YouTube introduces channel memberships, merchandise and premieres
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Patreon is significantly investing in creators and building tools to help them grow their online businesses. [1] It feels like YouTube wants to be too many things and has lost focus on empowering creators.
Also, $4.99 feels too steep – many people only give $1-2 on Patreon. And we'll have to see if the subscription recurs the same day of the month you subscribed or if it's aggregated to the start of the month like Patreon.
[1]: https://blog.patreon.com/manage-and-track-what-you-deliver-t...
Furthermore you have to consider the non-binary nature of being demonetized. Youtube may demonetize only 50% of your videos, leaving your channel active but severely impacting the predictability of your income. Patreon provides stability and therefore a sense of security that creators are desperately looking for. You might lose significant income seemingly at random because your neighbor turned up their radio a little bit too loud and triggered ContentID, but so far Patreon isn't taking away creators' income for chickenshit stuff like that.
The only thing I can find is that they removed adult content. Presumably because they use Stripe and Paypal to process payments and both of those are very hair-trigger when it comes to payments for adult content, which are deemed "High Risk" by the underlying payment processors.
So essentially Patreon's bannings (unless anyone has any further information) are a technical and customer service issue. They could probably process adult content through a high risk processor but that would mean adult content creators get less money per pledged dollar due to the higher transaction fees
Who was banned?
It's Going Down on the other. This one was due to pressure after banning Lauren Southern and "don't be hypocrites, if you are going to invent new rules on the spot, at least apply them consistently".
Whether or not you've got a political grudge against Patreon, the simple fact of the matter is that Patreon does currently provide a sense of security for creators who feel very insecure on the capricious youtube platform.
I certainly don't think all the people I don't agree with are Nazis, although I do think all of them are to some degree wrong.
If you would like I can expand on my definition of nazi but I think it is likely to be a pretty middle of the road European definition of nazi, in the end.
For the people who were banned, it was more of digital mob lynch than any appearance of rational thought.
I usually do not put people who do I do not agree with into the being wrong box. Maybe they considered some argument I didn't, and that's how they came to their conclusion. Of course, the opposite is also possible, therefore the discussion, with exchange of the arguments, is the best approach.
Pre-labeling someone with the intent to smear their character damages the discussion. Preventing them to say their argument ("de-platforming") does the same.
AFAIK, the people who were banned were Canadians.
It's not that Youtube is any better; they are also banning and demonetizing people without being able to point out objective specifics.
Edit: the brigade is here.
And yet you're certain the reasons were politically motivated.
Ideological. Between the point of view that these banned were arguing for, ideological leaning of Patreon management and the shifty argument for the ban, it doesn't take much brainpower to figure it out. In other words: it it wasn't ideologically motivated, they wouldn't have a problem with giving a straight answer.
I'm sure creators of such content are much aggrieved, but compared to the scope of the demonetization on youtube, it amounts to approximately jack shit. How many times has Patreon kicked CodysLab or TheReportOfTheWeek off for non-political non-sexual content? I've not heard of anybody kicked off Patreon for profanity or any similarly chickenshit reasons youtube regularly demonetizes people for.
https://freestartr.com/stripe-apartheid-freestartr-temporari...
I wouldn't post such a biased account except that there's no statement from Stripe on their side of the story.
Plenty of people spend $20 or even $50 a month on Patreon channels. Some also have $200 tiers for custom videos, etc.
I don't think that's comparable at all. Patreon is an entrenched 1:N (one website for many creators) method for giving money to your favorite youtube creators; youtube's new system is late to the game. Youtube is late to the game here in the same way that Amazon's Appstore was late to the game on Android (which I think maps better to this scenario than generic sideloading, since both Play Store and Amazon Appstore are both 1:N app distribution methods, just as Patreon and youtube are now.)
You also get "stickers" that highlight your comments/chat which is also a value only the native platform can give you.
As for discoverability, you discover patreon accounts by viewing the videos of creators on youtube. Unless youtube starts banning links to Patreon (this would be evil, but I wouldn't put it past them), there isn't a discoverability problem.
30% of sponsorships, super chats, donations, memberships.
It's a copy of Twitch's subscription model, which is also $4.99 a month per channel and gives similar perks like emoticons.
A lot of content creators migrated to Twitch because a reliable fan-base giving you (a part of) $5/month/person is very attractive in comparison to Youtube's fickle advertising CPM and algorithm which determines who gets which videos in his feed.
I've been a HEAVY youtube user since around 06/07 and I'd still love to see them knocked off their perch.
