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by bena 1185 days ago
This is a red herring.

I don't think WordPress pays anyone anything.

They built a platform and the will also provide hosting. You can download WordPress from wordpress.org and just run it. Or you can go to wordpress.com and buy a whole hosting plan where wordpress.com manages the software for you.

But WordPress doesn't give fuck number one about what you do with it. So you are free to monetize it in any fashion you want. They'll even help you with that. WordPress doesn't have to worry about if any of the people on their site are making money because they still get paid.

Twitch and YouTube are free for creators. You don't have to pay to stream on Twitch or to post videos to YouTube. All the cost of hosting and serving is borne by the service. Which is why they were doing ads in the first place. But with creators now needing actual production, they realized they were pouring in serious money into their channels, but getting none of that sweet ad money.

So shit got complicated. It's free to post and free to watch. But that doesn't make it free to host or produce. Which is why you have YouTube showing you ads and the video itself being sponsored by AG1, Dollar Shave Club, and Mystery Box of the Month Club.

I think ultimately, these places are going to need to charge for hosting. And yes, that's going to kill a lot of channels. But ok. You can afford overpriced, under-engineered rainbow glowy keyboards, you can instead put that towards a $30/month hosting fee.

1 comments

It's anything but. Video is more engaging than text. Video hosting is expensive. No one's making tens of thousands a month from their blog (or by convincing people to buy merch based on their blog).
Wordpress is more than blogs. You can run a whole ass site off of the Wordpress platform. You don't even need to have a blog.

But the point is still, Wordpress charges people. YouTube and Twitch do not.

They have a weird broadcast television model going. But broadcast television curates their content and charges advertisers decent rates not dependent on "engagement".

I'm not saying video hosting isn't expensive. I'm saying that YouTube and Twitch should be charging for it. If that makes it infeasible for some people to stream. I'm ok with that outcome.