[noone_youknow]

Sure, I totally get that. I’m no fan of being advertised to myself and as a premium subscriber I do find sponsor segments - especially poorly-places ones - just as annoying as everyone else when watching YouTube - which is why I said I was conflicted in my earlier comment.

However as I mentioned in another reply in this thread, removing routes to monetisation and devaluing content in general (by making it be effectively a loss-leader for value-add sponsorships or memberships) will only have the effect of making YouTube non-viable for many, and especially those who necessarily have higher production values to make better quality (I’m thinking more thoroughly-researched, more interesting, that sort of thing) content.

[lrvick]

Making YouTube non-viable is the entire point. Google should not be the gatekeeper for the world's content, or get to decide who wins and loses in a rat race trying to keep up with algorithms built to keep users addicted to low quality advertizer friendly content.

The end game of ad blocking tech is to make ads a non viable source of revenue so creators will move on to ethical platforms like LBRY or peertube where creators are in charge again and users can pay them directly with no corrupt middle-men .

I would suggest being an early adopter on alternative platforms building a direct relationship with a more independent donation-motivated audience before everyone else does.

[eropple]

These are platforms with worse availability and worse affordances, ranging to nonfunctional once you're on a mobile device. Adblocking technology isn't going to make them better. Making them better is going to make them better, but the unit economics remain not in their favor.

A more likely future is less video rather than people move to PeerTube and shake an upturned hat for donations. Which doesn't bother me much, but is likely to invoke the FAFO gator on a lot of folks.

[consteval]

> A more likely future is less video

I would say less big budget video. If we're being honest, YouTube is essentially television at this point. Many YouTube views, maybe even most, don't go towards individual creators. They go to Studios and the Jimmy Kimmel's of the world.

If someone like boxxy is making videos with a potato cam on her bedroom floor, I don't think she necessarily cares much about the monetization.

That USED to be the entire draw and appeal of YouTube. Then monetization came and surprise! The platform changed to be more monetizable, i.e. watered down and corporate.

[eropple]

The problem is that "cheap video" still costs a lot of money to ship to consumers. Things like PeerTube get around this by just doing a bad job of it, but if you want things like traffic steering and adaptive bitrate (and you do, because if you don't have these things, you will annoy the audience and they will leave), you are going to Pay The Money.

[pino82]

> A more likely future is less video

You mean I could get a f...ing text again about things, which I could just read at my own speed, skip back and forth by just moving my eyes, use the search function, skip pieces of it, etc etc, in just two minutes instead of ten minutes watching a video clip for the most trivial statements?

What a baaad world that would be...

[kalleboo]

The videos aren't going to be replaced with text, they're going to be replaced with nothing. Text died because it is too hard to get paid for, banner ads paid peanuts to begin with and are now trivial to block. Video ads paid really well which is why people started making video content, if video ads also die, then there is simply going to be no content.

[maxglute]

There's going to be less content, which will likely still be more than enough content.

[johnnyanmac]

>You mean I could get a f...ing text again about things

Tone aside, we already do that... it's also monetized and being AI-slopified as we speak. Much faster than video.

in this scenario where videos become non-viable, people would ujst paywall their text like many journalists have resorted to. There's no free lunch these days.

[pino82]

Exactly that. But surprisingly, although I'd consider it as a trivial insight, we're living in a world that just doesn't want to understand that.

And while YT is a lot about casual nonsense, there are other big tech walled gardens, where content fights against some corporate-controlled algorithms, but the content is our entire public discourse nowadays. :( And people still do not want to understand what a terribly bad idea that is...

[chankstein38]

I'm not trying to be offensive or hostile but, as much as I value the higher-quality content on youtube, if youtube went back to being just a place people posted videos of themselves doing stuff instead of what effectively amounts to studios making youtube content, I'd consider that a win.

Again, not that your content isn't likely appreciated by your audience and valuable. I just miss the days of youtube just being a fun video platform instead of another TV channel.

[johnnyanmac]

> I just miss the days of youtube just being a fun video platform instead of another TV channel.

It's another effect of the economy. Programmers are traditionally well compensated, so they can use their free time literally giving away knowledge for others. Because they don't need to monetize that knowledge to survive.

Video editing: not so much. If you want more people just having fun you need some part of the economy making sure they pay rent. Hence, hustle culture. It'd still exist if everyone was comfy, but many people would instead focus on leisure over minmaxing money.

[sdoering]

D'accord

[manuelmoreale]

Aren’t you, as a YouTuber, in the same position as many creators that do the same on other mediums? There are people out there who write amazing blog posts but now the traditional advertising world is basically dead and people have to figure out other ways to make it work.

Or they have to accept that what they do is not a full time job but rather a hobby and they need to find other ways to earn a living.

Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

[johnnyanmac]

>Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

>Writing is no longer viable for many. I don’t see why YouTube should be this special case.

because Youtube is owned by a trillion dollar corporation but mostly powered by content creators. Substack isn't.

It's really that simple. most wringing isn't viable because there's no money in it, literally. There still is money in video ads.

[manuelmoreale]

I’m not asking why it is. I’m asking why it should be.

[johnnyanmac]

Why what should be? Why platforms with money pay people with no money? Why platforms with no money shut down?

It's not a very fun answer. Google gets a lot of ads to pay then to shove ads down the consumer's throats, and they can do this with no risk of users migrating. They "should" get more money because they more effectly do this than news websites, which have failed to appeal to advertisers effectively enough.

I don't really know what to do with that answer, though. Accept I'm the minority that will subscribe to paid avenues to support creators (or even care about other creator's well beings?) and move on?

[manuelmoreale]

No I’m asking why we should look at people who make video on YouTube differently than any other type of creator who publish elsewhere.

The original post I was replying to said:

> However as I mentioned in another reply in this thread, removing routes to monetisation and devaluing content in general (by making it be effectively a loss-leader for value-add sponsorships or memberships) will only have the effect of making YouTube non-viable for many, and especially those who necessarily have higher production values to make better quality (I’m thinking more thoroughly-researched, more interesting, that sort of thing) content.

And my answer was that this is no different than any other type of creator online.

[johnnyanmac]

> I’m asking why we should look at people who make video on YouTube differently than any other type of creator who publish elsewhere.

I don't know who's "we" here. But that's simply psychological. You will look at [person who make lots of money] differently from [person who can barely cover rent], if only because the latter may need more help you may be able to give.

There's no "should" here. And influencers aren't limited to YouTube. all my answers come down to "because they are backed by a trillion dollar corporation"

>And my answer was that this is no different than any other type of creator online.

Maybe instead of "but no one else makes money" to drag down, we should change the lens to "let's reward other mediums for being high quality and throrougly researched" to boost up other mediums of creation.

Especially in a time where we are already getting so much slop and misinformation (and we're not even close to the worst of the storm). I'm sure you seen enough of the internet to know most people will just accept the slop and at best take years of introspection before they realize why quality matters (others never do).

[ndriscoll]

Assuming when you say thoroughly researched, you're looking for high quality educational information, the highest quality videos are generally from a camera pointed at a blackboard/whiteboard recording a lecture that an expert was already going to give. Not a lot of production value necessary.