# Disbanding my YouTube Channel



## Doorak94 (May 20, 2021)

I suppose this is one mainly targeted towards the subscribers on my channel, as I know a lot of you reside here and won't see my status because of the algorithm, but for those who aren't, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the below anyway. (Status copied straight from my YouTube channel):


"What is happening to this platform. [YouTube]

It's heading in exactly the same direction as Facebook - unnecessary censorship, demonetization of channels which are done by genuine, real people posting real content, yet supporting fake channels, with fake (and sometimes outright dangerous) information.

Content ID and copyright laws are getting out of hand, meaning genuine teachers are getting copyright strikes for showing respect to bands that are enforcing those strikes in the first place.

It all just boils down to 1 thing - GREED.

And it's getting worse. I just received an email about some changes to YouTube's terms of service.

They now "have the right to monetize ALL content on the platform and ads may appear on videos from channels not in the YouTube Partner Program."

Disgusting. So now we have a platform where genuine creators are getting advertisements on their own works, that they put hours of labour into, and they don't get a penny.

And it's because of this I have decided to delete my channel, my account, and stop using the platform - both for my own videos and watching others.


I appreciate the support I have received from all of you all these years, especially since I nearly reached 1000 subscribers, but I just don't want to support this platform any more.

I seriously feel for all the creators trying to make a living on YouTube, and those that I truly do support I will continue to support on other platforms that actually care about the creators, such as Patreon and Twitch.

I will most likely post all of my videos on another platform, yet to be confirmed.

Again, thank you all for your support over the years. It's been phenomenal just to know that there are people out there who care about music that I've created.

Peace x"

(Ryan Wood - Composer)


----------



## Voider (May 20, 2021)

Doorak94 said:


> They now "have the right to monetize ALL content on the platform and ads may appear on videos from channels not in the YouTube Partner Program."
> 
> Disgusting.



_As the thread progressed I've found that I've organized my thoughts on this topic way more clear in a later post, so I rather replace this one with it to share my view on this topic_:

I see where you're coming from, but with those views you take the tools, unlimited storage and everything else they offer to you for free as granted, because you seem not to see it as something they give to you in return for the content you create.

Look at it this way, I assume you know to release music on Spotify you either be part of a label or use third party distributors like Distrokid:

Imagine Spotify lets everyone upload music tomorrow, so no extra cost anymore for a label or a third party distributor. But you get their customers - _an audience of millions, some free, some premium -, _you get to place your music inside their app and webplayer, you get to use all their functions to upload albums, create your profile, plan your releases, getting featured in official playlists, getting newly developed features such as video playback, the storage of your music on their servers and so on and so forth.

That's a huge package they give you right there, while you maybe only make 20 plays a month on their platform and don't really contribute much. So they're still eligible now to put ads between your songs, because they already gave you all those tools and didn't make you pay a single penny for all the development costs, the server storage, the potential audience they bring to you, all the tools, features and maintenance.

It's only fair in my opinion. Unfair at this point is to say: _Well, you've given me all of this for free, but that's not enough, I as well want to get a cut from the advertisement you play here_.

If you'd pay for the server capacity and all the features you make use of it, I could totally understand it. But if you're getting all of that for free and in the same time are very small and don't really bring a decent amount of traffic or new listeners to Spotify, I see their advertisements as the kind of profit they take from you in return for the provided services, without making you actually pay for it.

A pretty good solution imo.

Apparently Spotify doesn't handle it this way and pays everyone no matter how big.
But to get your music on Spotify you need to pay, so that's the difference to Youtube.

Youtube doesn't take this intro-price from us, but therefor starts paying us as soon as we - _regarding their calculations_ - start to overcome the value of the advertisements being shown in our content.


----------



## Toecutter (May 20, 2021)




----------



## Doorak94 (May 20, 2021)

Voider said:


> You might be used to it, but it's absolutely not taken for granted that you get a 100% free service that others pay for. In the first place, if you use one of the biggest video hosters on the world who gives you their services to upload *unlimited amount of videos* in state of the art quality, the newest codecs, a free huge studio interface with deep analytics and SEO and everything else one can dream of for absolutely free,
> 
> the only thing I find disgusting is complaining that this company that offers all of that makes a few pennies through putting ads into your videos then and when while accusing *them* to be greedy.


Nah that's a bullshit defense.

This platform generates plenty of revenue from monetized channels as it is! Granted, it's a business and monetizing any channel is gonna earn them some extra money, but they're doing this only few years after they put limitations on what channels can actually be monetized, stoping small channels from generating any revenue. Now suddenly, YouTube can monetize them and take all the profit for thselves? Double standards..

call me greedy all you want but this is a multi billion pound business that doesn't need a few extra pennies from smaller channels that they removed the right to monetize in the first place.


----------



## cygnusdei (May 20, 2021)

It was not long ago that Youtube would put ONE ad on highly viewed content, but recently they changed tack to putting TWO ads indiscriminately, even on low viewed videos. Luckily there are browser and adblock solutions for that.


----------



## kclements (May 20, 2021)

I don’t love the ads, but I can put up with them in then beginning of a video. But when they started interrupting the videos in the most awkward, god awful way, dead center of the video, that’s too far.


----------



## Nimrod7 (May 20, 2021)

Streaming video is complicated, and costs a lot. Spotify is using only a fraction of the technologies for audio, and they still have ads.

I am not a fan of Google, they do weird things, especially with content id.
But I recognise that they provided opportunities to individuals to create businesses and make a living out of their services for free (adwords, youtube, etc).


----------



## Crowe (May 20, 2021)

Unpopular opinion: Everyone should be using ad-blockers anyway.


----------



## Markrs (May 20, 2021)

I use YouTube premium as I get music streaming but also no YouTube ads


----------



## Toecutter (May 20, 2021)

I don't understand youtube or social media enough but yea, Youtube is free and I don't mind the ads, as long as they are not that softcore shit they spam from time to time (tiktok etc). I also sympathize with OP, don't feel bad man, put your energy elsewhere. Unless you are like Daniel James who genuinely enjoys being a content creator (he discussed it during his last stream) I don't think it's worth it.


----------



## cygnusdei (May 20, 2021)

FWIW the other day someone linked stuff he posted on Vimeo. I guess if you have online presence through social media (Twitter, Instagram), that can be your anchor and the main content can go to the alternative video hosting site.


----------



## mallux (May 20, 2021)

YouTube monetization policies aside, just wanted to say that (as one of the thousand subscribers) I always enjoyed your videos Ryan... hope you find a suitable platform where you can continue publishing. Let us know where you end up!


----------



## Doorak94 (May 20, 2021)

It's probably worth mentioning that I'm not leaving the platform because I cant monetize my own channel - I've never made a penny from my channel and that doesn't bother me, that isn't why I post my content. I post my content because I enjoy it.

Im leaving because of the effect it's going to have on future channels, because of the audacity of YouTube for introducing this new policy, because of what it represents - a complete lack of respect for the millions of creators who post on that platform and give it it's success.

Some people argue that YouTube owes us nothing because it's giving us these services completely for free - but YouTube would be nothing if not for the creators. It's not a 1 way street.


----------



## Polkasound (May 20, 2021)

Doorak94 said:


> This platform generates plenty of revenue from monetized channels as it is! Granted, it's a business and monetizing any channel is gonna earn them some extra money, but they're doing this only few years after they put limitations on what channels can actually be monetized, stoping small channels from generating any revenue. Now suddenly, YouTube can monetize them and take all the profit for thselves? Double standards..


The unwritten rule of every big business is to make every square inch of the business as profitable as possible. If a business believes it can make more money in the long term with changes that will piss off customers rather than placate them, that's exactly what they're going to do.

When YouTube was young, plastering their site with ads would have sunk them, so they waited. Eventually they got so big that they become woven into the fabric of society. When you get to be _that _big, like Facebook and Google, you can get away with murder. You just have to make sure you keep your service below the threshold of being too intolerable to use so that you don't cause an uproar so big it triggers a mass exodus. Can we slip another ad in the middle of a video? How about two ads? How about an ad every three minutes? How far can we go?

I use ad blockers relentlessly because I don't believe in intrusive advertising online -- the kind that literally disrupts one's planned internet activity. I believe every website owner has the right to do whatever they want to earn revenue, but in my personal opinion, if you're hitting website visitors with video ads, pop-ups, and overlays that stop them in their tracks, you're eroding the splendor of the internet.


----------



## MarcusD (May 20, 2021)

Once you meet the monetization criteria you can disabled adds for any upload. Or choose what type of adds are displayed across your content, if they're skippable or none-skippable. Granted it's a little harder to meet the criteria these days. Before it was based off view counts a not so much based on retention.

IMO adds are OK and provide that little bit of extra passive revenue. But in all honesty you don't really earn much ad-rev unless you got many, many subscribers and viewers. I get between £60 - £80 a month from ad-rev. 

