Live data from Hacker News

How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

nytimes.com

41–50 of 72 posts

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#41
post #2

I know at times I may sound like a shill for Patreon, but I have no connection to them whatsoever beyond "normal customer", and don't care if you use a competitive service to them or whatever. But if you are in the position of finding yourself with a growing show like this, I implore you to set up some sort of voluntary subscription revenue as soon as possible, before you embed into the very foundation of your conten…

Fellow crazy linux user here. I follow many youtube channels but, as a canadian, am not allowed to support them with cash. (Red and all the other premium schemes never include us.) I too have trouble with youtube's interface and am often on a sat connection which makes everything more frustrating. Instead i use a combination of tools to download the vids directly, which denies my favorite channels even basic ad reven…

A bit of a sidebar but what tools do you use? Youtube-dl and a script to handle lost connections or something more complicated? I'm looking for a solution to a similar problem.

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#42
This is why people should not put all their eggs in one basket. He can get sponsors. He can drive people to other places like Facebook and his own site. That way when some company needs to change something to be better for them it does tank your business. If you have a show you are a business. If you want to keep it then learn business.

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#43
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorist sympathizers are equivalent to racists now?

Hell, Google themselves celebrated a terrorist sympathizer with a special custom doodle. - http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11713686/yuri-kochiyama - https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/CSW...

It really tells us a lot about their values and priorities when they celebrate (by making doodles) people like that instead of, for example, Easter.

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#44

I don't understand why non-youtubers care about these nuisance. These 'independent media' provides little to no value or productivity, these people are mostly equivalent to those who dance on the train or street to get money. Online, they get the money by deterring from their own content to who-knows-what advertisers who paid the most. If anyone actually produces any value in need, they should be able to create a bus…

Because people enjoy the content provided by these creators.

For what its worth, all the ones I follow switched from ads to Patreon or ads+Patreon.

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#45
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a problem worth solving. What about a browser add-on, something like Patreauto? You could budget some amount per month, and it would automatically distribute payments to the top 40 video creators you watch?

What you're describing is effectively what YouTube Red does. You pay a flat monthly amount and revenue is distributed out to creators based upon the videos you watch. [0] Full disclosure: I work at YouTube but not on Red. [0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en

Sorry if i missed something obvious, but from the linked page it not entirely clear to me if my monthly amount would be distributed only between the channels I actually watch or like Spotify where content producers get their revenue based on their share of total views in the pool favoring the people on top.

"New revenue from YouTube Red membership fees will be distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content."

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#46
post #2

I know at times I may sound like a shill for Patreon, but I have no connection to them whatsoever beyond "normal customer", and don't care if you use a competitive service to them or whatever. But if you are in the position of finding yourself with a growing show like this, I implore you to set up some sort of voluntary subscription revenue as soon as possible, before you embed into the very foundation of your conten…

The flipside to this is that there are people who will never ever pay money for your content, and ad revenue is the only way to directly capitalize on your popularity among those people. This also means that when your ad revenue disappears, you will NEVER get that revenue back. Your only recourse is to get more popular, as your supporters are already buying your merchandise and donating. It's going to become much mor…

>ad revenue is the only way to directly capitalize on your popularity among those people.

Are these people clicking ads, though? I doubt it. And if not, you aren't monetizing them directly via that method, either.

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#47
It's all about YouTube becoming profitable. It's not about the algorithms or any specific political ideology or any other silly idea. It's cold hard cash that Alphabet wants from YouTube and it's not delivering. So how do they handle that? Especially if the advertisers are the ones funding this? More control over content and more gate keeping are the likely options YouTube's bosses are going to pick. It's just inevitable that Youtube content creators are going to get squeezed harder. I expect YouTube soon to have moderators that will vet any content of channels of a certain size before that channel's owners see a dime. Hell, I expect YouTube to require content creators to fork out a few hundred bucks to be given free license to publish videos on the site eventually. Why? Because showing an ad on a video is a risk and if it doesn't generate enough money or have enough people viewing it then why are they hosting it? We all have to think like this when approaching YouTube and Alphabet with respect to the current and future changes to YouTube.

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#48
post #45
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is effectively what YouTube Red does. You pay a flat monthly amount and revenue is distributed out to creators based upon the videos you watch. [0] Full disclosure: I work at YouTube but not on Red. [0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en

Sorry if i missed something obvious, but from the linked page it not entirely clear to me if my monthly amount would be distributed only between the channels I actually watch or like Spotify where content producers get their revenue based on their share of total views in the pool favoring the people on top. "New revenue from YouTube Red membership fees will be distributed to video creators based on how much members w…

Unfortunately it sounds like it uses the Spotify model.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvaxkpeSg_4

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow crazy linux user here. I follow many youtube channels but, as a canadian, am not allowed to support them with cash. (Red and all the other premium schemes never include us.) I too have trouble with youtube's interface and am often on a sat connection which makes everything more frustrating. Instead i use a combination of tools to download the vids directly, which denies my favorite channels even basic ad reven…

A bit of a sidebar but what tools do you use? Youtube-dl and a script to handle lost connections or something more complicated? I'm looking for a solution to a similar problem.

I use a rather shady service popular with filesharers. For about 3$ a month i get access to a web interface that will download from the various hosting services (ie rapidgator) but also youtube. The video downloads then as a normal mpeg file over a secure connection, not a stream. They do the same for torrents, allowing me to get many linux distros without running a torrent client over a sat connection.

Re: How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flipside to this is that there are people who will never ever pay money for your content, and ad revenue is the only way to directly capitalize on your popularity among those people. This also means that when your ad revenue disappears, you will NEVER get that revenue back. Your only recourse is to get more popular, as your supporters are already buying your merchandise and donating. It's going to become much mor…

> ad revenue is the only way to directly capitalize on your popularity among those people. Are these people clicking ads, though? I doubt it. And if not, you aren't monetizing them directly via that method, either.

They don't have to click to monetize, but yes, some click.

Enough so that you can offset the cost of the hobby in many cases, and make a living in that rarest, most desirable of cases.

Post reply on HN