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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

#51

Post by dec0dedab0de »

axlee wrote: post #37
Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #25

Why 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…

I can see your argument. On the other hand, the article mentions people who work for companies like Buzzfeed and other agencies, creating extremely successful web content for them, having to work shifts at night on top of their media jobs. That sounds unacceptable to me: I am pretty sure the company employing them can afford them a living wage, and it looks a lot like exploitation.

If they're not getting paid enough they should stop doing it. If enough of them stop doing it, then the rest will start to get paid more.

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#52

Post by gambiting »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #51
axlee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see your argument. On the other hand, the article mentions people who work for companies like Buzzfeed and other agencies, creating extremely successful web content for them, having to work shifts at night on top of their media jobs. That sounds unacceptable to me: I am pretty sure the company employing them can afford them a living wage, and it looks a lot like exploitation.

If they're not getting paid enough they should stop doing it. If enough of them stop doing it, then the rest will start to get paid more.

It's the exact same argument I keep making about tipping - if only everyone everywhere stopped tipping overnight, this stupid system would disappear. Underpaid waiters and drivers would find other jobs because suddenly without tips they wouldn't be able to support themselves.

I am also surprised that no one has seen the wisdom of my words yet :P

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#53

Post by ImprobableTruth »

axlee wrote: post #37
Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #25

Why 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…

I can see your argument. On the other hand, the article mentions people who work for companies like Buzzfeed and other agencies, creating extremely successful web content for them, having to work shifts at night on top of their media jobs. That sounds unacceptable to me: I am pretty sure the company employing them can afford them a living wage, and it looks a lot like exploitation.

... didn't buzzfeed have to lay off a bunch of staff because they're losing money?

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#54

Post by pydry »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #41
pydry wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2nd biggest video sharing website has 10x lower reach and no ad network. I'm curious to know what counts as a monopoly if not that. The network effect has been good to google.

Conversations are futile if we’re not working with the same definitions and context. You wrote: > Or as if monopolizing a distribution channel allows you to charge rents way in excess of your costs. Defining “distribution channel” as a single company’s website rather than the internet would make “distribution channel” meaningless in the context of this discussion. It’s trivial to distribute a video with anyone all ov…

If you're distributing ad supported video content where else do you go?

Vimeo is the second biggest video sharing platform. They have 200 million eyeballs they can push to your content as opposed to 2.3 billion and no ad network.

I don't think it's an enormous stretch to say that youtube own this market.

>that’s a different discussion than having a monopoly on distributing video.

I neither stated nor implied that they did.

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#55

Post by chii »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #33
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Creating video content for others to consume is one of the least likely to succeed avenues for a poor person to stop being poor, even if YouTube handed over every cent of advertising revenue to the video’s creators.

reading between the lines, it seems like the OP's idea is basically a form of UBI that allows creatives to engage in content creation regardless of the market-fit and commercial viability of the content.

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#56

Post by ajsnigrutin »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #16
dusted wrote: post #2

It'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…

There's an even more limited need for fraud-promoting bankers, crooked and corrupt politicians, people who spend their entire lives gambling on the markets, and organised criminals, but somehow we never seem to lack for all of those. This isn't some kind of rational market forces issue. Artists and intellectuals have real power. But starving them of cash, branding them "entertainers", and converting their jobs into a…

But how much do you personally pay for the artists' products per month, compared to how much you pay your bank? How many people actually pay anything for some specific artists' stuff, compared to some specific bank?

Everybody needs a bank, and there are very few banks, with very few people who really earn a lot. Gambling is gambling.. most lose there. And the rest mentioned are a result of governents/police/court system not working.

It's easy to say Bobby the youtuber deserves more money... actually paying him from your pocket is a totally different thing.

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#57

Post by lotsofpulp »

williamdclt wrote: post #46
Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #25

Why 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…

> For decades actors, musicians and artists have put up with this Well, it's not that simple is it. For decades actors, musicians and artists have been complaining that they have to live in misery to pursue their art and fighting for better conditions, it's not like they've always been OK with the status quo. It's a more general question: should art be subject to the market laws, or should society subsidize art produ…

> because it's clearly not working.

Is it not? How much time or will do people currently have to consume art? The internet has dropped the barrier to getting an audience to near zero. Yet the vast, vast majority of people still want to consume mainstream, curated art. Even though it’s completely free, people don’t sit and browse websites for niche artists. Or, if they do, they certainly aren’t going to pay for it and would prefer the format of TikTok/Instagram.

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#58

Post by Mindwipe »

mtberatwork wrote: post #50
chii wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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). YouTube generates $15B in revenue. [1] I'm sure in the early years when they first acquired YouTube, they ran it at a loss. However, as far as I am aware, Google has never stated whether or not YouTube is profitabl…

It is fairly unlikely YouTube makes significant profits. It's costs are enormous.

More importantly, even if it were profitable now, it took literally hundreds of billions of investment to get there, and huge subsidy by Google's server infrastructure. Where is this public YouTube going to get an amount of money literally bigger than Nasa's funding from?

Re: YouTube and Patreon Still Aren’t Paying the Rent for Most Creatives

#59

Post by helsinkiandrew »

> Few creators actually manage to make a living wage through YouTube and Patreon — two of the relatively more mature, robust platforms, both of which are in need of distributing more income to their less popular creators.

You can make that argument about YouTube (and complain about Patreon's cut) but on Patreon consumers choose who they want to give money to. Are Patreon expected to take off an extra X% and subsidise the less popular creators?

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