As a viewer, the only time adds become an issue is when creators (who a purposely make everything click bait) waffle for ages keeping people on a knifes edge while working in as many adds as possible, before actually providing you the content you clicked the video for.

YouTube is a good free platform, make use of affiliate links with your content, link your own products and it becomes a good extra income stream. The only thing I tend to disagree with is the double standards on appropriate & non-appropriate content and how they censor those who dare have an alternative opinion on things. But that's a completely different topic IMO and unrelated to music stuff.


----------



## Mike Fox (May 20, 2021)

Markrs said:


> I use YouTube premium as I get music streaming but also no YouTube ads


Same. I watch a lot of youtube, and paying a small fee to remove annoying ads is totally worth it.


----------



## Jeremy Morgan (May 20, 2021)

Mike Fox said:


> Same. I watch a lot of youtube, and paying a small fee to remove annoying ads is totally worth it.


Same....I watch more YouTube than I do TV or any other service and i'm happy to pay like I do to remove the ads just as I'm happy to contribute to contributors every once in a while who ask for it on YouTube.


----------



## Trash Panda (May 20, 2021)

Mike Fox said:


> Same. I watch a lot of youtube, and paying a small fee to remove annoying ads is totally worth it.


Yup. That’s a Surefire Audio No Brainer bundle.


----------



## SquirrelMan (May 20, 2021)

Ad blockers and youtube downloaders in effect. The last people on the planet I'd pay is youtube.
I feel for the content creators but youtube is, and has been sh!t for a long time and there's no reason to use them anymore or give them the benefit of your content. There's plenty of alternatives like Vimeo, Rumble, Odyssey, etc. If you just want to get your stuff out to people to watch there's a lot better companies to patronize than Youtube.


----------



## Jeremy Morgan (May 20, 2021)

SquirrelMan said:


> Ad blockers and youtube downloaders in effect. The last people on the planet I'd pay is youtube.
> I feel for the content creators but youtube is, and has been sh!t for a long time and there's no reason to use them anymore or give them the benefit of your content. There's plenty of alternatives like Vimeo, Rumble, Odyssey, etc. If you just want to get your stuff out to people to watch there's a lot better companies to patronize than Youtube.


YouTube is a fantastic resource. It's given many great opportunities to earn a living they otherwise would have not have had not to mention the exposure. It's created an entire revenue streams (plural) for people. It saves me money and has tremendous value ad. They can have my money.

I have yet to see anyone get anywhere on Vimeo.


----------



## Alchemedia (May 20, 2021)

A Vi-Control member regularly posts interesting videos on YouTube with commercial interruptions every few minutes. Is that YouTube's doing? I enjoy his videos however I can't watch them anymore--it's torture!


----------



## Jeremy Morgan (May 20, 2021)

Alchemedia said:


> A Vi-Control member regularly posts interesting videos on YouTube with commercial interruptions every few minutes. Is that YouTube's doing? I enjoy his videos however I can't watch them anymore--it's torture!


Ad's I haven't seen in literal YEARS because I'm a premium member and made a choice to remove them. Literally this problem I never would have noticed at all. I live an ad free YouTube life and I would never go back. Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of seeing this YouTube channel but if I did I would have never have had a negative experience as I made a choice to remove the negativity knowing it was a low price for the value ages ago...the value of YouTube was WELL above and beyond the price to pay. 

Just a different spin to consider and maybe a reason for a change of opinion.


----------



## Jdiggity1 (May 20, 2021)

Alchemedia said:


> A Vi-Control member regularly posts interesting videos on YouTube with commercial interruptions every few minutes. Is that YouTube's doing? I enjoy his videos however I can't watch them anymore--it's torture!


If the ads are interrupting the video, that's a deliberate decision by the channel that they can turn off if they want to. If the ads are only played at the beginning (or end?), that is unfortunately no longer something the channel has control over.


----------



## X-Bassist (May 20, 2021)

Doorak94 said:


> I suppose this is one mainly targeted towards the subscribers on my channel, as I know a lot of you reside here and won't see my status because of the algorithm, but for those who aren't, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the below anyway. (Status copied straight from my YouTube channel):
> 
> 
> "What is happening to this platform. [YouTube]
> ...


I understand your grievance but I would assume most people saw this coming when Google pay billions of dollars for YouTube. I had assumed we would see ads everywhere that they would keep all the profits from within a year or two.. yet that was almost 15 years ago (Nov 2006) At first they promised they wouldn’t go there, but all that ad revenue is too tempting for a large company. I’m surprised they share any profits, but as it goes they eventually will keep more and more and lose their best content. Then people will leave.

myspace, yahoo, aol, the trash bin is filled with websites that go commercial, screw it up, and go dead. Eventually it will become just the old videos that are nowhere else. Or like blockbuster, a last store in Alaska. 😄

The commercialization of any site is always going to screw up the original intent of the website. Which originally was to give the average Joe a place to put their videos... thus “YouTube “. Now it’s a channel for high end content creators, film and TV makers, and the “smaller” channels... 100,000 subscibers or less... are being squeezed out.😄

What happen to the You in Youtube! 😄


----------



## rgames (May 20, 2021)

To those saying you can disable ads - per policy, that is no longer true. You can decide to *not* get paid but YT is still going to put ads on your content (EDIT: if they choose to).

FYI that announcement was made several months ago. There’s another thread on here somewhere on that topic.

rgames


----------



## jbuhler (May 20, 2021)

I've been long interested in seeing the ads to track the ads YouTube wants to feed me. But they now seem intended to disrupt the videos for maximum annoyance in order to shift people to a subscription plan, which if true means they aren't actually interested in monetizing channels directly but making the YouTube experience unpleasant enough that people choose subscriptions. And that in turn is very curious because it means the ads are being instrumentalized against the long-term interests of those buying the ads. In essence YouTube is making ads pay to help YouTube move users into subscription plans where they won't be served ads. Neat trick, I suppose. Almost Tom Sawyerish...


----------



## rgames (May 20, 2021)

Doorak94 said:


> So now we have a platform where genuine creators are getting advertisements on their own works, that they put hours of labour into, and they don't get a penny.


YT created a product that people want to use. Are they supposed to give that away for free? Nobody is forcing you to put your work on YT. It’s an option, not a requirement.

You, presumably, create a product that people use as well. Do other people have the right to use your product for free? If so, that’s your choice, not some kind of moral obligation. People should own the fruits of their labors and have the right to do with them as they please. That fact is part of the reason for the success of free markets.

I think you’re missing some important considerations on this one.

rgames


----------



## MauroPantin (May 20, 2021)

I can understand and relate to both sides. It is true that YT owns the site and calls the rules. And it is true that as a creator it's kind of unpleasant to know your content is being used without you having participation in the earnings it produces, however small they may be. 

The reality is that right now demand and supply allows YT to do something like this and possibly more. Like it or not, that's where it stands at the moment; a lot of people want to make a living as a "youtuber", and possibly a lot of them are uploading stuff without justifying the expense of the hosting or bandwidth in views, no matter how efficient the technology is.

So maybe the best option is to go where it's empty. Take the route of other video streaming sites. Create your own website with like minded creators or people in the same topic, or as a lone wolf. Use Vimeo (which is not free if you want full control), and maybe upload teaser videos or excerpts on YT redirecting people to your site or the Vimeo links, using it as a funnel for an audience. In essence: Keep control over your stuff and where it is available. If it is valuable, it will be on people's radar. "Mix with the masters" does it and they seem to be doing alright. "Soundworks Collection" is always one of my first visits Monday morning, and they are not even on YT.


----------



## Alchemedia (May 20, 2021)

Jdiggity1 said:


> If the ads are interrupting the video, that's a deliberate decision by the channel that they can turn off if they want to. If the ads are only played at the beginning (or end?), that is unfortunately no longer something the channel has control over.


Constantly interrupts videos every few minutes. It's rediculous!


----------



## alcorey (May 20, 2021)

Reminds me of the old days of the mob in the big city when you had to "pay" every month for protection for your business........now you pay for protection from asinine video interruption


----------



## Banquet (May 21, 2021)

In terms of watching, I love Youtube. I don't watch TV at all these day. I'm so tired of formulaic crap and adverts. However I find Youtube to be a treasure trove of science, history and most importantly for me, tutorials. It's an immense learning resource. I gladly pay for premium to remove the ads and consider it well worth it. Compared to what I used to pay for Sky that had nothing on I wanted to watch either. I can't stand these shows that have 10 minutes of content and then ads - and the 'content' is half filled with 'before the adverts this happened' - and 'after the adverts, you'll see this'. It's just dire...

