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Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

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Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#181

Post by imbored »

AgentME wrote: post #160
stcredzero wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Sure, and when someone puts weights on both sides of a scale, operating it correctly, they are still "manipulating" the scale. That's not what people get mad about. It's when someone puts their thumb on the scale, because they want it to read a cer…

>It's not going to be easy to draw the line, but in the case of pushing politics, it has clearly gone too far. In which way? I've seen a lot of arguments that YouTube pushes people into alt-right and ethnonationalist content way too easily. I don't think there's an objective way to choose what videos to promote. Obviously they're going to try to come up with some right way to put the weights, and then if they subject…

> I've seen a lot of arguments that YouTube pushes people into alt-right and ethnonationalist content way too easily.

They do and then those people complain endlessly about censorship, demand legal changes, support first amendment violations via executive order, spread conspiracy theories about anti-conservative bias, and meanwhile they keep posting fucking youtube videos and trying to radicalize people.

It's stochastic terrorism and it's all over the goddamn place.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#182

Post by m463 »

root_axis wrote: post #172

YouTube does not employ creators; creators are utilizing YouTube's free service in order to broadcast their own content. Google demonetizes videos in order to be more appealing to advertisers , ultimately the problem these creators have is that advertisers are not willing to pay for their content. YouTube only makes money when the content creator does, so naturally they'd be happy to monetize anything they could.

The decision to demonetize is Google's.

Wouldn't a free market allow everyone to be in the mix, but advertisers would make the choice?

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#183

Post by chrshawkes »

kjeetgill wrote: post #110
jedimastert wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the amount of raw footage coming from YouTube any given minute, I'm not sure there are many companies beyond Google that could do it.

The hardest part of that volume is is the footage itself. Sure archiving/serving footage may be hard, but if you just wanted to index all the titles/creators/metadata and maybe comments, I don't think it'd be that hard, in terms of volume at least. Good clean access too it, especially if google is running any anti-scraping will be the harder part.

Most of that is in the HTML so one wouldn't even have to wait for JS execution on the page load. In fact, it's simple to download the entire page so you're not hitting up Google multiple times for each User. A few million hits over a few months and nobody will know right?

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#184

Post by chrshawkes »

crdoconnor wrote: post #57
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

Doesn't seem like it would be easy without a firehose of metadata and I doubt Google would be amenable to providing that for a competing service. At this point to enable that kind of competition would have to have legislative protection (e.g. a law similar to the UK one mandating banks/gas/electric companies have to provide APIs).

Selenium, click a video, store the suggested, verify what has been and hasn't been watched, move to the next, do the same etc... etc... Seems pretty easy to build a bot to do such a thing.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#185

Post by chrshawkes »

asperous wrote: post #35
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…

> What they should do is collectively take their content somewhere else. The problem is the economics won't be any better anywhere else. Youtube is the way it is because of all the many stakeholders (viewers responding to clickbait, politicians, copyright holders, bad actors etc). Any other platform would eventually have the same problems and either cave into them, or be sued into oblivion. As for the ad-related issu…

It's not profitable but they should put more focus on the people bringing in the majority of their views, meaning pay them more than the clown who just came along and got lucky on one or two videos (most likely copying someone else with a bigger following).

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#186

Post by chrshawkes »

mattmar96 wrote: post #73
throwaway2048 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most large video makers these days get pathetic amounts of ad revenue (less than $100 for a video with a few million views) and instead are making a vast amount more on patreon or similar sites. Its those creators that have the most to gain at an alternate site, the restrictions of youtube are all downsides, and they receive no money directly from it, the only real upside youtube offers is audience reach.

Off by an order of magnitude on ad revenue, more like several thousand $ per million views.

I had a video with 1.4 million views. I took it down. It didn't pay jack and wasn't inline with my content anyways. That said, 1.4 million views, maybe 4 to 500 tops.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#187

Post by Consultant32452 »

m463 wrote: post #182
root_axis wrote: post #172

YouTube does not employ creators; creators are utilizing YouTube's free service in order to broadcast their own content. Google demonetizes videos in order to be more appealing to advertisers , ultimately the problem these creators have is that advertisers are not willing to pay for their content. YouTube only makes money when the content creator does, so naturally they'd be happy to monetize anything they could.

The decision to demonetize is Google's. Wouldn't a free market allow everyone to be in the mix, but advertisers would make the choice?

Advertisers pay Google for the service of making sure their ads are next to content that maximizes sales and minimizes controversy. Whether or not Google achieves that is up for debate.

Advertisers can/do choose to bypass Google and just straight sponsor videos.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#188

Post by debt »

root_axis wrote: post #172

YouTube does not employ creators; creators are utilizing YouTube's free service in order to broadcast their own content. Google demonetizes videos in order to be more appealing to advertisers , ultimately the problem these creators have is that advertisers are not willing to pay for their content. YouTube only makes money when the content creator does, so naturally they'd be happy to monetize anything they could.

YouTube sets the rates it pays creators not the advertisers. A union would require YouTube doesn't arbitrarily change the rates it pays it's creators and also might be able to prevent them from instantly demonetizing videos. A union would create stability in the marketplace.

For example, if you're contracted to do a job, the client doesn't usually arbitrarily change the rates it's paying you unless you have some contractual agreement to do so(overtime, paid leave, etc.).

But that's built into the original contract during negotiations.

YouTube is just "here read this shit and do what we say and we can pay you or choose not to pay you or change what we pay you whenever we feel like it whether you like it or not"

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#189

Post by nordsieck »

chrshawkes wrote: post #179
nordsieck wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can youtubers go on strike and take the content down for a limited time? In order for that to be effective, a strike needs to remove enough capability from the other party to materially affect them. In this case, with so many videos online, I'd bet creators would need to get perhaps 95%-99% of recent videos taken down. They won't get anywhere close. Right out of the gate, news and music won't join in the strike. Al…

You can easily make your videos private for the duration of the strike. Lets be honest about the problem. If 20 million people watch me, how much did I make off Google? Depending on the market you're in this fluctuates but typically at most, maybe 50k. That's a lot of views and people watching for such chump change. Viral videos are something most creators will never experience and viral does not pay nearly as well a…

> YouTubers with millions of views are wickedly underpaid.

You seem to be under the delusion that Youtube has an obligation to provide creators some level of income. They aren't even obligated to provide free hosting.

> My children have cared more about YouTube than Hulu, Netflix and Cable combined. They will be devastated with a large scale strike.

Maybe. If I was an exec, I'd be willing to bet there'd be enough videos left on the platform that they wouldn't care that much.

Re: Watch Out Google, YouTubers Are Unionizing

#190

Post by root_axis »

m463 wrote: post #182
root_axis wrote: post #172

YouTube does not employ creators; creators are utilizing YouTube's free service in order to broadcast their own content. Google demonetizes videos in order to be more appealing to advertisers , ultimately the problem these creators have is that advertisers are not willing to pay for their content. YouTube only makes money when the content creator does, so naturally they'd be happy to monetize anything they could.

The decision to demonetize is Google's. Wouldn't a free market allow everyone to be in the mix, but advertisers would make the choice?

> The decision to demonetize is Google's.

Yes, but the decision is based on feedback from advertisers. In YouTube's ideal world, every single video on the site would be monetized, but this isn't possible because advertisers do not want their brand associated with controversial topics, especially those that concern very heated political debates.

> Wouldn't a free market allow everyone to be in the mix, but advertisers would make the choice?

The creators and advertisers have no obligation to work through YouTube. In fact, all of the big creators work directly with advertisers that are friendly to their content by editing sponsored content directly into the video.

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