While there are a billion things Google does that annoys me I’m not able to figure out how to create and maintain a video streaming platform without ads or paywall that finances both creation and the providing material.
I mean, who are the competitors and how do they finance it if not in a similar way?
I’d argue Youtube was better when creators weren’t paid and people were just having genuine fun. The internet used to be free and filled with content by people with passion. Much like users and the current state of the fediverse.
I can absolutely understand that point of view and even agree to an extent.
However, as a counterpoint: creative people being able to support themselves with their work means they can focus on their art instead of it just being a side hobby to their money making job
Yes, but then you get channels like Linus Tech Tips where it became less about product reviews and just about volume production garbage content and forced contraversial content to keep revenue stream.
You also get countless other smaller channels that are just large enough to have youtube be their primary income, but small enough where they stay true to their original intent.
Anytime it is your primary income there is built in propensity to stray to ensure you income is maintained when viewership might wane. I think the channels where a dude works full time and youtube is the side gig has more chance of maintaining integrity.
A channel where a dude works full time and YouTube is a side gig wouldn’t buy a $250k sound chamber to measure how loud the fans are on a crappy prebuilt (GN - the people who made the initial video about LTT). There are significant benefits to being full time dedicated to creating this content, and being paid well in response. Something like this would only be possible following your model if they already made tons of money outside of YT, in which case, they’re already rich so what’s stopping them from going full time doing what they want anyway and uploading those videos?
Seems a lot of channels grow and employ more people but for like no reason now they have a bunch of employee’s and costs and have to undermine their morals and quality to push out content to make money. In reality the quality of content has gone down so what was the point except employing friends and family at best.
You bring a great point I hadn’t considered before. Only people with passion for something will do it for free while many more people with so that for cash. Though it’s interesting to see that cash doesn’t make passionate people’s content better it just makes more mediocre content.
I think this person pines for the days of “Charlie bit me” and the "Harder Better Faster Stronger"s, when people posted videos because they had free time and wanted to share their hobbies, not because they wanted money.
On the same note, it is amazing how people complain about quality of journalism, but get mad if they see an ad or have to pay a subscription to news sites.
I do have to second that concept there. Giving everything away absolutely free is not a sustainable business model. If we don’t like ads, and we don’t like paywalls, we need to actually start figuring out a sustainable model. And no tiny ads that are nowhere near where anyone looks, do not actually generate revenue, because people don’t fork over much money to put up ads in places where few people will see them.
So we either need a system to have people give money directly to avoid ads, or we need a system of ads that… well are appealing both to those who want to post ads, while being acceptable to end users.
There’s always Web Monetization, where you can put some fixed money in and it is supposed to be streamed to the sites you visit by your browser. But I’ve never seen it actually implemented as a requirement for a site.
There are some things like that. For Podcasting there is the value for value method (I forget the name) you watch / listen to content which sends you credits, you can also purchase credits. If you like a channel you can send them your credits. So it is direct support rather than ads giving portion of revenue.
If cash is difficult they ask for value for value by donating your time to help in someway, completly optional though.
odysee and LBRY were setup that way also, but too bad LBRY CEO was charged with securities fraud
Twitch - Not for general purpose video uploads and sort of stingy with how much you can upload. Twitch only saves highlights and YouTube saves everything you’ve ever uploaded.
Tiktok - Chinese spyware. Every video is vertical. Every video has stupid songs playing in the background and that TikTok logo. Not really for long form videos or anything serious.
Twitch - not different from YouTube since they display ads and they have a premium service. On top of that I can add that without female streamers dressing sexy and not always playing video games Twitch would not have as high revenue.
Tiktok. - still shows ads so they are not financing things in a different way.
Vimeo - yes, they finance their services in a different way. But it still doesn’t answer how their content creators make money since Vimeo charge the content creators and doesn’t allow ads.
But seriously, Vimeo isn’t a competitor to YouTube. I have a hard time imagining how they would grow to even a third of the size of YouTube.
While there are a billion things Google does that annoys me I’m not able to figure out how to create and maintain a video streaming platform without ads or paywall that finances both creation and the providing material.
I mean, who are the competitors and how do they finance it if not in a similar way?
I’d argue Youtube was better when creators weren’t paid and people were just having genuine fun. The internet used to be free and filled with content by people with passion. Much like users and the current state of the fediverse.