In terms of somewhere for me to put content, I choose Youtube because it's not somewhere that, if I don't pay, all my content will disappear. It's a bit silly really but I feel like when I drop dead, I would still like these things that mattered to me in life, to continue to exist somewhere. So if I have to pay for Vimeo or Soundcloud to host my videos or music... nobody is going to pay after I'm dead and the content will disappear. At least with Youtube it will remain (even if no one watches it, it will be there). And I like that. I am sad, though, that adverts could be put on my videos because I have always done everything to have that not happen. I have always created 100% my own content because I don't want adverts on my videos. So to have done all that, and possible get ads anyway, is a shame. 

For me, I never use Facebook anymore because it is now so full of commercial crap I can't bear to wade through it all and I hope Youtube doesn't go the same way. The problem is, these organisations have become so huge that they simply buy up any competitors, but I do think, the more they go down this road, the more likely it is they will fall. Balance is one thing, but once is becomes obvious greed, that's certainly where I draw the line.


----------



## GtrString (May 21, 2021)

Regarding the new terms, you state that Google will collect all revenue from the ads, where did you get that information?

As far as I know, and it may be very little, you will get to collect the ad revenue if you release your videos through an aggregator (because getting the revenue requires a registration). Is this not correct (and if you say no, can you link to documentation that will verify that)?

I'm under the impression that Google actually is trying to up their game on copyrights, to compensate rights holders according to current laws. Remember this is a company with university roots, that got a lot of levy in the wake of the internet back in the 1990s to get up and running, and that had a plan to copy every library book in the world (regardless of intellectual rights) and put them free on the internet. Ofc this went south, and I'm thinking the latest European law suits and meeting in the american congress has made Google aware of some requirements for the rights to be effectuated.


----------



## Doorak94 (May 21, 2021)

GtrString said:


> Regarding the new terms, you state that Google will collect all revenue from the ads, where did you get that information?
> 
> As far as I know, and it may be very little, you will get to collect the ad revenue if you release your videos through an aggregator (because getting the revenue requires a registration). Is this not correct (and if you say no, can you link to documentation that will verify that)?


----------



## Doorak94 (May 21, 2021)

The link - https://www.youtube.com/t/terms


----------



## GtrString (May 21, 2021)

Doorak94 said:


>


Yeah, but it is the part that comes after what you've marked, that is interesting..

I'm guessing the US Tax office will be flooded with ITIN applications..




__





Individual Taxpayer Identification Number | Internal Revenue Service


The Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is a tax processing number the IRS issues to people who cannot get a social security number so they can comply with U.S. tax laws.




www.irs.gov


----------



## cygnusdei (May 21, 2021)

Banquet said:


> In terms of watching, I love Youtube.


Of course, where else will you find "Happy Birthday To You, but it's minor" ?


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> You might be used to it, but it's absolutely not taken for granted that you get a 100% free service that others pay for. In the first place, if you use one of the biggest video hosters on the world who gives you their services to upload *unlimited amount of videos* in state of the art quality, the newest codecs, a free huge studio interface with deep analytics and SEO and everything else one can dream of for absolutely free,
> 
> the only thing I find disgusting is complaining that this company that offers all of that makes a few pennies through putting ads into your videos then and when while accusing *them* to be greedy.


Nothing is free. We pay for it with our data and our presence on the platform (big audience means people pay for ads).

Sure, I wouldn't call them greedy, they have to make money. But I would call them unfair, they act like a monopoly, like there's no one else on the market, they think they can afford to lose clients (creators+users), that they are too big to fail. But this will bite them in the rear end eventually.

Yes, Google/YT can do whatever they want with their business, it's their property, however they will be punished by the free market. Many creators express frustration with their policies and are leaving the platform. Their main profit source are ads. And when creator are gone, so are advertisers and the money...


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

Oh, btw, they (google) might be feeling it already, I just got a message from google in my gmail about how they respect privacy and don't read my data... hahah had a good laugh :D 
They probably see the trend of people leaving their platform


----------



## Stephen Limbaugh (May 21, 2021)

Slowly transitioning off of Google as well.

Email --> Protonmail
Video Hosting/Streaming --> https://streamable.com
File Sharing --> Apple iCloud

Streamable, I believe, is now the most-shared of all video links on Reddit.


----------



## cygnusdei (May 21, 2021)

Ivan M. said:


> Oh, btw, they (google) might be feeling it already, I just got a message from google in my gmail about how they respect privacy and don't read my data... hahah had a good laugh :D


If you use Gboard (Google keyboard): type a peculiar keyword in your private chat on Whatsapp for example, and you can bet content with the keyword will show up on your Youtube feed. Creepy.


----------



## Kony (May 21, 2021)

Unfortunately the acquisition process has already begun - and Google will probably end up owning Streamable at some stage.


----------



## Stephen Limbaugh (May 21, 2021)

Kony said:


> Unfortunately the acquisition process has already begun - and Google will probably end up owning Streamable at some stage.


Saw that, but at least in terms of being acquired by Alphabet/Google, it is unlikely. Hopin is (apparently) part of the Salesforce/Slack world, which is not only competitive with Google, but apparently is fostering a company culture hostile to all things Google. 😊


----------



## Kony (May 21, 2021)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Saw that, but at least in terms of being acquired by Alphabet/Google, it is unlikely. Hopin is (apparently) part of the Salesforce/Slack world, which is not only competitive with Google, but apparently is fostering a company culture hostile to all things Google. 😊


Thanks for that - good to know


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

Google had a vow to not "be evil".
They literally took it out from their declaration of intents.
(Just Google it, LOL)

They are an evil, dangerous monopoly, making tones of money from data and content creators, legit or not, they make money from extremism and promoting extremism of all types.

Unfortunately it is very difficult to avoid using their stuff, being a monopoly.


----------



## MarcusD (May 21, 2021)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Email --> Protonmail
> Video Hosting/Streaming --> https://streamable.com
> File Sharing --> Apple iCloud
> 
> Streamable, I believe, is now the most-shared of all video links on Reddit.


 
When they started putting add banners on gmail, also switched to proton. 

Will have to look at streamable, not heard of it until mentioned here.


----------



## snattack (May 21, 2021)

It's more complex than the "it's just business"-argument.

There's a point where a company grow large enough to be an essential part of the global infrastructure. Then I'm sorry, but the business argument doesn't apply anymore. If a private contractor builds a road between Point A (where a lot of people live), and Point B (where those people work), then essentially making all other roads around that obsolete/unusable, it's not as simple as saying "it's a choice if you want to drive to work or not". It's simply not. And Youtube and Google are currently the only viable roads for anyone who want to reach out with their content. Yeah sure, you can use Vimeo, etc, but that is like running you car through the woods. It's not a viable option if there's not a specific purpose.

Same goes for music streaming services.With the business logic: Should we just shut up and not complain about the fact that the royalties from those services are impossible to survive on? And that it's the actual content that makes their business going? No, we're not doing that.

It's not that I don't understand the liberal side of this argument. Or that the "wheels are turning, future is here, there's no point in resisting development, blablabla". I've driven companies my entire life and as a freelancer, but it's not possible to use the same logic as we have in small business when it comes to large business. They have a fundamentally different impact on society.

Still, I would not make the choice to leave the platform out of principle. Simply because there's absolutely no impact whatsoever. It's pointless and it only affects you. Youtube won't care, and no one else will.

But we still need to complain and discuss the issue. Because there's certainly an issue with this type of corporate decisions.


----------



## Alex Fraser (May 21, 2021)

Complex issues, and I find I'm nodding along with Voider here against the majority.

Thing is, I run an online music licensing business. I pay for the web hosting. I pay Soundcloud to remove the "watch in browser" icons on the player. I pay to send emails. I pay for analytics etc etc. I don't mind doing any of this. Nothing comes for free. I will happily pay if the ROI is worth it.

YouTube has a different business model, granted. Strip it all away and the value for money you're getting from YouTube as a creator is still very substantial. If you don't believe me, try setting up your own video streaming server.

I can get on board with the argument that YouTube is an uncomfortable monopoly, sure. I can even understand the overreach when it comes to copyright protection etc. It's not great. But how many content creators would kick-off if YouTube started charging a monthly hosting fee instead? I think our collective sense of entitlement is slightly warped in 2021.


----------



## cygnusdei (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> I think our collective sense of entitlement is slightly warped in 2021.


But that's the point isn't it? Youtube didn't use to be like this before, but the ad practice has changed to the point of absurdity (you can't even go through a 10 minute video without interruption). The sentiment is not merely that we are begrudging their right to make money, but that there is a bait and switch thing going on.


----------



## MarcusD (May 21, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> But that's the point isn't it? Youtube didn't use to be like this before, but the ad practice has changed to the point of absurdity (you can't even go through a 10 minute video without interruption). The sentiment is not merely that we are begrudging their right to make money, but that there is a bait and switch thing going on.



but you could easily argue that YouTube had a smaller user base which required less back-end server space X-Y-Z.. It’s now a mammoth and as such services grow exponentially they also require exponential maintenance which hugely increases cost. On top of that they still need to make profit.


