YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#161

Post by CapricornNoble » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

maceurt wrote: post #30

Others wrote: post #21

I love Google's products, and I put up with the fact that they harvest my data. But to have such terrible support for their services is absolutely ludicrous. I've seen too many stories of people losing their content, email addresses, services they rely on, or livelihoods. All because Google is too cheap to provide a reasonable way for customers to talk to a person about their problem. I understand this is expensive a…

It would be cool if anybody else could make a real competitor to youtube then Google would have to actually cater more to content creators. However, sadly I think youtube is just too far ahead and google has way to many resources and time spent in the space for any competitor to even be able to make a dent into youtube's market.

The people behind PornHub need to make a "PeopleHub" site for hosting non-pornographic content. Use the same business model, which seems to work well for the "Pro-Am" content creators on PH.

That, or BitChute needs to finally release a mobile app.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#162

Post by chii » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #139

celticninja wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

plenty, on HN there is a chance you will know someone at Google or Twitter or can raise attention of someone who works there. if you have a legitimate case it seems people will try to help some out. but that is not the way to handle it en masse. the big companies have decided that customer service is not for users (we aren't customers). once they start doing call centres it will just become a cost for ever more.

> once they start doing call centres it will just become a cost for ever more. then charge for it? Even support that only deals with account terminations would be worth $5, $10 a month to quite a few of us, I would think. You have a busy YouTube channel, ten bucks a month is not that much to ensure it doesn't go up flames accidentally.

how come the revenue google makes in advertising on those videos can't be used to cover the cost of such support?

It should not cost money for a user to correct the mistake of a service provider. If the telephone company shutdown my number, i have the telecommunications onbudsman to call and get the problem fixed. Granted, youtube isn't as essential as a phone, a similar body should exist to ensure that online service providers are treating customers fairly.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#163

Post by eitland » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #139

celticninja wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

plenty, on HN there is a chance you will know someone at Google or Twitter or can raise attention of someone who works there. if you have a legitimate case it seems people will try to help some out. but that is not the way to handle it en masse. the big companies have decided that customer service is not for users (we aren't customers). once they start doing call centres it will just become a cost for ever more.

> once they start doing call centres it will just become a cost for ever more. then charge for it? Even support that only deals with account terminations would be worth $5, $10 a month to quite a few of us, I would think. You have a busy YouTube channel, ten bucks a month is not that much to ensure it doesn't go up flames accidentally.

So a protection racket, only not by a third party but by the vendor?

Nice YouTube account you have there, it would be a shame if we accidentally destroyed it...

I'm more in favour of a) splitting out parts of Google until it becomes managable b) new regulations that protect persons and companies in extremely one sided relationships (man vs Google). We are already starting to get there with GDPR and I'm seriously hoping that we'll see it enforced more in near future.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#164

Post by chii » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:27 AM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #48

maceurt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be cool if anybody else could make a real competitor to youtube then Google would have to actually cater more to content creators. However, sadly I think youtube is just too far ahead and google has way to many resources and time spent in the space for any competitor to even be able to make a dent into youtube's market.

I don't think Google is too far ahead. You don't have to compete with all of YouTube. I think LTT has the right idea with FloatPlane. If you can siphon off premium users that are willing to pay for premium channels you're getting the most valuable part of the system anyway (premium content and paying users). IMHO anyone starting or running a video content business should be viewing YouTube as a great way to externali…

> valuable part of the system anyway (premium content and paying users).

doubt. The most valuable part of the system is the large audience. Youtube's advertising dollars is vastly bigger than any of the premium content from other places. Unless the new premium platform is also powered by advertising and tracking, and selling of demographic data about the audience for targeted ad campaigns. There's very little that can currently compete with short-form video content for the masses.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#165

Post by gsich » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

apostacy wrote: post #151

hpcjoe wrote: post #116

I keep hearing stories about similar issues. Suddenly someone is terminated from a Google service for unknown reasons, without any possibility of reversing such decisions. This appears to be true of Twitter and others as well. From my vantage point, it appears to be quite arbitrary. And quite concerning in a number of cases, given the centralization of email, docs, etc. I do make backups of google content every so of…

It used to be much harder to knock someone you didn't like offline. You used to have to organize a DDOS attack. But now, all you have to do is organize a much easier mass-flagging attack. We need to update our threat models to account for how unreliable major platforms have become. We can no longer rely on these companies. After big tech spent so much time investing in their own infrastructure, they are undermining t…

>We need to just accept that a major liability of using a major platform like this is that your content may be removed and your account deleted, for unknown reasons.