I really just hate the “influencer culture” it spawned, and every idiot trying to emulate that meta instead of just making content.
I can absolutely understand that point of view and even agree to an extent.
However, as a counterpoint: creative people being able to support themselves with their work means they can focus on their art instead of it just being a side hobby to their money making job
Yes, but then you get channels like Linus Tech Tips where it became less about product reviews and just about volume production garbage content and forced contraversial content to keep revenue stream.
You also get countless other smaller channels that are just large enough to have youtube be their primary income, but small enough where they stay true to their original intent.
Anytime it is your primary income there is built in propensity to stray to ensure you income is maintained when viewership might wane. I think the channels where a dude works full time and youtube is the side gig has more chance of maintaining integrity.
A channel where a dude works full time and YouTube is a side gig wouldn’t buy a $250k sound chamber to measure how loud the fans are on a crappy prebuilt (GN - the people who made the initial video about LTT). There are significant benefits to being full time dedicated to creating this content, and being paid well in response. Something like this would only be possible following your model if they already made tons of money outside of YT, in which case, they’re already rich so what’s stopping them from going full time doing what they want anyway and uploading those videos?
Seems a lot of channels grow and employ more people but for like no reason now they have a bunch of employee’s and costs and have to undermine their morals and quality to push out content to make money. In reality the quality of content has gone down so what was the point except employing friends and family at best.
This is just how art is in general.
You bring a great point I hadn’t considered before. Only people with passion for something will do it for free while many more people with so that for cash. Though it’s interesting to see that cash doesn’t make passionate people’s content better it just makes more mediocre content.
If they weren’t paid there would just be way more sponsorship deals and ad reads.
I think this person pines for the days of “Charlie bit me” and the "Harder Better Faster Stronger"s, when people posted videos because they had free time and wanted to share their hobbies, not because they wanted money.
I’m a little torn on this and I think it is relevant beyond video. I can see an emerging non-commercial web coexisting with the commercial one.
On the same note, it is amazing how people complain about quality of journalism, but get mad if they see an ad or have to pay a subscription to news sites.
I do have to second that concept there. Giving everything away absolutely free is not a sustainable business model. If we don’t like ads, and we don’t like paywalls, we need to actually start figuring out a sustainable model. And no tiny ads that are nowhere near where anyone looks, do not actually generate revenue, because people don’t fork over much money to put up ads in places where few people will see them.
So we either need a system to have people give money directly to avoid ads, or we need a system of ads that… well are appealing both to those who want to post ads, while being acceptable to end users.
Yea I dont think people realize how little those tiny lil ads around the corners of the display pay. It’s very little
There’s always Web Monetization, where you can put some fixed money in and it is supposed to be streamed to the sites you visit by your browser. But I’ve never seen it actually implemented as a requirement for a site.
There are some things like that. For Podcasting there is the value for value method (I forget the name) you watch / listen to content which sends you credits, you can also purchase credits. If you like a channel you can send them your credits. So it is direct support rather than ads giving portion of revenue. If cash is difficult they ask for value for value by donating your time to help in someway, completly optional though. odysee and LBRY were setup that way also, but too bad LBRY CEO was charged with securities fraud
I’ve noticed that right-wing propaganda outlets generally do not paywall, but “center” and center-left outlets usually do.
That’s because the content is not the product.
YouTube has some competitors…
Twitch - Not for general purpose video uploads and sort of stingy with how much you can upload. Twitch only saves highlights and YouTube saves everything you’ve ever uploaded.
Tiktok - Chinese spyware. Every video is vertical. Every video has stupid songs playing in the background and that TikTok logo. Not really for long form videos or anything serious.
Vimeo - You pay them to upload your video.
…if not in a similar way
Twitch - not different from YouTube since they display ads and they have a premium service. On top of that I can add that without female streamers dressing sexy and not always playing video games Twitch would not have as high revenue.
Tiktok. - still shows ads so they are not financing things in a different way.
Vimeo - yes, they finance their services in a different way. But it still doesn’t answer how their content creators make money since Vimeo charge the content creators and doesn’t allow ads. But seriously, Vimeo isn’t a competitor to YouTube. I have a hard time imagining how they would grow to even a third of the size of YouTube.
Just use PeerTube or Jellyfin.
Yea of all the things to bitch about with Google, this one’s pretty understandable tbh