----------



## Alex Fraser (May 21, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> But that's the point isn't it? Youtube didn't use to be like this before, but the ad practice has changed to the point of absurdity (you can't even go through a 10 minute video without interruption). The sentiment is not merely that we are begrudging their right to make money, but there is a bait and switch thing going on.


I get that, but it's an evolving platform. As long as it's free for contact creators, it'll keep morphing to change with the times and extract more money from viewers. The rights and wrongs are up for debate I guess, but there should be that expectation that things will change over time.


----------



## cygnusdei (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> When you watch traditional TV you get 5-10 minutes full of plain advertisement after every 30 or 40 minutes of a show. Advertisement that you can't skip.


Sure. Contrast that with being immersed in a particularly moving performance of the Chopin concerto, only to be rudely interrupted mid-passage by a random ad.


----------



## Alex Fraser (May 21, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> Sure. Contrast that with being immersed in a particularly moving performance of the Chopin concerto, only to be rudely interrupted mid-passage by a random ad.


But did you actually *pay* to watch the performance in the first place?


----------



## cygnusdei (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> But did you actually *pay* to watch the performance in the first place?


No, and people don't pay to watch ads on TV either, your point being?


----------



## cygnusdei (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> Usually you'd pay to watch such a performance. It's avaiable in the web, but Youtube needs to make money to run their service and the Orchestra that played the performance probably wants to make money out of it too.


The Chopin foundation surely would rather NOT having their content abused that way, and the annoyed viewers would likely NOT pay attention to the ad. Sometimes, there is a thing called lose-lose situation.


----------



## Alex Fraser (May 21, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> No, and people don't pay to watch ads on TV either, your point being?


The point is, someone has to foot the bill for the content. Either it's you (by paying for an ad-free sub) or a company who pays for advertising. I think this is already outlined in better detail above, so I won't clog up the thread.


----------



## Voider (May 21, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> The Chopin foundation surely would rather NOT having their content abused that way


If the Orchestra that played a piece is registered for the content ID program, the advertisements will make them money, no matter which channel uploads their performance. 



cygnusdei said:


> and the annoyed viewers would likely NOT pay attention to the ad


Sure, they want everything for free, use adblocker, don't want to buy premium.
But in the same time, when being on the side of a creator, want to make money and more revenue through streams.

The industry seems to do it wrong no matter which way they do it.

If you're a creator they don't pay you enough,
if you're a viewer they do too much to pay creators.

_Nothing is so hard as man's ingratitude_.


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> It is free, you don't need to spend a dime. What they do with the data they collect on their platform is detached from you "_paying_" with it, even if it's popular to talk about data as _payment method _nowadays. You could even call yourself Bugs Bunny and set your age to 150 on Youtube and they'd have absolutely nothing from your *personal* user data.



It is a known fact for the people in the industry and not a hidden secret, that if you don't pay for a product, YOU are the product.



Voider said:


> They indeed are too big to fail, this will be over within 1-2 weeks as always and nobody will care anymore. But what's unfair on putting ads in videos?
> 
> 
> The typical loud minority. Youtube has so many creators and gets new ones every single day as new generations grow into it, those 0,001% complaining now won't harm the business in any way.
> ...



You are describing exactly a monopoly.
A monopoly is never a good thing except for the ones owning it.



Voider said:


> Compared to what huge service tools in state of the art quality they provide to us, I really don't see the deal about feeling offended by some ads.
> 
> They could be one of these sites where as_ free user _you only got to use 20% of the current functions in your basis package. And if you want more functions as creator, you gotta pay with a monthly or yearly payment plan, as on almost every other site out there - but they don't do that. They're big and they absorb the costs to keep it free.
> 
> All they do is putting a few ads here and there, and yet people still find a way to complain and be upset, it's crazy.


Most of the G tech advancement is about internal algos suggesting other videos taking advantage of the info they extrapolate about each user, it's not about a service, it's about how to squeeze more and more revenew.

Sometimes, as many internet products are free, people act as if these mega businesses are like a charity organization for all humans... with slogans such as "making the world a better place", and other total marketing BS. 
Especially when it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, extremists recruiting tool in the world.


----------



## Giovanni dall Camera (May 21, 2021)

Oh god ... when I read some of the replies to this thread it becomes obvious to me why we haven't managed to stop climate change and why we will most certainly end up in an Orwellian state ... Good night, everyone! 

“Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.”

“Love your rage, not your cage.”


----------



## cygnusdei (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> The point is, someone has to foot the bill for the content. Either it's you (by paying for an ad-free sub) or a company who pays for advertising. I think this is already outlined in better detail above, so I won't clog up the thread.


And my point is, the ad practice is haphazard, counterproductive, and likely will result in _less_ traffic in the long run, if they don't wise up.


----------



## allen-garvey (May 21, 2021)

Something this thread assumes is the YouTube is wildly profitable but from far as I can tell that is not the case. Google recently started reporting revenue, but not profits, most financial analysts believe YouTube is either break-even or only mildly profitable because their costs are so high. So in a sense they almost are a charity since they are barely making any money.

Something I find hypocritical on this forum is that everyone is always for composers making money, and increasing their rates and against them working for free, but when it comes to anyone else, especially tech companies, they think they should not be paid or that everything should be free or low cost.


----------



## Jeremy Morgan (May 21, 2021)

Giovanni dall Camera said:


> Oh god ... when I read some of the replies to this thread it becomes obvious to me why we haven't managed to stop climate change and why we will most certainly end up in an Orwellian state ... Good night, everyone!
> 
> “Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.”
> 
> “Love your rage, not your cage.”


Yes, because of YouTube ads.

I cannot count the amount of people who are on YouTube and decided to monitize off of YouTube by selling products through it, selling services through it, patreoning through it, the list goes on and on and on. People can watch cat videos on YouTube and avoid the apocalypse. People can challenge YouTube and make change. No one has to except anything and accept the reality.


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

allen-garvey said:


> Something this thread assumes is the YouTube is wildly profitable but from far as I can tell that is not the case. Google recently started reporting revenue, but not profits, most financial analysts believe YouTube is either break-even or only mildly profitable because their costs are so high. So in a sense they almost are a charity since they are barely making any money.
> 
> Something I find hypocritical on this forum is that everyone is always for composers making money, and increasing their rates and against them working for free, but when it comes to anyone else, especially tech companies, they think they should not be paid or that everything should be free or low cost.


Not sure if this is verified, but :

"YouTube generated $19.7 billion revenue in 2020, a 30.4 percent increase year-on-year"

Doesn't sound that bad i would say


----------



## Voider (May 21, 2021)

AudioLoco said:


> Not sure if this is verified, but :
> 
> "YouTube generated $19.7 billion revenue in 2020, a 30.4 percent increase year-on-year"
> 
> Doesn't sound that bad i would say


"YouTube has paid out more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media organizations over the last three years, according to a new letter published by CEO Susan Wojcicki"


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> The point is, someone has to foot the bill for the content. Either it's you (by paying for an ad-free sub) or a company who pays for advertising. I think this is already outlined in better detail above, so I won't clog up the thread.


You are right! The concept is not wrong, it's how TV has worked for decades...

But those producers, actors, cameramen, reporters, writers, etc etc were paid more fairly for sure.

Also regulations made sure TV networks/channels weren't making money ILLEGALLY from copyrighted material, and not making money from inciting sectarian violence and hatred that actually translates in real world violence (Not always, I know of at least one Network which is guilty of that, but let's not delve into that)...


----------



## Giovanni dall Camera (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> When I read some of the replies to this thread it becomes obvious to me that it seems to be a trend to be anti-establishment, that the world is only black and white, corporations and capitalism is the pure evil and everyone is enlightened because they've watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix (the irony) and read 1984 by Orwell.
> 
> Being aware and cautious went into _we're doomed and everything is pure evil_.


No not everything is pure evil. But defending the established power structures was really never something to lead forward. That is simply put how keeping power works: you make the sheep love their cages.


----------



## allen-garvey (May 21, 2021)

AudioLoco said:


> Not sure if this is verified, but :
> 
> "YouTube generated $19.7 billion revenue in 2020, a 30.4 percent increase year-on-year"
> 
> Doesn't sound that bad i would say


Revenue is not the same as profit. Revenue is the total amount of money you take in, profit is how much you have left over after expenses are deducted. If I buy 20 billion dollars worth of gold and sell it for 20 billion dollars, my revenue is 20 billion dollars but my profit is 0.


----------



## Alex Fraser (May 21, 2021)

AudioLoco said:


> You are right! The concept is not wrong, it's how TV has worked for decades...
> 
> But those producers, actors, cameramen, reporters, writers, etc etc were paid more fairly for sure.
> 
> Also regulations made sure TV networks/channels weren't making money ILLEGALLY from copyrighted material, and not making money from inciting sectarian violence and hatred that actually translates in real world violence (Not always, I know of at least one Network which is guilty of that, but let's not delve into that)...


