[Others]

The issue here is that YouTube (and other platforms) encourage this. It works, in that if you ask people to like comment and subscribe, they like comment and subscribe more. (And that boosts your standing within the system getting you more impressions.)

Plenty of good creators do this (as it works), just to keep up with their peers. It really has nothing to do with the quality of the rest of their content. Don’t blame the player, blame the game IMO

[imglorp]

Okay, I'll hate the game. The game has existed since the first radio ad spot in 1922, the first TV ad spot in 1941, and the first banner ad in 1994.

I would far rather pay an honest few cents for a page view or a video roll than be subjected to in-content advertising and begging from the creators. Certainly, creators would prefer to do their thing instead of beg and scrape.

What can we do to accelerate micropayment tech and patronage communities for creators?

[fshbbdssbbgdd]

Let’s imagine the video wasn’t ad-supported, but instead viewers had to pay some money a la carte (and YouTube gets a cut of that). Creators would still want to get more viewers to make more money, and YouTube would still have a recommendation algorithm that used signals such as likes, comments, and subscribes to decide what to recommend. So I think the ad business model isn’t really at fault here. Or rather, it’s only at fault to the extent that it’s the only viable business model for a video service as large as YouTube.

[datavirtue]

The ad supported model made sense for newspapers and magazines but it doesn't scale. Anytime you obscure the price or separate the payer from the benefit you get distorted and unforseen consequences. It took scaling this model to facebook levels before the failure reared its head and it is indeed much worse than we had ever predicted.

[notahacker]

Indeed many YouTube creators already plug the opportunity to pay an honest few c̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ dollars for their content on Patreon or their private course website in exactly the same way they ask for likes other interactions, especially if the nature of their content means they don't see [much] ad revenue.

[Aerroon]

YouTube quite literally has a subscription service. With the service you don't see ads on videos and creators get a cut based on how much you watch different content. It's been around for years, but has remained rather unpopular.

You're not wrong though. Most creators probably hate asking for stuff.

[wisty]

There's a few creators who often have a block at the end who tell you that they won't ask you to like or subscribe because even though it's good for the channel they hate doing it and refuse to do it.

[snypher]

This seems like an anti-pattern and if they were sincere, wouldn't mention it at all.

[Tarsul]

well youtube has a premium service without ads that presumably brings money to the creators. One of the music subscription services actually is about to change their system so that the money of every subscriber actually goes to the artists that THEY listen to (sorry, forgot which service it was, not spotify). So, there actually is movement in this direction. And with ads becoming ever more obnoxious (and privacy threatening) it becomes more interesting for users, too.

[pjc50]

Surprisingly, tiktok is better at this: it surfaces new content to people based on factors other than existing popularity.

> far rather pay an honest few cents for a page view or a video roll

I don't think this holds true for most people. PPV TV has always been kind of a minor thing, and eclipsed now by all-you-can-stream services. The feeling of continually inserting coins, or the taxi meter running, is uncomfortable to many people.

[mbreese]

> PPV TV has always been kind of a minor thing

This is true, but I think fails to be a good counter-example. PPV has always been expensive and focused on single events. What we haven’t seen is AWS style small payments.

Imagine if instead of paying $100/mo for cable TV, we could pay $0.25/hr. If you watched TV 24x7, you’d pay more, but the vast majority of people would pay much less.

The main problem with smaller amount PPV and micro transactions in general is that it is hard to get the billing/accounting right. But this is something that could vendors get right. You only pay for what you use, and what you get is billed in small enough increments that it makes sense for everyone involved.

How this could be applied to online videos, I’m not sure.

[krapht]

AWS style small payments existed at coin-operated arcades. They're all dead, Jim.

Micropayment news services have existed (Blendle). Unpopular.

Pay-as-you-go prepaid cell phone service is also niche. So is the a-la-carte gym membership. It's not that billing/accounting is difficult. It's that it plain straight up makes less money. SAAS vs one-time upgrades, etc.

[thaumasiotes]

> Pay-as-you-go prepaid cell phone service is also niche.

The reason for that is that it's much more expensive than paying by the month. I wanted pay-as-you-go specifically because I have nearly zero need for cell service, but would prefer to be reachable even if I'm not at home.

But you can't get a pay-as-you-go plan with pay-as-you-go pricing. T-mobile's monthly plan now is "$15" (actually something like $16.60) per month. The pay-as-you-go plan would cost less than that, given usage rates, except that it also costs $1 for each day you use it to any degree. The incredibly high minimum fee overwhelms the already small advantage of not paying for service you don't use -- as soon as you use any service, you get charged for more than a full day of every service, and then you have to pay a usage rate on top of that!

[osmarks]

It might be somewhat irrational, but I prefer the fixed-cost-for-unlimited-use model, as it makes the cost of looking at a new thing zero. If I have to pay per use, I'll be discouraged from exploring new content I might like or might not and will look at things similar to what I already see.

