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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

#121

Post by snarf21 »

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 agree, people should think about it as a lottery ticket. How many people spend $10Ks over the years trying to become good at soccer/basketball/baseball/golf/etc. so they can go pro? We know that it is a 1 in a million shot but results in a multi-billion dollar industry. Creators have to decide on their goals. I design board games on the side. I don't expect it to ever break even, let alone replace my salary but I do it because I enjoy it for it's own sake.

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

#122

Post by johnnujler »

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…

As much as extrapolating what characteristics should a job of the future satisfy, based on your past experiences/knowledge, is a reasonable idea. It is also reasonable to assume that certain future jobs won’t look like the past jobs, or for that matter satisfy the criteria of path dependency as witnessed in the past. Leveraging privileges have had surprising outcomes in the past(including creating an industry like Hollywood). There is no one right way.

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

#123

Post by swsieber »

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…

Yeah.

Most indie game devs don't make enough from it to pay rent.

Most authors don't make enough to pay rent from writing.

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

#124

Post by MaximumYComb »

chii wrote: post #55
lotsofpulp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While I like the principal of a UBI, people not living in poverty, it strikes me that OP's reasoning is one of the reasons why I see issues with a UBI. Who is going to want to work a factory/service job when you can live comfortably pumping out low quality videos that average 10 views?

Maybe it would drive income equality and better remuneration for those roles. Maybe we'd simply lose a lot of productivity. Who knows?

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

#125

Post by redisman »

meheleventyone wrote: post #38
marcus_holmes wrote: post #12

99% 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…

> 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). This isn't even the problem. It's that to be successful you need to be more than good at your job you need to be great at doing a few other jobs as well. Namely running a business and marketing. And lucky in catching the break the propels you up…

> I do think there is a version of YouTube that could result in "better" content whilst employing more people.

Patreon? The only thing is that it still requires a 3rd party discovery tool with a huge reach where Youtube comes in again.

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

#126

Post by watwut »

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…

> 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 ?

Realistically, people run channels this is about would not do it in spare-time. Making gameplay video that people actually want to watch is not nearly same as playing game for fun. You have to be entertaining for others. It is same difference as between being comedian for money versus being funny with friends.

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

#127

Post by redisman »

cletus wrote: post #84

So I have to give props to Twitch here. Twitch literally created an ecosystem and a culture of supporting creators that 99.9% of whom could never be supported by ad revenue alone. But what I find with all these creative professions is an undertone of... desperation. A lot of people seem desperate to be famous. It’s kind of sad. Thing is the majority of wannabe Twitch streamers (and this includes YouTube) just aren’t…

Is Twitch any better than Youtube for the creators though? It has the same distribution of top 100 performers who make amazing- to decent- day job salaries and then the other 99.5% are left fighting for scraps. I've watched a few guys do it for years without seeing any growth and grow more disillusioned by the month until it's just a self fulfilling prophecy that no one wants to watch them wallow at this point. They were in the top players of their games too (maybe 95th percentile) but just didn't have the entertainment part down.

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

#128

Post by lotsofpulp »

MaximumYComb wrote: post #124
chii wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While I like the principal of a UBI, people not living in poverty, it strikes me that OP's reasoning is one of the reasons why I see issues with a UBI. Who is going to want to work a factory/service job when you can live comfortably pumping out low quality videos that average 10 views? Maybe it would drive income equality and better remuneration for those roles. Maybe we'd simply lose a lot of productivity. Who knows…

That’s the point of UBI. Currently, the wages for those roles are low because they were born to poorer parents. But if given the opportunity not to, then the wages for those roles would go up so that there aren’t so low simply because people lost the ovarian lottery.

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

#129

Post by johnnujler »

wincy wrote: post #114
mc32 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryan’s toy reviews I think is the prototypical example of finding a niche and exploiting it. It doesn’t require elaborate demos or expensive equipment or deep domain knowledge. It’s youthful exuberance, some theatrics and the right personality.

If deep domain knowledge paid off on Youtube people like Ben Eater would be a millionaire from Youtube at this point[0], his videos are so cool and great at explaining computing. Or Clickspring, the guy who made the Antikythera Mechanism [1]. But honestly even for me being a software engineer and someone who considers himself interested in this sort of stuff, I look at these pages sometimes out of wonder but I often…

“Exploiting” is the keyword here. You need to exploit the niche. A better example would be someone like 3Blue1Brown. You have to keep at it long enough and keep improving. Go check Grant’s first video and the latest video, the difference is just night and day. On the contrary, although decent in terms of the content, Ben hasn’t improved in ways measureable. When you use these mediums, you are trying to communicate while being engaging. If Ben indeed is providing engaging content that is deep and valuable, and you’re not just extrapolating from n=1(because you learn something from those videos), it should’ve worked out for him , no?

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

#130

Post by meheleventyone »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #86
williamdclt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why would you subsidize art that virtually nobody cares about? You might as well subsidize every hobby in existence. I'm pretty sure even most socialists would agree with this - even those who want to abolish money. If your art isn't valuable to society, you'll get treated like someone who digs holes and then fills them all day. Now, art which is widely appreciated but still has trouble getting funded might be anothe…

You subsidise the stuff that people do care about but isn’t getting made because it doesn’t make money as easily. Particularly in markets that skew towards very few people being able to afford to participate.

Publically funded broadcasting for example has been phenomenally successful.

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