I won't pretend to be aware of a lot of that - my YouTube experience is pretty much limited to watching planes land, some music tech and a chubby guy who drives around northern England with a picnic table to rate local takeaways. 👍

The original argument - who gets what share of the pie has become a little distorted. It's really on each individual content creator to work out how much value they'll get out of YouTube and if the tradeoffs of free hosting are acceptable to them. That's it, really. YouTube puts the onus on the _viewer _to decide how the the content is watched, so IMO, there's little point in worrying about it as a creator.

If you deal in content distribution and have a little knowledge of web development, it's clear how much of the heavy lifting companies like YouTube, Soundcloud etc do for you. It's all about balance and the thread could do with a little nuance I feel. My 2c.


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> Actually you benefit from that, because the better your recommendations are,


Oh I should thank them then for trying to sell me stuff? 


Voider said:


> Or with expecting them to give everything out for free because they're _so rich they can probably afford it and owe it to us_.


I am not saying that having developed some fast video codec and hosting servers should be offered for free.


Voider said:


> veryone is enlightened and educated on the topic because they've watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix (the irony) and read 1984 by Orwell.


That is so condescending....


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> If you deal in content distribution and have a little knowledge of web development, it's clear how much of the heavy lifting companies like YouTube, Soundcloud etc do for you. It's all about balance and the thread could do with a little nuance I feel. My 2c.


That's a fair point for sure


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> chubby guy who drives around northern England with a picnic table to rate local takeaways. 👍


The Hairy Bikers ??


----------



## Alex Fraser (May 21, 2021)

AudioLoco said:


> The Hairy Bikers ??


Don't watch if you're hungry.


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> Don't watch if you're hungry.


mmmm... duck fries....


----------



## el-bo (May 21, 2021)

I personally think that they should be able to run these ads on smaller channels, but the creator should still make something from it. Perhaps there could be a scaling for payouts, dependant on various metrics.

Also, the idea of subscriptions to opt-out is not a bad. My problem is that I’m pretty sure that creators don’t get any cash from it and that it’s too expensive, relatively speaking. They are charging more than Netflix do. However, Netflix is pouring millions into licensing content from others as well as creating their own content. YouTube has started introducing home-grown content, but nowhere near the same scale.

I’m currently torn between completely opting out of the Poogle model, and watching what interests me while not signed-in, and filtered through private browsing, heavy ad-blocking and VPN. However, I’m also conscious of creators getting a bit of coin for their troubles. The other option is to use JDownloader to grab the files to watch at my leisure, and to leave videos running in a separate unwatched tab, so the creator gets the click and the ad money.


----------



## AudioLoco (May 21, 2021)

el-bo said:


> I’m currently torn between completely opting out of the Poogle model, and watching what interests me while not signed-in, and filtered through private browsing, heavy ad-blocking and VPN. However, I’m also conscious of creators getting a bit of coin for their troubles. The other option is to use JDownloader to grab the files to watch at my leisure, and to leave videos running in a separate unwatched tab, so the creator gets the click and the ad money.


I am never ever signed in when on Youtube or generally when surfing le web. Why give them all that too easy free info on myself. Also delete cookies etc ... I only succumbed to having a Gmail address lately because of work necessities.
(I am sure they are getting all the info, timelines etc they want to obtain regardless of that, but at least it "feels" less Orwellian)


----------



## Nimrod7 (May 21, 2021)

Alex Fraser said:


> Don't watch if you're hungry.


Damn, I need subtitles, and the automatic ones don't work!


----------



## Giovanni dall Camera (May 21, 2021)

I have not watched the Netflix show you are talking about and TV-shows are generally not where I gather knowledge from. I hope neither do you!

You throw quite a lot of things together here ... believing in conspiracy theories like Qanon or Bill Gates trying to chip everyone is quite different from believing power should be less concentrated. You don't seem acknowledge or understand some basic principles how these companies got so huge in the first place and this is what makes them all dangerous and questionable:

They were all burning investors capital for years - sometime decades - with the only goal of destroying or buying all competition in the mean time. That strategy is predatory capitalism at its best. It contradicts all market ideology of the best product making it. BS! Amazon's Bezos even told this strategy to his shareholders, but all of the other big companies like Facbook and Google basically did the same.

Some of these companies did some investments that we all use today, but those are actually only a few. Taking pictures form cars like those on google maps come to mind ... But most of the actual inventions that make all of those services possible like the www, GPS, satellites and so on were all invented and paid for by government and that means by the community. It is very obvious that most big business in the world is either exploiting technology and inventions that was not invented by the companies themselves or not offering anything of real value and compensation for that lack by advertisement (e.g. Coca Cola is basically just sugar water - the world would be at no loss without it ...). They like the governments funding that kind of basic research, but they don't like very much paying taxes to that same government. Basically, all of them misuse the power they have to cut way better deals then any small business ever could ...

I could go on, but it would not serve any purpose, as you seem to have made up your mind about this already. I think it is sad that you want to defend those companies!


----------



## GtrString (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> It's kind of scaling. For your contribution to be there and start uploading videos and creating content, you'll get all the tools and storage for free.
> 
> As soon as you have more than 1.000 followers and 4.000 hours of watch time in the past 12 months, you become more valuable to the platform and can become part of the partner program and make money through ads. Until then, they pay you with the services they offer to you.
> 
> That's probably mathematically and logically the best formula they've worked out to provide what they they do, and after they've paid out more than $30 billion in the past three years to creators, it seems legit.


If you publish your videos through an aggregator (who are part of the partner programme), the aggregator will distribute the ad rev back to you. In that case, you can still have a free acct and make ad rev money.


----------



## jononotbono (May 21, 2021)

I love YouTube. It’s free. I learn tons from using it. Did I say it’s FREE? 😂


----------



## GGaca (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> There's nothing wrong, it couldn't get simpler: I used content from other creators, they've registered their content, they monetize it on my channel and get paid for it. Easy.


I think that he meant videos of 'other creators' used without their knowledge. It doesn't matter if They registered content or not. At least I understand it that way.


----------



## patrick76 (May 21, 2021)

allen-garvey said:


> Something I find hypocritical on this forum is that everyone is always for composers making money, and increasing their rates and against them working for free, but when it comes to anyone else, especially tech companies, they think they should not be paid or that everything should be free or low cost.


Simply not true.


----------



## GGaca (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> I did use it without their knowledge, I didn't ask for permission. But they're registered for Content ID so Youtube automatically recognized it's their content, displayed it to them and they could decide if they want to take it down or monetize it; they happily went with the latter.


and what if someone is not registered for content ID?


----------



## Giovanni dall Camera (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> This is such a huge topic, way more complicated than you make it look like here.
> 
> I could argue that Amazon, Google & co contribute a lot to a government being able to fund and develop these inventions. Because they've created a huge infrastructure, they push the limits of technology with top notch equipment and the best people in their field (_looking at Googles AI like Deepmind, Alexa and other stuff_), they created millions of jobs, they make people spend money on their services and help vendors to buy and sell stuff which results in a huge growth of the economy, which again then brings more money into the government coffers. And they invest a lot into technological progress that is beneficial for everyone. On top of that, Amazon for instance delivers only in fully electronic cars here in Germany, doing something for the planet.
> 
> Economy is a very complexe topic that you can't just nail down in a single paragraph, and it's *never* one sided.


Well, since I couldn't do it, I am so happy that apparently you managed to explained everything we need to know about the subject _literally_ in a single paragraph! 

Apart from that, you cherry pick all the stuff that in your eyes speaks for Amazon or Google without mentioning anything that speaks against it ... that is what we call a one-sided argument. A discussion requires you to reflect the opponents arguments and weigh them against your own.

Switching to electrical cars is not something only Amazon does! It is simply a requirement for all delivery cars in the coming years and it is also false that all Amazon delivery cars are electrical in Germany - a small part are at this point! You argumentation is not convincing at all, I am afraid.


----------



## GGaca (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> Then you'd need to find those videos manually and send a takedown request. But if you're a serious content creator with valuable content, chances are high that you'll register for contend ID; why wouldn't you? It will bring you some extra money if your stuff is shared widely. Or it automatically takes it down, if you wish so instead of monetizing it.


but that is in my opinion wrong take... It's not ppl responsibility to search for their content on whole YT to take it down - it's Yours to get permission to use it. Content ID is not supported by every distribution company like eg. Soundrop as far as I know - and if You are noname You don't qualify for it without distribution company.


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> It is free, you don't need to spend a dime. What they do with the data they collect on their platform is detached from you "_paying_" with it, even if it's popular to talk about data as _payment method _nowadays. You could even call yourself Bugs Bunny and set your age to 150 on Youtube and they'd have absolutely nothing from your *personal* user data.


