What is the CPM for other media like TV and movies? If Youtube's isn't substantially low, it should be expected as millions of people are experimenting as a creator, and power law rules.
YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
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Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#22It's almost as if.. Doing stuff that you'd otherwise do in your spare-time, is not a real job for 99% of people ? Yeah, I love playing and making games, nobody wants to play them, and nobody wants to watch me do it, because I'm not good enough at it. That's why I have a day job. There's also a limited need for entertainers/creatives (they are needed, but not comparatively very many).. One person can entertain million…
Or as if monopolizing a distribution channel allows you to charge rents way in excess of your costs.
Then it’s a good thing no one has monopolized distributing videos across the internet.
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#23You know, in the old days, there were public broadcasters, like BBC (I am not English/American, so I don't know what the state of these is today). They balanced the commercial aspect of the media (somebody has to pay for the waves) with public access. I think people should consider political initiative to have something like Youtube, but in public domain (with the same status as public broadcaster). Basically, the se…
> would be non-profit in the sense that the ads profits would be mostly returned to the creators on that platform
The basic premise that by making it non-profit, it would garner a higher returns for the content creators is false. The problem really is that there's not enough revenue generated, to pay people producing the content.
Even youtube is run at a loss (only offset by the valuable data they collect for google i suppose). I think people who want to create content, but cannot find the right market to sell that content (aka, cannot reach viral levels) may want to consider doing it only for their own desires, rather than to aim for commercial success.
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#24You know, in the old days, there were public broadcasters, like BBC (I am not English/American, so I don't know what the state of these is today). They balanced the commercial aspect of the media (somebody has to pay for the waves) with public access. I think people should consider political initiative to have something like Youtube, but in public domain (with the same status as public broadcaster). Basically, the se…
> like BBC (I am not English/American, so I don't know what the state of these is today)
Still going strong. Still supported by taxes. Still subject to political interference.
> transparently and fairly
Do you give the rewards out based on views/listens? Because if so then you haven't fixed the system. Because the audience doesn't like everyone's work the same. 10% of the creators will get 90% of the revenue.
Do you give out the rewards based on effort? If I spend 10 days making a tune that no-one wants to listen to, should I get the same reward as someone who creates a tune that everyone loves? Is that fair?
Is there some middle ground, where say 50% of the revenue is allocated on audience size and 50% on effort? If I spend all my time making bad music then I should get my rent paid, right? That's fair, right?
What system should we use that would be fair and still allow unpopular creators to get paid enough to pay their rent?
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#25Why should these creators deserve to be paid more? Making money on YouTube and Patreon is a privilege not a right. Yes the big creators make a lot of money, but that's because a lot of users are watching them. If someone is trying to make a career out of YouTube while only making $10,000 a year then the only problem is the person trying to make a career out of that. Making $10,000 on YouTube at all puts you well far ahead of the majority of users and the pay for creativity has never been about how much effort you put in.
People should stop trying to view YouTube as a viable career. Most YouTube careers were made out of people doing it in their spare time and finding out people actually want to watch. That's the only way it works. Do your day job and work on your YouTube career in your spare time. Maybe one day you'll find success.
The way most entertainers get known is just through sheer luck or connections. This is nothing new. For decades actors, musicians and artists have put up with this. They will follow their dreams while keeping a regular job. Then one day they might get the breakthrough they need. It's never been easier to be a creator today, but the chances are still slim that you'll ever start making serious money out of it. The benefit is that you can easily find a niche to fill, and while you might not making a living wage, you will make some good side money drawing something like vegetables with boobs or something.
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#26You know, in the old days, there were public broadcasters, like BBC (I am not English/American, so I don't know what the state of these is today). They balanced the commercial aspect of the media (somebody has to pay for the waves) with public access. I think people should consider political initiative to have something like Youtube, but in public domain (with the same status as public broadcaster). Basically, the se…
It's already free to watch even the smallest channel on youtube, the income from the largest channels subsidizes the servers needed to transcode the millions of videos that will only ever get a single view. The "problem" is that most creators have miniscule audiences. The "transparent and fairly" returned ad profits for someone with ten viewers is never going to be very large. The power law in entertainment has alway…
Except that it's not about profits, it's about culture and quality of life. And pursuit of profit at the expense of everything else reliably destroys both.
It's also about closing one of the few paths that the poor can use to stop being poor.
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#27The truth that no one wants to acknowledge is that successful content creators are usually brilliantly multi-talented and hard-working. I'm never surprised to find the ones I like have had whole careers in media (or media-adjacent) fields.
I like food youtubers - Binging with Babish was formerly a video fx artist, Adam Ragusea was formerly a journalism professor and musician and Alex (French Guy Cooking) was an electrical engineer, filmmaker, and marketing manager. These people are basically one-man production armies, the food part is basically secondary. They have a killer mix of good-ideas and charisma, production quality (cinematography and sound design), marketing and community savviness, and ridiculous hard work.
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#28[deleted]
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#29Perhaps this is a good use case for NFT's, added signatures make it easy to find and reward the owner.
Probably isn't, but I'm sure someone, someday, will figure out a use for NFTs beyond riding the next bubble.
Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives
#3099% of creatives have never been able to pay their rent by selling what they make. It's not even about how good they are - some people produce amazing stuff but it's not something that enough other people want to own (or listen to, or watch, or whatever). The lucky few whose creative spark happens to coincide with market demand get to do that all day long. For the rest of us, it's a day job to pay the rent (which mig…
I wouldn't even say it's just this. Consistency, high quality (in terms of writing, delivery, production value) and a boatload of other factors matter, too. As does the ethos of "authenticity."
Ben Eater and 3Blue1Brown are I think good examples of this. I doubt "the market" was demanding videos about higher level math with superb visualizations, or especially implementing a 6502 on breadboards, but these guys both made it happen. I doubt they're raking in the megabux, but they seem to be doing pretty well.