Changes to the YouTube Partner Program • Hacker News Board

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#31

Post by mwill » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 4:58 AM UTC

Nition wrote: post #14

Everyone's talking about how this is bad for small channels, but surely this is a big hit to YouTube itself as well. Since they've decided they need to vet all channels before ads are shown, and they can't do that to every channel, they've had to set an arbitrary view/subscriber limit. But now they're going to lose out on ad revenue for millions of previously-monetised videos, while still having to host them for free…

Youtubes reputation seems to have taken a hit with mainstream brands recently because of content controversy, maybe they're hoping to curb that and sign some more lucrative deals, that will outweigh the loss of cheap ads on non-vetted videos?

Ironically though, most of the controversy is from large content creators that won't be effected by this so, who knows.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#32

Post by mc32 » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 4:59 AM UTC

jeffmould wrote: post #13

As one of the people whose channel is affected by this policy change, I have to say I am not happy. There are a few issues I have with their new policy: 1) They should not have made this change retroactive to channels. If you already met the criteria you should be grandfathered into the new program. To terminate monetization entirely gives me no incentive to continue with YouTube. 2) For niche channels, like my own,…

>) For niche channels, like my own, it can be easy to have the views but difficult to have the subscribers. These two should not be tied together for purposes of monetization.

I completely agree.

I've saved hundreds of dollars [and time] on car maintenance/repairs and plumbing by watching some guy or gal on youtube with very specific information (for a given make/model/year) for example.

I hope these kinds of instructional videos get a reprieve because many many people use them and save tons of money and time [finding manuals and reading them is arduous].

This could be a terrible loss for some audiences as well as the creators who get compensated, slim as it may be.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#33

Post by e_b » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:00 AM UTC

Vimeo's OTT is an interesting offering in this space that let's filmmakers launch their own subscription services. https://ott.vimeo.com

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#34

Post by Scoundreller » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

Nition wrote: post #24

Scoundreller wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't google's advertising cut 30-40%? How many dollars does it cost them to vet a channel? My 3 minute video makes me ~.3 cents per view. It's actually less than 3 minutes, most don't watch the whole thing. 4000 hours in a year = $240 revenue. So, advertisers are paying $360. If you have just 2000 hours of views per year, Google is throwing away $60/year in revenue. My linked gmail account alone with 10+ years of da…

I don't think they're worried about whether you're a legitimate account, they're worried about whether your videos are advertiser-friendly, and they've decided that to verify that they'll need to manually check your channel. Which would take forever if they didn't set some threshold. They tried to crowdsource it with YouTube Heroes. I guess that didn't end up being enough.

> manually check your channel. Which would take forever if they didn't set some threshold.

It's Google. They'll tell advertisers that every channel will be manually reviewed to make them happy, but the degree of manual review will vary.

They'll score most channels as low risk and do a cursory manual review to 'check-the-box', and the degree of review will go up from there.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#35

Post by CryoLogic » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

farnsworthy wrote: post #15

joelrunyon wrote: post #11

When is there going to be a legitimate YouTube contender? Seems like it's ripe for a replacement...

Someone please do this. (You'll probably need a lot of money.) In the meantime, download anything you enjoy today, because it may not be there tomorrow.

Bandwidth prices are dropping every year, but ATM it's very difficult to be profitable with video streaming. Like crazy hard. 200k views of a 250mb video is 40tb bandwidth which is $3600-$4600 streaming from Amazon S3 depending on if you use CloudFront or not.

You basically need your own data centers and wholesale bandwidth, aka scale.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#36

Post by debt » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

I think this is a way more fairer system.

They’re trying to reward longer term contributors whom have lower viewer counts.

Basically people who continue to contribute content even though YouTube hasn’t rewarded them; they’re contributing because they have a small following of dedicated viewers.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#37

Post by pero » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #4

Scoundreller wrote: post #2

Great. /s I published ONE video about how to easily fix a head-scratching computer hardware problem, because there isn't any other guide on it. I get about 1000 views a month, tons of thank yous and make a few dollars. Because I won't get 4000 hours of watch time[1], and nobody will subscribe, I'll get squat. And zero motivation to publish more videos. The next time I figure out a life-trick[2], I won't bother. Who s…

What's the motivation here then? To stop paying money to one-hit wonders and funnel it only to the professional/serious content producers? I don't really understand why that'd be necessary. Youtube makes some strange choices with their monetization. I really wonder why they are so obsessed with finely controlling who can profit from producing good content on their platform. Why not let a) the users and b) the adverti…

> What's the motivation here then?

I'd guess it's some sort of legal/accounting move, something beneath the surface. Doesn't really make much sense otherwise.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#38

Post by anonytrary » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

jakebasile wrote: post #21

jeffmould wrote: post #13

As one of the people whose channel is affected by this policy change, I have to say I am not happy. There are a few issues I have with their new policy: 1) They should not have made this change retroactive to channels. If you already met the criteria you should be grandfathered into the new program. To terminate monetization entirely gives me no incentive to continue with YouTube. 2) For niche channels, like my own,…

> The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. This is a great observation. They're punishing the small, niche channels for the terrible shit pulled by the huge channels, with Logan Paul just being the most recent and which is probably the precipitating event here.

I knew someone would mention Logan Paul, that one guy that faked colorblindness to get views, and ultimately ended up tubing around a dead guy.

If Google is doing this with a "let's try and make it harder for idiots like Logan Paul to become successful" motivation, then shame on Google.

The only other reason I can think of is that smaller players have been abusing the system, and we see tons of tiny low-quality popups that film inappropriate stuff and get reported. I think this is more likely, than because of anything Logan Paul did.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#39

Post by keyboardhitter » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:03 AM UTC

So, will they also be screening the legitimacy of subscribers and watchers in those 12 month?

The first thing that came to my mind is that I can't imagine it is terribly difficult to purchase bot subscriptions. Their policy changes to focus on relevant watched hours in a set amount of time could, and probably will, open new demand for purchasing illegitimate traffic as well. Same game, different rules.

I wonder if this policy will be easier to spoof than pure views alone? Surely the risk has been evaluated by the policy makers but I am interested to see how things pan out, and what counter measures against bots/spam they may take as a result.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#40

Post by bitmapbrother » Wed, Jan 17, 2018, 5:03 AM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #27

A signed suicide note by YouTube. It's those peanuts that motivate actual content creators to post content and grow. This is the problem with "free and always will be", smh. You get a centralized broker. In Google's case, between sellers and viewers, who are cast as buyers. This all happens under the shadow of "video content". Google feeds off of the creativity of everyone on YouTube, its own Hollywood. Then they dec…

>A signed suicide note by YouTube.

It's difficult to take your comment seriously when your opening line contains so much fail. YouTube isn't going anywhere but up. It has no rival and never will.