Money is not the only currency. For example, we pay every day with our time in exchange for money, also called working. :D 
For the ad machinery to work efficiently, they need your profile. Not your name, but your digital footprint.
One may or may not agree to it.



Voider said:


> They indeed are too big to fail, this will be over within 1-2 weeks as always and nobody will care anymore. But what's unfair on putting ads in videos?
> 
> The typical loud minority. Youtube has so many creators and gets new ones every single day as new generations grow into it, those 0,001% complaining now won't harm the business in any way.


How sure are you about that?




Voider said:


> Compared to what huge service tools in state of the art quality they provide to us, I really don't see the deal about feeling offended by some ads.
> 
> All they do is putting a few ads here and there, and yet people still find a way to complain and be upset, it's crazy.


But no one here is complaining about it being free of charge (in monetary currency). 
No one is complaining about the good stuff. 
People notice stuff they don't like, censorship is the big one, and are considering alternatives, nothing wrong with that. It's not childish, or entitled, it's free market.

And all this caused some new privacy centered trends and businesses, which is excellent.


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

An alarm for me was when google banned Jordan Peterson from gmail for no reason, and returned his access also without explanation. 
I was thinking, wow, imagine writing something on the internet someone at google doesn't like, and you simply lose access to your email and data, just like that. That's scary...


----------



## el-bo (May 21, 2021)

AudioLoco said:


> I am never ever signed in when on Youtube or generally when surfing le web. Why give them all that too easy free info on myself. Also delete cookies etc ... I only succumbed to having a Gmail address lately because of work necessities.
> (I am sure they are getting all the info, timelines etc they want to obtain regardless of that, but at least it "feels" less Orwellian)


To be honest, I really don't care about them having my data. Got far worse things to be concerned about, and the amount of measures needed to circumvent big brother, such that I might maintain the illusion/delusion of freedom, just ain't worth it.

My thinking in this direction is purely motivated by this latest monetisation tactic, which I think is unnecessarily exploitative.


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> but the topic of the thread was that the OP is annoyed by advertisement being shown on his channel. which I refered to, then we talked about monetization.


I'm afraid you've misinterpreted the first post, here's a quote:



Doorak94 said:


> It's heading in exactly the same direction as Facebook - unnecessary censorship, demonetization of channels which are done by genuine, real people posting real content, yet supporting fake channels, with fake (and sometimes outright dangerous) information.
> 
> Content ID and copyright laws are getting out of hand, meaning genuine teachers are getting copyright strikes for showing respect to bands that are enforcing those strikes in the first place.


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> The ad machinery isn't the concern of the most, it's the sensible personal data being collected, which isn't possible if you're 150y old Bugs Bunny from Candyland, that's why I brought up this example.
> 
> I believe there's nothing wrong with trying to serve the best ads for a customer as possible instead of showing him random crap he isn't interested in. Like I've said, I found some decent stores through ad's because they figured out that I'd like that.


Neither good or bad, just depends what each one of us agrees to. Yeah, targeted ads are ok, I prefer seeing audio software ads rather than nail fungus ads... :D


----------



## Voider (May 21, 2021)

Ivan M. said:


> Neither good or bad, just depends what each of use agrees to. Yeah, targeted ads are ok, I prefer seeing audio software ads rather than nail fungus ads... :D


When you're going to promote your next Album or whatever on Youtube, Instagram & co, you'll be very grateful for the opportunity to create your own target audience based on interests and their behaviour (_like people who will most likely click a link or buy something_) so that you can expect to get something for the money you invest into advertisement, rather than your music being shown to a person who couldn't care less about your genre.


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> I didn't. This is also from the first post, it's what I've quoted from the very beginning and the only topic I've been talking about all the time:


Well, ok, but you've narrowed the scope that way. The first post has a mich wider context, so that's where the misunderstading comes from.


----------



## GGaca (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> There is simply no other way if you don't want an upload filter or give all your personal data with your official papers and adress out when creating a Youtube account.


Thats where i think You are wrong - people shouldn't use it if they can't contact with creator or don't have permission - using someone's content without his knowledge/permission is imho bad practice (maybe not necessary when Their content has 'Content ID'), but hey, maybe i'm weird.


----------



## Voider (May 21, 2021)

GGaca said:


> Thats where i think You are wrong - people shouldn't use it if they can't contact with creator or don't have permission - using someone's content without his knowledge/permission is imho bad practice (maybe not necessary when Their content has 'Content ID'), but hey, maybe i'm weird.


I don't say it's okay to upload other peoples stuff without permission. I say there will be people doing it and you can't prevent them from doing it in the first place except with an upload filter.

So the only way to keep our free right to upload videos without an upload filter controlling everything which most people are so afraid of is the current way, where people going to abuse this freedom and we content creators will need to run after them and deal with it.

We can agree on that Youtube should make this job easier for us.


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> When you're going to promote your next Album or whatever on Youtube, Instagram & co, you'll be very grateful for the opportunity to create your own target audience based on interests and their behaviour (_like people who will most likely click a link or buy something_) so that you can expect to get something for the money you invest into advertisement, rather than your music being shown to a person who couldn't care less about your genre.


Indeed, many good stuff. I'm personally not concerned with profiling that much (a personal choice, neither good or bad), a bit uneasy, yes, but censorship gives me the creeps.


----------



## el-bo (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> It's kind of scaling. For your contribution to be there and start uploading videos and creating content, you'll get all the tools and storage for free.
> 
> As soon as you have more than 1.000 followers and 4.000 hours of watch time in the past 12 months, you become more valuable to the platform and can become part of the partner program and make money through ads. Until then, they pay you with the services they offer to you.
> 
> That's probably mathematically and logically the best formula they've worked out to provide what they they do, and after they've paid out more than $30 billion in the past three years to creators, it seems legit.


I have never had a problem with Youtube's model, nor, generally-speaking, in businesses making money. The scaling you're talking about is how it has existed for a while now; at least up until this latest change. Seemed fair to me that they imposed minimum requirements before creators could earn, and that until such a time a creator got free video hosting, the chance to speak to the world and an opportunity to possibly even make a future living on the platform.

All that changes, for me, with these current tweaks. In my opinion, either a creator is monetisable(?) or not. If there's money to be made, then I personally draw the line at it being done so without any kickback to the creators. So when I talk of scaleability, it is in reference to a way of <1000-sub creators to earn at least a token amount, relative to the >1000-sub channels. Like I said, I'm all for multi-billion $$$ companies looking for ways to make extra cash, but this "Hey! You're not valuable enough to earn money, but we're gonna earn money off your back" is a step too far, for me.


----------



## el-bo (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> I believe there's nothing wrong with trying to serve the best ads for a customer as possible instead of showing him random crap he isn't interested in.


If only  

Most of the YT content that i consume is to do with veganism and animal-rights. With all that data (Audience and creator), you'd think they might work out how NOT to show adverts for meat and dairy


----------



## Ivan M. (May 21, 2021)

el-bo said:


> "Hey! You're not valuable enough to earn money, but we're gonna earn money off your back" is a step too far, for me.


Exactly, and they have every right to do so, and creators have every right to look for alternatives 
YT will be called unfair, creators will be called entitled, but if there's a better alternative of course you should go for it.


----------



## Voider (May 21, 2021)

el-bo said:


> All that changes, for me, with these current tweaks. In my opinion, either a creator is monetisable(?) or not. If there's money to be made, then I personally draw the line at it being done so without any kickback to the creators. So when I talk of scaleability, it is in reference to a way of <1000-sub creators to earn at least a token amount, relative to the >1000-sub channels. Like I said, I'm all for multi-billion $$$ companies looking for ways to make extra cash, but this "Hey! You're not valuable enough to earn money, but we're gonna earn money off your back" is a step too far, for me.



I see where you're coming from, but with those views you take the tools, unlimited storage and everything else they offer to you for free as granted, because you seem not to see it as something they give to you in return for the content you create.

Look at it this way, I assume you know to release music on Spotify you either be part of a label or use third party distributors like Distrokid:

Imagine Spotify lets everyone upload music tomorrow, so no extra cost anymore for a label or a third party distributor. But you get their customers - _an audience of millions, some free, some premium -, _you get to place your music inside their app and webplayer, you get to use all their functions to upload albums, create your profile, plan your releases, getting featured in official playlists, getting newly developed features such as video playback, the storage of your music on their servers and so on and so forth.

That's a huge package they give you right there, while you maybe only make 20 plays a month on their platform and don't really contribute much. So they're still eligible now to put ads between your songs, because they already gave you all those tools and didn't make you pay a single penny for all the development costs, the server storage, the potential audience they bring to you, all the tools, features and maintenance.

It's only fair in my opinion. Unfair at this point is to say: _Well, you've given me all of this for free, but that's not enough, I as well want to get a cut from the advertisement you play here_.

