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Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

youtube-creators.googleblog.com

221–230 of 271 posts

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#221
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I would find that story interesting reading if you'd be willing to share.

There's not really that much to it. Pre-acquisition Youtube was burning through cash at a rapid and increasing rate. There was clearly no way they were going to find a revenue source which would even come close to covering their operating expenses. Google was one of only a few companies who were willing and able to keep Youtube going as a loss leader.

bandwidth and computation was more expensive back then so cost per stream was much higher than it is now. Even so, google also has craptons of its own fiber and its own CDN so can operate much cheaper than anyone else can at smaller scale.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to misunderstand: Ads aren't necessarily going to go away. The uploader just won't get paid anymore.

Thus uploader quits and moves to say Twitch. Suddenly Amazon would be happy. Or to one of the other sites.

We'll see. As it stands there aren't a lot of YT clones. Hosting a billion videos that will continue to multiply for eternity can't be cheap.

Lets face it most of the stuff on YT has very little ad revenue.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#224
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>YouTube dictates to advertisers how things work, and not the other way around. They could but if you look at 2017, the stuff YouTube got in trouble from advertiser for is the stuff they got in trouble for from large segments of the public or the media. YouTube doesn't want to take a stand forcing advertisers to accept PewDiePie's Hitler jokes, some guy making fun of feminism, or Logan Paul filming suicide victims. I…

TV-era cultural mores being applied to the internet seems unlikely to happen, despite Google applying demonetisation rules to anything beyong 'broadcast TV' levels (see the leaked YouTube docs https://imgur.com/gallery/uTLTS ). Internet culture is taking over the mainstream, demonetisation of edgier content might have a shortterm effect of restricting content, but ultimately, it's unlikely to stop the cultural shift…

Non-edgy content is not going to disappear, heck it might even be quite popular! (See: Hallmark Channel in "traditional TV land", the appeal of things like cute animal videos in "Internet land") Edgy content is nothing new, either, although of course what is "edgy" changes from generation to generation.

Youtube's problem as I see it is differentiation. Howard Stern was "edgy" for his time, similar to how some Youtube producers are "edgy". Yet he has no problem attracting advertisers as far as I know (Googling suggests his radio rates in particular were quite high). But it seems like it was/is much easier in traditional advertising to say "I [do / do not] want to advertise with Howard Stern" then it is to say "I [do / do not] want to advertise with PewDiePie". That's really the crux of the problem as I see it, it flat out sounds like Youtube can't do targeted marketing very well (a ding made more painful considering this is the success story of Google Search). Heck, "I do not want to advertise for ISIS recruitment videos" seemed to be a request Youtube couldn't fulfill for a while.

I don't think "edgy" in itself is a problem to many advertisers per se (except for certain step-over-the-line moments) and I agree with you that Youtube is tackling things in a way too crude manner.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why does youtube need to care? From their perspective, those videos probably aren't helping their bottom line. It might be better if they weren't uploaded in the first place: Less disk space used, no need to index them, etc. (I echo your agreement, for what it's worth.)

Youtube absolutely should care. The "long tail" is one of Youtube's competitive advantages. Sure, each individual video in the "long tail" may only have a couple thousand views, but collectively as a whole the "long tail" is the reason why you instinctively check YouTube over any other site when looking for: "how to replace xx on 1998 honda", "2002 winter olympics highlights", " insert 1980s tv show name theme song"

Isn’t that why YouTube and the internet won over cabletv and newspapers? The long tail!

I don’t want to watch what everyone else is watching, I want to watch whatever I want to watch, no matter how obscure, niche or unpopular.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#227
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but why does youtube need to care? From their perspective, those videos probably aren't helping their bottom line. It might be better if they weren't uploaded in the first place: Less disk space used, no need to index them, etc. (I echo your agreement, for what it's worth.)

I do believe you are right. The ROI on these videos for YT, is likely very minimal, given opp cost. On the other hand, it creates awesome goodwill.

And how much does a cursory Manual review cost?

Econ 101 is that you should match marginal cost to marginal revenue.

YT is leaving money on the table here.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#228
post #64

I think people are missing the forest for the trees here. Despite what the PR says, this has very little to do with the relationship between YouTube and creators, and everything to do with the relationship between YouTube and advertisers. YouTube is renting out billboards at a music festival, and the advertisers, predictably, want to know who's playing. "Well, I dunno, like, whoever shows up" has proven to be an answ…

Then why does Youtube stop ALL monetization, they should stop only ad-based monetization to these channels and still allow the channels to be payed out of Youtube Red visits or any other (possible future) types of non-advertising income. This feels shady and short sighted to me and combined with so many other issues disproportionally affecting small channels (like the adpocalypse) it's just one more nail in the coffin of small content creators (note: any big content creator was a small content creator at some point, the question is, would they have ever stuck with Youtube and became what they are if Youtube had all these issues when they started?)

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't run on economically rational real-time bidding systems, it runs on trend-chasing and reputation What do you mean by "trend-chasing and reputation"? I really want to understand this point, but I'm not seeing why an advertiser would care if their ad was shown once on 10 small videos, rather than 10 times on 1 big video. Do advertisers specifically ask for the most possible impressions on the least number o…

You're using logic again. His point is they're not logical unless you count "forest through the trees" fallacies as logic. They want whatever is IN. Whatever is BIG. Whatever is the most POPULAR. It's all about "big names" swirling around the community. "Have you heard of X?" Because "discovering X" and getting a big deal makes you famous. "Driving profits up 3% over last quarter" is not what a hot shot maverick does…

Isn’t that the Yahoo “search” approach?

Didn’t Google crush their directory of vetted content model because they were able to give users what they actually wanted?

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#230
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thus uploader quits and moves to say Twitch. Suddenly Amazon would be happy. Or to one of the other sites.

We'll see. As it stands there aren't a lot of YT clones. Hosting a billion videos that will continue to multiply for eternity can't be cheap. Lets face it most of the stuff on YT has very little ad revenue.

Twitch basically seems to be the only real competition at this point, but they are rapidly building up to take the fight to YouTube. They are publicly shifting away from the gaming focus and towards general content creation. This whole thing seems to be more in the hands of PR and network effects than anything else. Like if the Jiu jitsu community goes to twitch I have little reason to go on youtube anymore.
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