[lillecarl]

One problem is that this would deter people from watching, as they would only be watching what they want to see. Bad for business.

[datavirtue]

What can we do? Deregulate the payments industry. Ain't gonna happen though. The regulators and the regulated like things just the way they are.

[CraneWorm]

Why should content creators (or anyone else) have to earn money to live?

[imglorp]

Ah, the Roddenberry universe. I think that will begin after the cost of clean, limitless energy approaches zero. At that point anyone can turn dirt into a house or a hamburger so compensation becomes much less of a concern.

[scollet]

Just have to avoid the preceding world war.

[imwillofficial]

For those downvoting Parents comment, in Star Trek canon, a 3rd world preceded the creation of a unified planet.

[CRConrad]

Turning dirt into hamburger exists already; it's called agriculture.

[pessimizer]

> What can we do to accelerate micropayment tech and patronage communities for creators?

Make them nonprofit foundations democratically run rather than middlemen biding their time until they can increase their margins or sell to a megacorp.

[watwut]

You are in minority I think. Most people dont want to micro pay for entertainment.

[tyfon]

It works really well actually.

Personally I refuse to do this and my channel on youtube still grows but it is probably growing a lot slower than if I had been begging.

Since I do it for fun and not profit I couldn't give a damn though.

[asddubs]

There's this minecraft youtuber I've been following for ages, who has been on youtube for like 10 years and still doesn't ask for likes or subscribes (ethoslab). Especially in that space the absence of it is remarkable, I haven't found anyone else who does this. Occasionally he does collabs and the collaborators will do it, and you can really see that it does work, it makes a big difference.

[tyfon]

Yep I know him.

He is the only one I can think of that doesn't do this and it makes me personally much more inclined to watch him. He also feels "uncommercial" even after 10 years I think it's fantastic that he is able to keep it that way.

[CM30]

This. I run a... moderately popular by niche standards channel myself, and asking for likes, subscribes, comments etc gave me way more of them than I was getting before. I'm not particularly interested in the monetary side of things, but for getting a bit more popular on the platform... it's worked well.

[flycaliguy]

Yeah, occasionally a reputable channel will show how many views are from non subscribers and it’s a pretty massive ratio. These creators aren’t begging, they are just trying to carve out an audience.

[JSavageOne]

Is there evidence to show that it actually works? Me I instinctively want to close the window anytime a Youtuber asks me to "smash that like button and hit the notification bell" 5 seconds into the video. At a minimum I think less of the Youtuber and am less likely to recommend them to friends. Some of the fastest growing and most popular channels never beg their viewers for likes/subs.

[anigbrowl]

I also hate this, but if people don't ask, they don't get, and typically those who don't end up with far fewer subscriptions. After a while they get demoralized and give up.

While I haven't taken time to measure this out to academic standards, it's extremely obvious in niche interest channels - eg I'm into synthesizers, and there's a whole little subsystem of review videos, technique videos, not-talking demos, jam sessions etc. The more heavily branded/self-promoting presenters tend to get vastly more views. My favorite reviewer centers the equipment under review and makes occasional appearances talking to the camera, but his maximum views tends to be near the average minimum for reviewers who center themselves, eg always being on-screen in a box, mirror, or direct-to-camera shot and always showing their face and a relevant emotional reaction to the subject of the video in the poster frame. I'm sure the same patterns play out in many other specialist topics.

To some extent this may be a product of the Infamous Algorithm, but it might also reflect cognitive preferences of viewers in that many people prefer to have information mediated by a recognizable presenter whose reactions and emphases become more meaningful with repeated views, while others like me find an overly-expressive presenter distracts from the material under discussion and gravitate towards a more subdued/restrained communication style.

In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan distinguishes between 'hot' and 'cool' media which employ more or less intensity to solicit and maintain attention. 'Hot' styles with a charismatic and overtly solicitous presenter seem to be more popular in general, so even people who don't like that style may end up adopting it to gain viewership in a competitive market. There might be a market opportunity here for catering to different kinds of viewers, eg a 'CoolTube' for people who strongly prefer a more low-key presentation format.

Incidentally, I sometimes do prefer hot 'in-your-face' sort of media, especially on things like experimental music videos or the occasional guilty pleasure of a cheesy monster movie. It's just a hunch, but it seems to depend on things like a rapid tempo of editing and high levels of discontinuity/unpredictability rather than spatial maximalism.

[est31]

The average youtube user and the average hn user are two very different populations. Things like ads etc don't make me buy things, at least in most instances. But they are effective, otherwise companies wouldn't make ad campaigns. They are just not meant for me.

[heavyset_go]

There are also plenty of content creators that don't beg for likes or subscriptions if that kind of thing bothers you.