If you'd pay for the server capacity and all the features you make use of it, I could totally understand it. But if you're getting all of that for free and in the same time are very small and don't really bring a decent amount of traffic or new listeners to Spotify, I see their advertisements as the kind of profit they take from you in return for the provided services, without making you actually pay for it.

A pretty good solution imo.

Apparently Spotify doesn't handle it this way and pays everyone no matter how big.
But to get your music on Spotify you need to pay, so that's the difference to Youtube.

Youtube doesn't take this intro-price from us, but therefor starts paying us as soon as we - _regarding their calculations_ - start to overcome the value of the advertisements being shown in our content.


----------



## doctoremmet (May 21, 2021)

Mike Fox said:


> Same. I watch a lot of youtube, and paying a small fee to remove annoying ads is totally worth it.


+1. Premium member here. To be able to switch apps and still hear @Simeon play is worth my money. Plus I hate ads


----------



## el-bo (May 21, 2021)

Voider said:


> I see where you're coming from, but with this views you take the tools, unlimited storage and everything else they offer to you for free as granted, because you seem not to see it as something they give to you in return for the content you create.
> 
> Look at it this way, I assume you know to release music on Spotify you either be part of a label or use third party distributors like Distrokid:
> 
> ...


It's hard to argue against all of that, I guess. But perhaps there's an alternative universe in which Boogle decides to just let it slide


----------



## el-bo (May 21, 2021)

Ivan M. said:


> Exactly, and they have every right to do so, and creators have every right to look for alternatives
> YT will be called unfair, creators will be called entitled, but if there's a better alternative of course you should go for it.


What people or businesses have the right to do and what is 'right' are very often not aligned, imo. But that's way off-topic for this thread


----------



## nolotrippen (May 21, 2021)

Shiirai said:


> Unpopular opinion: Everyone should be using ad-blockers anyway.


I use Brave browser on my Mac. I think they have it for PC too. Works like a charm. NO Youturd ads.


----------



## nolotrippen (May 21, 2021)

Ivan M. said:


> Exactly, and they have every right to do so, and creators have every right to look for alternatives
> YT will be called unfair, creators will be called entitled, but if there's a better alternative of course you should go for it.


Sounds fair, except the search algorithms are owned and skewed by a hand full of companies (aka Google, etc.). This is why there has NEVER been a successful alternative to a site like eBay. The kaibosh is in.


----------



## Toecutter (May 21, 2021)

7 pages in a few hours in a forum about samples... can anyone question the impact of YT? I'd milk the crap out of that cow too if I were google XD No such thing as free lunch!


----------



## MarcusD (May 21, 2021)

TBH there's no other company on the scale of YouTube doing what they do, there's no manual how to find the perfect business model for such an ever changing, demanding landscape. It's expected there will be times where things don't work out. Of course there has to be refinements made to the model to perfect it and protect others content, but the solutions are not as simple to execute as people imagine them to be. There usually is some cost involved.

What's easy to overlook is the sheer scale and cost to run such a service;

1. How much does the average server hosting cost to store a single users content?
2. How much does all the Hardware cost for building one server rack? I.E CPU, RAM, GPU, Etc... 
3. How many servers are needed per data centre?
5. How much does it cost to maintain those data centres? 
5. How many high skilled staff need to be employed to ensure the systems work perfectly?
6. How much does it cost to cover utility's I.E eclectic, water etc... for each premises.
7. How much does security cost in protecting such premises? 

That's before you even get into, software development, design, marketing etc.. etc... and all the associated facets. 

I don't think its easy to grasp how monumental the costs are for running such a massive business. Of course they're entitled to earn what they can. People may not agree fully with the model, but at the end of the day its FREE for us to use.

Obviously there are going to be times where policies and business politics seem questionable or exploitive, but that's when people should come together and have sensible discussions to create change and find common ground for both the business and creators interests. If YouTube doesn't engage with that as a company, then we all have the choice to not support them and should not be judged for choosing not to. 

It is a tiny bit naïve for anyone to think that such a service should be entirely free, as it wouldn't exist for very long. At the moment three's only three models that can be used, but as the demanded grows so does the need to find additional revenue streams.

1. Subscription based for everyone.
2. Free but with Advertisements
3. Free but they mine usage DATA and sell to 3rd parties.

Because Google do all of the above says to me the running costs dictate how they find ways to get more money coming in, be it if it leaves a sour taste in the end users mouths.


----------



## Chris Harper (May 21, 2021)

I’m having a really tough time understanding some of the criticism directed towards the OP. Essentially, he said he doesn’t support YouTube’s business model, doesn’t like the changes that were made to the terms of service, and he is choosing not to do business with them anymore. He is met with responses telling him essentially that:

1) “The terms of service are fair.” He obviously disagrees, and since he is a party to the terms, he is the ultimate arbiter of whether the terms are fair to him.

2) “You can’t expect YouTube not to make profit from their services.” This is a straw man argument. He never said he doesn’t think they should make any profit. He said he disagrees with the manner in which they choose to do so. YouTube’s codecs, bandwidth, server space and infrastructure are irrelevant to the discussion. The only relevant point is that he doesn’t want to do business with them. 

3) “If you don’t like YouTube, nobody is forcing you to use their platform.” He is removing his channel. He doesn’t want to use their platform. It seems to me that he has grasped this very simple concept already. Isn’t that the entire premise of his thread in the first place?

But there is something hidden between the lines here. The implication seems to be that he can quit YouTube if he doesn’t like it, but that he has no right to complain regardless... because codecs, et cetera. Is there a clause in the terms of service where he surrendered his right to complain?


----------



## Jeremy Morgan (May 21, 2021)

Chris Harper said:


> I’m having a really tough time understanding some of the criticism directed towards the OP. Essentially, he said he doesn’t support YouTube’s business model, doesn’t like the changes that were made to the terms of service, and he is choosing not to do business with them anymore. He is met with responses telling him essentially that:
> 
> 1) “The terms of service are fair.” He obviously disagrees, and since he is a party to the terms, he is the ultimate arbiter of whether the terms are fair to him.
> 
> ...


OP original post..."but for those who aren't, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the below anyway."


It's a discussion on a forum where people are airing thoughts.


----------



## tack (May 21, 2021)

3DC said:


> I am not saying its cheap to setup and run but its also not that expensive as one might think. Also note that all major costs are covered by US government - mostly US military. They basically finance all cables and all large infrastructure. Last such deal is worth 10B.


Whereas I'm not sure it's as cheap as you're implying. A service the scale of YouTube is still going to have an annual expenditure in the billions, even with the economies of scale Google is able to bring.

I used to run a service a tiny fraction of the size of YouTube, supporting 100M subscribers and the TCO was somewhere around $150M/year. And we also owned our own data centers that hosted many other services such that the physical plant was a shared cost. The amount of compute needed just to transcode the ~500 hours of content per minute uploaded to YouTube is staggering.

Like others on this thread, I certainly doing begrudge Google slapping ads on content. I myself pay for Premium to support the creators whose content I consume (but would certainly use an ad blocker if that option weren't available). I have a much, much bigger problem with how they deal with copyright and the lack of respect for fair use than I do them monetizing uploaded content through ads.


----------



## allen-garvey (May 21, 2021)

3DC said:


> Its actually not that big.
> Google and Amazon have different technology solutions then regular data/hosting centers. Its "super cloud" system comparable to 10 big classic data centers in terms of power and capacity. However the setup and running cost is comparable to one classic data center.
> 
> I am not saying its cheap to setup and run but its also not that expensive as one might think. Also note that all major costs are covered by US government - mostly US military. They basically finance all cables and all large infrastructure. Last such deal is worth 10B.
> ...


Consider just the hard drive costs. From a Google search, 720,000 hours of video gets uploaded each day. That data would then be duplicated probably 3-5 times for data integrity purposes. Then the video is transcoded to multiple formats and resolutions. Then it is sent to multiple different data centers, probably at least 3 in North America, Europe and Asia. That means Google is probably storing at least 20 different copies in total of each hour of video. If we assume the average video is around 720P, 1 hour of 720P video is 6 GB. Looking at hard drive prices, the cheapest price per terabyte seems to be 8 TB for $200. Doing the math, that means:

720,000 hours * 20 copies * 0.006 TB per hour / 8 TB per hard drive = 10,800 new hard drives per day

10,800 hard drives * $200 = $2,160,000 spent on hard drives per day
$2,160,000 * 365 = $788,400,000 per year

Furthermore, you need storage servers to connect the hard drives to. If we assume you can connect 100 hard drives to a single server, and each server costs $2,000:

10,800 hard drives / 100 hard drives per server * $2,000 per server = $216,000 per day spent on servers
$216,000 * 365 = $78,840,000 in storage servers per year

Finally, servers and hard drives either die or exceed their service life throughout the year and need to be replaced. I would estimate that it would be around 10% of servers and hard drives each year. Not knowing how much stuff they already have I'm going to just double everything to account for that. So the final estimate is:

($788,400,000 for hard drives + $78,840,000 for servers) * 2 for replacing old stuff = $1,734,480,000 per year for storage alone. And this doesn't take into account things like electricity or the salaries of the people required to install and maintain all that storage.


