Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 259 posts

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#131

Post by username90 »

dmoy wrote: post #117
asperous wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look up "how much I make on youtube" videos you can see creator's dashboards to give you some evidence. The answer is that it varies vastly depending on audience, county, topic and advertiser's interest. "$0.25 to $4" $ per thousand views -- https://techwiser.com/how-much-can-you-make-from-youtube/

So for a few million views (==3m?), that translates to $600-$12,000? huh, I would not have guessed that. But I also have no concept of how much a few million views is for a typical content creator.

A typical full time content creator creates a new video per day. To go full time you'd need a couple of thousand per month, lets say $2,000. With these numbers that is 500k to 8 million views a month, or around 15k to 350k views a video. That might not sound like a lot, but given that it is for the entire world you can fit basically any niche within those numbers.

Go full time crushing things with an hydraulic press? Yes! Go full time discussing medieval weapons? Yes! Go full time building things with no tools from scratch in the woods? Yes! Go full time trying to beat Super Mario as fast as possible? Double yes! And so on.

My point is, this revenue is more than enough for interesting content to be produced, content that would never exist without this kind of monetization scheme. It might not be the best model for high end documentaries or movies, but it works for a different set of content which is still highly sought after.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#132

Post by philipkglass »

anon1m0us wrote: post #108
anticensor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What I meant was that only websites that have google adwords embedded in their content show up in Google results. If you aren't generating revenue through google advertising blocks on your content, google doesn't show the content. Google things new, updated content on large sites is more relevant, but it's not. That content is recreated from older content on the web that doesn't have ads on it. I'm sure it's just tha…

I have been running an ad-free web site about a niche hobby since 2002. I've never attempted to do any optimization for search. My site still shows up in the first page of Google results for relevant search terms.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#133

Post by anon1m0us »

mtgx wrote: post #112
khawkins wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an excellent video breaking down with extremely compelling data how the "trending" tab is very heavily manipulated in favor of mainstream media sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDqBeXJ8Zx8 What's interesting is that extreme bias in the US is not seen in Canada. Though I'm not sure it's stated in the video, I think that Youtube has been propping up MSM sources so that they can make themselves seem more…

It's been obvious for years Google is moving in this direction of favoring "big brands". I mean I think they even said it out-loud about a decade ago when they made a Google search algorithm update. Then the whole thing with AMP and them "partnering with big publishers" to show you carousels of big brand content at the top of the search page also happened. And the same thing with YouTube happened the moment Google de…

Google has just become "The Internet" on the internet. Youtube is what the internet was. Tumblr is what the internet was. Facebook is what the internet was.

All those together are "The new internet" which is really just the new main stream media. We grew up with ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. Now it's facebook, twitter, and youtube. Those new internet bootstrapped itself off the hopes and dreams of individual content creators and now that they are big enough, they are disregarding the individual and moving back toward the "mass brain" corporations.

20 years ago, the internet was the dream that now individuals could create and have as much visibility as big corporations. It was liberating. It was democratizing!

But the internet has gone the way of the airwaves and sadly, the content has too -- for the most part. Yes, there's still good content out there, but if ABC, CBS, and NBC won't show it to you, you have to work harder as a consumer to find it. Like at the library or from your friends and family, or idk, ddg?

We need a search engine that refuses to index any content with Google Ads on it. Or any ad network on it.

We need to actively disengage from anything associated with Google.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#134

Post by cameronbrown »

onemoresoop wrote: post #44

Did 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

I suppose other search engines index YouTube all the time and they don't explicitly disallow it:

https://www.youtube.com/robots.txt

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#135

Post by kube-system »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #98
duxup wrote: post #55

I wonder how this plays out. Youtubers are very competitive, and the high profile YouTuber crowd very much asks for special benefits for themselves ... not for the collective.

We can take a look at SAG-AFTRA, the Screen Actors Guild, to see how it will play out. Turns out that every movie star alive today is a union member, and they have no problem asking for special benefits and receiving them.

> every movie star

Is SAG-AFTRA prominent outside of the US?

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#136

Post by H1Supreme »

chillacy wrote: post #30
anon1m0us wrote: post #9

What 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.

I used to sell auto accessories in my spare time (around 5 years ago). I used both eBay and Amazon, but left Amazon.

First, Amazon's fees were higher (not sure if that's still the case). When you're selling low margin items, like I was, it was nearly not worth it. Second, the way I was grouped with similar sellers was madness. I had multiple returns because my item didn't match the picture. Well, considering Amazon used someone else's image and description on the listing, that makes sense.

eBay was many times better for selling items. I was able to use my images, customize descriptions, and ultimately pay less fees.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#137

Post by luckylion »

buboard wrote: post #128
luckylion wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the major advertisers, that is those that bring in lots of money, generally want family friendly, uncontroversial, middle of the road. They don't want war, violence, crime, extreme politics, mental illness etc associated with their brand. Google is likely just making the decision that niches aren't worth the (potential, legal) trouble.

> Google is likely just making the decision Google should not be making the decision, advertisers should

Meh, that's like saying you shouldn't be in charge of business decisions, your customers should be.

Advertisers can react to Google's decisions by taking their business elsewhere, but it's up to Google to decide what does and does not make them money and to not engage in what doesn't.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#138

Post by sli »

Kalium wrote: post #65
anon1m0us wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a government website the other day. 5 pages of forms I filled out several times. Each time on the final page, "system error, cannot proceed." I called the agency, they said, "You should print out the PDF, fill that out and bring it to our office." Can you believe that?? There aren't enough programmers to make the .gov stuff work right because FAANG is buying them all. So, I'm not sure you are right on that.

> Can you believe that?? There aren't enough programmers to make the .gov stuff work right because FAANG is buying them all. So, I'm not sure you are right on that. There are enough. There certainly are in the US and likely so other places. It's that government often pays peanuts compared to private sector and adds poor management and poor advancement prospects on top. If people aren't willing to work for you because…

The government might also have a lot of trouble finding programmers that have never done any illegal drugs, which probably doesn't help. Although that might only really be something the three letter agencies care about, I'm not sure.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#139

Post by lowdose »

logfromblammo wrote: post #124
anon1m0us wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a government website the other day. 5 pages of forms I filled out several times. Each time on the final page, "system error, cannot proceed." I called the agency, they said, "You should print out the PDF, fill that out and bring it to our office." Can you believe that?? There aren't enough programmers to make the .gov stuff work right because FAANG is buying them all. So, I'm not sure you are right on that.

Government offices don't just lose on salary, but also on working conditions. Secondhand anecdotes recount fistfights in the office and the unfireable-until-the-election official viewing porn during working hours and continually infecting their desktop and the intranet with malware.

This sounds outrageous. Would be awesome if that video is going to end up on yt.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#140

Post by codingslave »

solotronics wrote: post #82
40acres wrote: post #72

Fundamentally I think the problem is that these platforms are not neutral, when YouTube's algorithm hoists your video to the front page they are "manipulating" the system. Personally, I would not be surprised to see Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act challenged on this notion and it as the basis for other challenges. Internet providers just serve bits, any effort to "manipulate" those bits based on who is…

It is pretty obvious that things like search results are manipulated to fit an agenda. Search Google Images for "white american family" and "black american family" and compare the results. You can replace "black american family" with indian or any other group and the results are similar. There are many interracial couples under "white american family" and none under "black american family". The only way I can explain…

This is happening all over American society
Post reply on HN