think that's a rather one-sided entitled point of view, and here's why.
YouTube provides a hosting service for video content with no up-front hosting fees. They do charge advertisers to host their content and use a large portion of those fees to run their business, turn a profit themselves, etc. Also, they share a percentage of those fees with the content creator so they have a financial incentive to create more content.
Now, if those advertisers don't like your content they shouldn't be forced to pay for it. The creators only get paid if the advertisers don't disapprove of the message; YouTube is the middle-man in that scenario and basically bears all of the risk for the advertisers and have to "police" the content.
Granted everyone is better off if there is clear communication between all three parties and sure it would suck to rely on that as your sole source of income but that's some of the risk when you're in business for yourself. Content creators are basically throwing a video up on a market and hoping someone will pay them for it, right? Or am I completely off base here?
Please, can we stop saying that this is about advertisers not wanting to be associated with certain things? It is clearly not true.
I really hate to post these links three times in one thread, but I feel it really drives home my point.
This is not about advertisers disapproving of the content that their ads are displayed over. Coca Cola had no objection to spamming people watching coverage of the worst mass shooting in history[1], nor did other advertisers[2]. The evidence clearly shows that they will associate their brands with the worst acts of horror and violence, and YouTube will pay corporate channels to show us horrible violence to an almost fetishistic degree.
And YouTube discloses none of this. YouTube entices people to spend their own time and money creating content, and then misleads them about their monetization policies, and secretly picks winners for monetization. I also think that this gaslighting on their part is part of a concerted effort to "gentrify" their platform, and drive away independent creators, without openly admitting that they are no longer welcome on their platform.
> Content creators are basically throwing a video up on a market and hoping someone will pay them for it, right? Or am I completely off base here?
You are completely off base. For years, YouTube was very loose with their monetization. Now, they are imposing self serving and byzantine rules on independent content creators, which are virtually impossible to follow properly if you are doing anything other than makeup tutorials. Except if you are someone they like, then none of these rules apply.
If YouTube is handling money, then they have a responsibility to be more transparent. Both morally and I think legally.
How different is this really from traditional publishing or TV? There's a lot of upfront development work required to create something that's pitchable. And then a person or a show may be deemed too much of a hot potato to continue with it. It's true that there are more potential channels to monetize than in the case of online video, but no one's owed advertising dollars.
The biggest difference is that Youtube has clearly encouraged small time entrepreneurs, mom and pops, to create businesses relying on the Youtube platform. Youtube will put ads in your video whether you get paid or not. If you do get lucky and get paid Youtube retains the right to destroy your business after the fact with no explanation and little recourse. Since google pays hopefully-maybe-after-the-fact, you are out of luck.
Compare this to traditional media. You make a pilot episode and sell the show. Usually the "you" in this case is a multi-million dollar studio. The network then pays you to produce one or more seasons of the show or they don't. They may decide to cancel your show, but you still get paid.
They've encouraged it in the sense of people are seeing other small time-y video channels making money. So they want to get in on the action. Nothing wrong with that obviously. But it's not unreasonable that they should appreciate they're getting in bed with an elephant.
Most of them don't really have an option if they want to capture an audience and make money but it's the reality of a market where there's basically one buyer.
For a decade we told you "careful, don't rely on giants like google, they are not your friends, they are centralized, they are a private for profit black box, if it's free you are the product, etc".
Now you wake up and say those investments of your years of work are in jeopardy ?
Google is just google. It's nature is clear from the beginning. Their business model is clear from the beginning. The pros and cons of using youtube and the potential future pitfall were known from the beginning.
And even after that, they demonstrating by their actions that you could have problems with them. Many times before today.
It's like complaining about your weight after years of drinking soda.
Of course you're doing business with Google. Just like you're doing business with Uber.
Google may arbitrarily choose to place ads in your video and still not pay you for it. The behavior of Google is completely arbitrary with no real accountability. Google has clearly encouraged people to create businesses around Youtube video creation. And yet they retain all the power to destroy your business on a whim with no explanation and no legal recourse.
