I wonder why the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) hasn't weighed in on this whole sector at all. The exploitation of entertainers is not exactly a new issue, and it has been tackled by existing unions before.
Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
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Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#42What they should do is collectively take their content somewhere else. As an aside, I'm seeing the same pattern at Amazon. People thought they were opening a business on amazon selling retail. Then amazon started selling the profitable products themselves, storing the products themselves, ... basically doing more and more of the work and taking more control and taking money from the people who helped them become powe…
> only AdWords sponsored content appears in Google searches anymore. Wrong, AdWords sponsored results are promoted (just in a less obvious manner than before), but other websites also appear.
In normal web searches.
For product searches, there's also Google Shopping-- this started out (as Froogle and Google Product Search) indexing any shopping sites Google found, but, as of the rebranding to Google Shopping in 2012, exclusively shows paid listings.
Google Shopping also gets more prominent placing in web searches for products than the actual web results do.
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#43[deleted]
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#44Did anyone ever thought of creating an external index of youtube videos so the recommendations are open source and aren't controlled by Youtube? Basically a table with links and other metadata
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is probably a demographic of YouTube viewers who skew towards watching fresh content from their favorite content creators. YouTube would probably see reduced engagement from them due to a strike. I'm not sure what percent of total views they account for though.
I'm not sure the reduced engagement would move the needle that much. I suspect many of the most loyal fans would reduce their (current and future) engagement with the striking YouTubers' channels rather than YouTube as a whole. Since the purpose of a strike is fundamentally to prove the employer needs its employees [nearly] as much as the employees need their salary, a strike which proves the opposite would be really…
However, viewers don't identify themselves with YouTube. If five channels I want to watch are off to another platform, I'll spend a half hour over there a week to watch them. It doesn't hurt me. Maybe I will still go to YouTube for other content.
The brand loyalty isn't there. It isn't that YouTube has anything magic other than quantity.
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#46what is it about collective action that triggers contempt so quickly and automatically for those attempting to organize? many comments in this thread show contempt for the organizers in a way that is readily visible.
Because the resuls of collective action isn't always fair for society. Many countries have an HDD/CD/DVD tax, because of (basically) collective action by artists. I don't see this as being fair. Why do I have to pay more when buying a HDD so that artists I'm never ever going to listen to can get more money? I understand that collective action is often beneficial, but these bad examples are enough to make me annoyed a…
Then unionize against this tax with other fellow HDD buyers?
The difference between you and the artists are that they organized. You came on HN to complain.
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#47The thing that makes unions work is the ability to go on strike (it's easy to shutdown a shipyard or a coal mine). I don't know how you coordinate a bunch of preening narcissists, but if film and tv actors can do it, maybe youtube stars can too.
If all the content creators stopped...I'd have a lot of YouTube content to watch still. It's not like when the factory stops because the workers strike, or there are no sports game because the players walked out. There's more youtube than I know what to do with no matter what.
If Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter shut down, there'd still be a lot things on the net and ways to share stuff with people. But I'm sure many users wouldn't know what to do on the internet.
They might be hoping for something similar: their content is not easy to find a substitute for.
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#48If that's the case, 99% will be booted off the platform and they will have to meet certain numbers of visitors and engagement every month, or lose their job..which is what unionizing means. If I were google, I would also get control of their users (they would now be the companys) and youtubers will no longer be able move to any other platform while working for Google. You can't expect the freedom of running your own…
If you run a business and your solvency depends on the existence of another, larger business, you're not as independent as the title of 'business owner' alludes. How many HN posts have we seen over the years of businesses based on Amazon, Twitter, Apple getting blown the fuck up because the mothership restricted an API, copied their project or changed a ToS? I'm not putting in an opinion on anything else in your post…
> If you run a business and your solvency depends on the existence of another, larger business, you're not as independent as the title of 'business owner' alludes.
99.9% of businesses in the United States depend on the existence of their power utility to operate.
I guess they aren't independent businesses, either.
But the rest of your point is salient. I too, am baffled by how many of the greatest advocates of democracy seem to have been brainwashed into resisting democracy in the workplace.
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#49What they should do is collectively take their content somewhere else. As an aside, I'm seeing the same pattern at Amazon. People thought they were opening a business on amazon selling retail. Then amazon started selling the profitable products themselves, storing the products themselves, ... basically doing more and more of the work and taking more control and taking money from the people who helped them become powe…
> Ebay? The flea market of the internet? You disregard ebay but ebay actually has economic alignment with its sellers. The buyer experience isn't as good as Amazon's, but the seller experience is better in that you can control your destiny more. But this apparently makes it a flea market? There's going to be a tradeoff between curation and producer freedom. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Apparently you took the flea market comparison as disparaging and it was intended that way. Why? What's wrong with flea markets? I shop there regularly and have sold there many times. I usually get great deals there on either side of the transaction. I can say the same about Ebay. For Ebay to be a kind of vast internet flea market seems like a good thing.
Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing
#50What they should do is collectively take their content somewhere else. As an aside, I'm seeing the same pattern at Amazon. People thought they were opening a business on amazon selling retail. Then amazon started selling the profitable products themselves, storing the products themselves, ... basically doing more and more of the work and taking more control and taking money from the people who helped them become powe…
> What they should do is collectively take their content somewhere else.
That's the only "strike action" they have, in fact; if they just stop producing, others will rise and they'll be forgotten. If they move, they might shed some audience but they have a chance at keeping enough to impact Google and making a non-YouTube platform a success.