Comment by CryoLogic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CryoLogic | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

My YouTube channel also used to net closer to $1k/mo (about 100 coding tutorials) and as a result of frequent algorithm changes and algorithmic demonetization now nets shy of $100 per month.

I am not fond of Google's censorship first philosophy, their willingness to push their own viewpoints (many times not backed by logic, reasoning or data), or the fact that they build platforms marketed for the users and than once these platforms hit scale they kill off the teams that took care of the users in favor of all-in monetization of any kind.

It is very sad what happened, but for a company with such a large monopoly in search and in online user-generated video I have expected better. I can see how this person would be furious if she lost nearly all of her income to a change with no way of fixing it.

To clarify, I also lost my highest grossing video to a copyright troll and YouTube ignored my support queries for 6 months before resolving it (about $400/mo lost in that time). They did not make any efforts to replace my lost income, and did not ban the copyright troll. I would have not been able to reach them to resolve it either if I just went through support. I had to send emails to support 3 times and than reach out on social media.

EDIT: And after a copyright troll steals your content, even if Google re-instates it the video seems to be lower in the search results. Being #1 for a search result is basically how you make money on YouTube if you aren't a YouTube personality. After several months of your content being removed it will lose several positions when it is visible in results again.

EDIT 2: http://youtube.com/devfactor

EDIT 3: Does anyone fear this is how large corporations in the "gig" economy will treat the people making them money in the future?

YouTube now treats creators as second rate citizens. It was definitely not like that when the platform was younger and still growing.

Many people make their living on YouTube, operating as a 1099 contractor similar to how many people are now making their living driving Lyft, Uber or similar services.

Once Uber and Lyft hit market saturation can we expect massive QoL declines for their drivers as well when the companies decide to pursue maximum profits since they no longer need market share?

Live by $PLATFORM, die by $PLATFORM.

The same story happened at YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and doubtlessly more that I am unfamiliar with; likely also with older media like TV and newspaper.

The problem is mostly lack of competitors for a specific item. Vimeo might work for you, but discoveribility on Vimeo is much lower - you’ll have to actively promote yourself more.

Creative section on Twitch is much more likely, as there is a culture of donation.

There's some demand for programming content there, especially if it can be applied to game development.

Here are three questions for content creators (not just you) that I have been turning over, because I have never considered their motivations until the past few months.

- What made you choose to make your living off YouTube?

- What was your perception of "making YouTube content as a livelihood" back then?

- Would you still do it if you were starting out today?

I didn't make a living off of it. Just fun money when I was in college.

I wouldn't waste time on that platform again. It takes far too much time and effort to fight things like demonetization and copyright trolling. Ad rates are continually dropping, search and discover are the worst they have ever been.

Most folks are at-will employees. 1099s should have no expectation of long term employment from a particular client.

This extends to YouTube. You may get money today, but they could easily cut you out tomorrow. You don't have a "right" to post videos on someone else's website and make money.

You don't have a right, but if a platform owner creates an expectation and then undermines it, people are going to get upset. People are animals, and animals like consistency. Mess with that and they will mess with you back.

This is one of those things where just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right. It's same thing with Facebook saying "we value your privacy" and then when it turns out they didn't, saying "yeah but did you read the toS it was right there in paragraph 73(n) lol", or governmental organizations passing laws and regulations that are virtually impossible to ever be in full compliance with.

This isn't employment, it's digital serfdom.

The benefits accrue almost exclusively to the Lord of the Manor who owns the digital territory on which the villeins seek to eke out a precarious existence.

If content creators removed their content en masse, we'd soon see more considerate behaviour from the distributors.

It is absolutely not serfdom, no one is compelling you or anyone else to 'work' for YouTube.

Serfs couldn't leave. You can quit whenever you want.

>My YouTube channel also used to net closer to $1k/mo (about 100 coding tutorials) and as a result of frequent algorithm changes and algorithmic demonetization now nets shy of $100 per month.

Please correct me if I'm missing something here: It appears like that channel hasn't had a new upload in some time. That could explain the drop in revenue, I wouldn't expect a channel to maintain the same revenue indefinitely without new content. At some point videos get saturated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com