No we don't. You make it sound like it's a law of nature how these companies behave. It's not.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#166

Post by chx » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:29 AM UTC

eitland wrote: post #163

chx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once they start doing call centres it will just become a cost for ever more. then charge for it? Even support that only deals with account terminations would be worth $5, $10 a month to quite a few of us, I would think. You have a busy YouTube channel, ten bucks a month is not that much to ensure it doesn't go up flames accidentally.

So a protection racket, only not by a third party but by the vendor? Nice YouTube account you have there, it would be a shame if we accidentally destroyed it... I'm more in favour of a) splitting out parts of Google until it becomes managable b) new regulations that protect persons and companies in extremely one sided relationships (man vs Google). We are already starting to get there with GDPR and I'm seriously hopi…

you can't force them to provide a free service to you.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#167

Post by dylan604 » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:30 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #162

chx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once they start doing call centres it will just become a cost for ever more. then charge for it? Even support that only deals with account terminations would be worth $5, $10 a month to quite a few of us, I would think. You have a busy YouTube channel, ten bucks a month is not that much to ensure it doesn't go up flames accidentally.

how come the revenue google makes in advertising on those videos can't be used to cover the cost of such support? It should not cost money for a user to correct the mistake of a service provider. If the telephone company shutdown my number, i have the telecommunications onbudsman to call and get the problem fixed. Granted, youtube isn't as essential as a phone, a similar body should exist to ensure that online servic…

> how come the revenue google makes in advertising on those videos can't be used to cover the cost of such support?

The first rule of making money is to not spend money.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#168

Post by mirimir » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:31 AM UTC

apostacy wrote: post #151

hpcjoe wrote: post #116

I keep hearing stories about similar issues. Suddenly someone is terminated from a Google service for unknown reasons, without any possibility of reversing such decisions. This appears to be true of Twitter and others as well. From my vantage point, it appears to be quite arbitrary. And quite concerning in a number of cases, given the centralization of email, docs, etc. I do make backups of google content every so of…

It used to be much harder to knock someone you didn't like offline. You used to have to organize a DDOS attack. But now, all you have to do is organize a much easier mass-flagging attack. We need to update our threat models to account for how unreliable major platforms have become. We can no longer rely on these companies. After big tech spent so much time investing in their own infrastructure, they are undermining t…

> Instead, you have to span [your content] on multiple platforms and tell your audience where to find you if you get deleted.

OK, so what's the safest holdout?

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#169

Post by chii » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #145

Mirioron wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they had no ad revenue sharing with video creators This is the one point that makes YouTube so difficult to shake. The money is attractive to creators and YouTube offers the most money with the largest audience. YouTube themselves actually gets 45% of the revenue, while the creator gets 55%.

70/30 sharing on the ad platform side is common. Take away that, and you have YouTube taking another 21% for hosting, engagement, and tooling. It’s actually really cheap if you’re thinking about it.

vimeo has a $55/month cost for 5T of videos. Most youtube channels that are businesses make way more than $55 per month, and youtube keeps way more than $55 of their ad revenue.

I dont think the major reason creators choose youtube because it's "cheap" - it aint. It's the only game in town where there's sufficient advertiser demand to pay out money. And youtube knows this, and thus, can charge the 45% split. The "free" aspect is also keeping out new competitors - the business moat is huge. There's a reason why microsoft or amazon isn't getting in the game.

Re: YouTube accidentally permanently terminated my account

#170

Post by dylan604 » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 5:39 AM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #125

tmpz22 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is this generally doesn't happen with the federal government. You can always call someone, or go into an office somewhere, or find someone up the chain in municipal / local / state offices to get something solved. It may take a very long time, but it gets solved. And that scales to at least 300 million users. Google is apparently less competent then the federal government in that regard (granted Go…

The federal government has 330 million users and tax revenues of about $ 3.5 trillion, while YouTube has 2 billion active users and only $ 15 billion in revenue. So $ 7.5 per user for YouTube, but $ 10600 per user for the US federal government. Edit: If you only look at the number of channels, which is only 31 million, you are at $ 483 per channel for YouTube.

But how long would it take for a human to look into an issue and apply human logic instead of the algorithm. 10 minutes? Also, what percentage of users actually need or request support? Everyone pays in, but very few use the service.