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Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

youtube-creators.googleblog.com

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Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#41

Post by intended »

Scoundreller wrote: post #7
dmix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No idea. I just met their new criteria for 10000 views before monetization, which should mean I've already been vetted? Does a company like Google really need human review on videos? With 10k views, their AI/ML should detect what's risky content or not based on what they know about users. Here's a great video that we'll see less of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDB2QVEuy60 A well-produced 36 second video on replac…

Again that level of AI/ML means being able to state what the intent of a comment or document is. If we ever get close to that point, that programs can reliably mark something as "risky" content, human thought is in big trouble.

"Risky" material is subjective. Something even humans can't make out reliably very often.

I think, this is the result of the tech firms putting content creators of old out of business, but not investing in the necessary editorial power, subscribing instead to the "wisdom of the crowds" school of thought.

They have not paid for (and will not be able to afford) the distributed human editorial power which was lost.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#42

Post by Scoundreller »

firloop wrote: post #20
joelrunyon wrote: post #11

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

Is YouTube even profitable? Even if they are, it seems like the only reason cost could be "reasonable" is because they piggy back off of being Google scale (co-location, negotiated bandwidth rates, global network of self-hosted data centers). Not to mention the network and aggregate effects of having an existing ad market and user profiles for targeting ads. One could probably mitigate high operating costs by chargin…

Google's biggest threat is you going somewhere else with your search-terms and eye-balls.

If you went to Amazon videos for all of your video-consumption, Amazon would know exactly how to target you without having to pay Google.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#43

Post by Nition »

mc32 wrote: post #32
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 instruc…

Honestly I think people will keep making those sorts of videos anyway. We never get paid anything for posting on Stack Overflow or Hacker News yet here we are. And YouTube had lots of good videos before it had monetisation.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#44

Post by dvt »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
dvt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have traction, the money will come. But really, what can you do that's better than YouTube? Honest question. I think that YouTube has reached Google levels of optimization. Sure, it could be better, but not better enough that people are willing to switch.

> But really, what can you do that's better than YouTube? For any specialized market, probably a lot; YouTube may be the ultimate least-common-denominator user-submitted-video streaming service, but it's not the only one there is room for.

> For any specialized market, probably a lot

This is doubly true for services like Google Search, and yet (for example) security-oriented engines like DDG are barely making a dent.

I honestly don't think niche is the way to go if you're trying to go after Google/YouTube/Facebook. You'd need to figure out a core issue or core need that has been overlooked. And I just don't really see one.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#45

Post by anonytrary »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #40
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.

> It has no rival and never will.

Likewise, it's difficult to take your comment seriously with this beast of a closing line ;)

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#46

Post by sillysaurus3 »

mc32 wrote: post #32
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 instruc…

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.)

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

pwaai wrote: post #23
joelrunyon wrote: post #11

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

wait, so I need to navigate away from youtube to watch some highly niche content? This is what people on youtube thinks and the perceived opportunity cost is not enough to force people to switch....unless its content that is downright banned on youtube Basically niche videos will just be replaced by other people who will find ways to monetize it...or not even motivated by money at all but just to put content out ther…

> Basically niche videos will just be replaced by other people who will find ways to monetize it...or not even motivated by money at all but just to put content out there and for people to enjoy.

Yeah, if there is an adequate substitute for your monetized product provided by an ever-refreshing pool of people willing to work for free, you're in a precarious position. Pretty much independently of the behavior of any middleman.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#48

Post by bitmapbrother »

anonytrary wrote: post #45
bitmapbrother wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> It has no rival and never will. Likewise, it's difficult to take your comment seriously with this beast of a closing line ;)

My line is realistic. Your opener, however, is comical.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#49

Post by shostack »

notatoad wrote: post #5
dmix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a guess, they are moving to implement a much more stringent manual review of monetized channels, and the change to the eligibility criteria is an effort to reduce the number of monetized channels to a number that's more feasible to review. But if that's the case, I wonder why they don't just say it. >Why not let... the advertisers decide this? The advertiser's have been pretty clear they want YouTube to be the con…

That's an interesting take when you start factoring in the broader landscape. Video is no longer about just the short form, and increasingly attention is pulled away from Youtube by services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and FB's video play.

I wonder how much video CPMs (particularly mid-roll) and the premium big brands are willing to pay plays a role in this vs something like a desire to growing engagement. If you incentivize creators to attract subscribers, and you have more direct ability to control messaging channels to subscribers as a platform, you might gain some levers in driving revenue that may not have existed or had as large an impact before. You also nurture desirable user-base behaviors.

Re: Changes to the YouTube Partner Program

#50

Post by mc32 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #46
mc32 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>) 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 instruc…

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.
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