----------



## Stephen Limbaugh (May 21, 2021)

MarcusD said:


> What's easy to overlook is the sheer scale and cost to run such a service;
> 
> 1. How much does the average server hosting cost to store a single users content?
> 2. How much does all the Hardware cost for building one server rack? I.E CPU, RAM, GPU, Etc...
> 3. How many servers are needed per data centre?




May I add something to this list? The insurmountable cost to a startup scratching by on their series A who gets sued out of existence by Google/Alphabet based on dubious patent infringement claims. A judiciary adjudicating those cases in the 9th Circuit, who grew up on rotary dial phones, does not help the situation either! 😂


----------



## Chris Harper (May 21, 2021)

Jeremy Morgan said:


> OP original post..."but for those who aren't, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the below anyway."
> 
> 
> It's a discussion on a forum where people are airing thoughts.


He posted in a public forum, so discussion and even criticism is certainly germane. I never said it’s unreasonable to disagree or argue. Far from it. But I still think my point stands that some (by no means all) of the arguments being made are irrelevant or even condescending.

As an example, some are arguing that the customer should be willing to accept more ads or that content creators should accept less money simply because Google’s costs are high and their profits are too low. To this, I simply say their profits and costs are irrelevant to me. That is their business, not mine (apart from being a shareholder, but that’s a separate issue). They are a business, not a charity. My concern is only whether the product or service is desirable to me under the terms they impose. This applies to every transaction I make. If they feel the need to change their terms to become more profitable, then I must likewise decide whether their new terms still fulfill my needs under the new arrangement. Just as they are not obligated to pay content creators more, the creators are not obligated to continue providing content.

As an analogy, I once left a job with a corporation because the CEO made a disastrous business decision, and the company was “required” to make a drastic pay cut to all employees. They weren’t obligated to continue to pay my original salary. They weren’t breaking any laws by cutting my salary. They only had an obligation to pay me for the work I had already performed. But the new reduced salary was not enough to make me want to continue working there. It wasn’t my problem that they couldn’t continue to pay my original salary and still be profitable.

Likewise, when Google alters their terms of service to increase profits, the content creators and customers have no obligation to continue their relationship as though Google is doing them some kind of favor. Some people run YouTube channels as a business. The OP had a problem with how the terms had changed, and decided to end the relationship. He shouldn’t feel any obligation to accept the changes. A couple of people have made it sound like he was downright ungrateful for deciding he didn’t want to continue contributing to the platform, as though it is some kind of great gift that he doesn’t properly appreciate. That’s my main point.


----------



## allen-garvey (May 21, 2021)

3DC said:


> I know my English is bad but please which part of my comment you don't understand?
> 
> Google and Amazon have different technology solutions then regular data/hosting centers. Its "super cloud" system comparable to 10 big classic data centers in terms of power and capacity. However the setup and running cost is comparable to one classic data center.
> 
> ...


I thought of an easier way to estimate YouTube's costs. YouTube's revenue for 2020 was 19.77 billion. Google doesn't disclose YouTube's expenses or profitability, but for the Google Services division, which YouTube is a part of, the profit was 30%. Since YouTube's profit was not disclosed it is safe to assume it was worse than that, but in a best case of 30% profit that means their expenses were 19.77 * 0.7 = 13.839 billion dollars.


----------



## tack (May 21, 2021)

3DC said:


> Your assumption that Amazon and Google cloud system runs on the same software and hardware you guys used for your data center is funny.


Except that I made no such assumption, or even or implied as much in my post. (Although it must be said you're assuming quite a lot about my company's DCs and cloud infrastructure yourself.)

And because of my profession and contacts, I understand reasonably well how Google, Amazon and Microsoft engineer and operate their cloud platforms. In fact, that very same service I mentioned moved to GCP and at that time was the largest single deployment on GCP. I personally worked with Google engineers to troubleshoot problems in their SDN because this service stressed it in ways they hadn't seen before.

BTW, the $10B deal you were talking about is JEDI, and that contract didn't even go to Google.

And cloud infrastructure is not magic pixie dust. It's been instrumental in empowering product development teams and reducing time to market, and for sure GCP pioneered some interesting innovations using commodity hardware, and obviously economies of scale are very much at play here, but at the end of the day these underlying resources like compute are not orders of magnitude cheaper.

I have to confess I don't really understand what your point is. Big cloud providers can squeeze performance per dollar better than anyone and therefore ... what, their services should be free? _Of course_ they are a business and their goal is to maximize their profits. Surely that doesn't need to be explained?


----------



## Alchemedia (May 21, 2021)

Advertising is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider the myriad of highly questionable covert activities companies such as Google and Facebook are conducting. I highly recommend reading "*Surveillance Capitalism*" by Shoshana Zuboff and related documentary. Pokemon Go, anyone? 🧐

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/04/shoshana-zuboff-surveillance-capitalism-assault-human-automomy-digital-privacy


----------



## Will Blackburn (May 21, 2021)

Youtube (since Google owned) totally fk""d me over. I had my channel getting good views, good SEO (in youtube and in google search). I had my artist name since i was 15 (in the 90s) and embraced youtube from the beginning - pre Google. Then i find out in the last couple of years there was actually a French guy with the same artist name as me from the 80's but he'd never really had a presence online before the last couple of years. His label obviously registered fairly recently with the Google artists page and now all my rankings have suddenly dropped despite me having the most relevent artist name URL. Now it's Impossible to find me in search engines and literally no views even when i do good YT SEO. It's as if Youtube now consider me as an imposter and have cancelled me, except my account is in great order, no disputes etc. It's pretty shocking that at the turn of a switch they can just annihilate everything you've been working hard on to build for years, literally decades in my case.


----------



## timprebble (May 22, 2021)

With any of these 'free' services, you are renting your relationships which exactly as many have said, the 'landlord' you rent from can changes the rules whenever they like. I purposefully do not have ads on any videos I upload as I hate ads & don't want to inflict them on anyone (& pay Youtube to not display ads at me) & I have no interest in income dependent on ruining the viewing and listening experience. But eg they recently added that sample feature, with auto Opt In for every video, which again changes the rules.
Knowing this, every video I upload to Youtube I also upload to Vimeo, so that a monopoly can not control me. If my Youtube channel was deleted tomorrow, I could re-embed every video to my site via Vimeo in half an hour.

With all social media you are renting your relationships, so as a business there is only one way forward imho and that is old school email lists (that you own) and dark/direct marketing. Everything social media is a bonus, but if your aim does not include building an email list that you own, then sorry but you are building a business you don't own.

I think these companies know exactly what they are doing, and in effect have very effective marketing plans akin to selling addiction. If all of your business relationships are via their platform then they have you, hook line & sinker. The more success you achieve on their platform, the harder it is to leave it.


----------



## Mike Fox (May 24, 2021)

I just realized that youtube is putting ads on my videos and they aren’t even monetized. They are also making me sit through ads on my own videos.

This is for my review channel, and I don’t even have over 200 subs, yet there’s ads? Lol.

Is there an option to change this?


----------



## rnb_2 (May 24, 2021)

Mike Fox said:


> I just realized that youtube is putting ads on my videos and they aren’t even monetized. They are also making me sit through ads on my own videos.
> 
> This is for my review channel, and I don’t even have over 200 subs, yet there’s ads? Lol.
> 
> Is there an option to change this?


Nope. Youtube will monetize your videos even if they don't allow you to monetize your videos.


----------



## Mike Fox (May 24, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> Nope. Youtube will monetize your videos even if they don't allow you to monetize your videos.


Haha! Wow! Alright, well, i guess that’s that.

Thanks for the info.


----------



## rnb_2 (May 24, 2021)

Mike Fox said:


> Haha! Wow! Alright, well, i guess that’s that.
> 
> Thanks for the info.


To be fair, from what I've heard, Youtube Adsense hasn't been a good deal for creators for a while - most successful Youtubers are making the bulk of their money via sponsorships and other methods. Still irritating if you have a small channel that you'd just like to be a pleasant watching experience for however many subscribers (and others) find you, only to discover that they're inserting ads randomly in your content.


----------



## Mike Fox (May 24, 2021)

rnb_2 said:


> To be fair, from what I've heard, Youtube Adsense hasn't been a good deal for creators for a while - most successful Youtubers are making the bulk of their money via sponsorships and other methods. Still irritating if you have a small channel that you'd just like to be a pleasant watching experience for however many subscribers (and others) find you, only to discover that they're inserting ads randomly in your content.


Totally. I used to bring in a decent amount of pocket change with another channel i had long before they had these annoying adsense rules.

How things have changed.


----------



## InLight-Tone (May 24, 2021)

Big brother has arrived and matured...


----------