It's not a bad idea to move these things into their platform, assuming they don't move to ban creators from having their own ads and 3rd party stores.
Personally I enjoy some of the silly and unique ads some youtubers make. I also enjoy that they are -broadcast- to all the viewers, not based on my cookies and history like official ads on the platform.
I don't think this feature will really cut it.
Those patreon plugs and ad copy came because youtube has a capricious and nasty AI system that will nuke your monetization.
Youtube having those features doesn't fix the problem because it'll still demonetize at the drop of a hat, it'll still ban and hide people. The advantage of those other monetization strategies was that it means you can make money from your videos without relying directly on youtube.
So whilst it might look like the same thing, in reality this doesn't solve the problems that content creators have.
Not allowing creators to set the price of the subscription, taking 30% of it while still running adds those are huge constraints for creators.
Sill nothing beats creating your own website, and taking the recurring payments directly with Stripe. Plus having a mailing list and build a direct relationship with your supporters without the need for a middleman.
The same goes for Patreon, these massively centralized platforms are taking away revenue of creators by luring them into a ready to use service, while in fact building your own website is much more sustainable in the long term.
Not to mention, as a user, the absolute LAST thing I want is to manage my content on dozens of different sites. Being able to “subscribe” to my favourite 5-6 creators on YouTube means I can now manage those all in a single location and get a single bill, and get all my content from one place. I have no desire to check each site out individually for new content. I also don’t want to have to try to figure out what the heck that random charge on my Visa is, only to realize I’ve been paying someone $X/m for months on end without ever watching their content simply because I forgot about it (or maybe the creator stopped posting, out of sight, out of mind).
Typically there are only a few subjects for each one given person is willing to pay for content, because we typically have only 2 to 3 major interests that we really want to dive deeper into at any given time.
It depends on the type of content, if its for example chess lessons then a membership site makes sense, its a never ending subject.
If its high-value educational content then it makes much more sense to build your own website, rather than be dependent of these platforms.
Historically, content creators have always been exploited by the middleman that gets the lion share of the profit, and because of that there is a lot of content that never got created not because it does not have a market, but because its unsustainable to creators due to the middleman and their control of the relationship with consumers.
The internet does allow us to remove the middleman for the case of lots of content creators, but instead, people are spending a lot of time and energy trying to make it in these platforms only for them to change the rules every two years.
Sorry to go off-topic here, but I'd love to hear suggestions from the HN crown on this.
What are the best ways to handle video content on a self-hosted website? Browser-based player, streaming server, etc? Is there a reliable service that offers a solution to paywall video content on your own website?
But then of course, I remember that they used to have (and for all I know may still have) this internal policy where if you don't upload regularly (IIRC the rule was once a week and at least half an hour) your subscribers were less likely to be notified of new videos.
A flat fee means that content creators are encouraged (yet again) to upload more videos, because otherwise most people will not consider five bucks a month worth the price.
One of the things that makes the Internet in general special, and by extension YouTube as well, is that niche topics can find an audience. This policy actively hurts the niche content creator who only uploads once every few months.
I honestly do not understand their apparent insistence on turning everything into either a carrot or stick to get content creators to upload more videos, regardless of whether the type of content in question needs it. There is more video material uploaded per second than anyone can watch in a lifetime already! Why not focus on encouraging quality instead?
Right now, the barrier to pledging on Patreon is low. You don't need to worry about how many videos they're likely to make in the future or how often they'll release it. You don't need to audit your pledges to check if there are any channels that are simply collecting passive revenue. Pay per video and you'll get exactly what you pay for.
Now, I'm not saying Patreon is perfect. For example, the fact that it is The One Big Player in this arena is a problem, because "walled garden" style markets are lock-in issues waiting to happen. Still, this is one thing it definitely got right.
Why YT would not be technically capable of the same, given the budget available to them, is beyond me, so I can only explain this as a choice on their end.
I've been wondering why so many YouTube videos on mundane subjects are so unnecessarily long for a while now. Seems like I finally have my answer. Thanks!
Although, ironically, I'm more likely to unsubscribe from a channel that routinely wastes my time with waffly, excessively padded-out videos, no matter how good the actual content.
I also wish they'd offer channel specific Reddit style forums, that would be great to build community among like minded people.
(By the way: That new Reddit design... URGH.)
And I don't know if you've been in the average Twitch chat, but it doesn't scream corporate to me. I think Obi-Wan said it best:
> You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy
Everyone seems pretty up-in-arms over that, but the longer I sit on it, the less I really care. If Blender approaches some random company tomorrow for video hosting, and was presented with a contract that required ads to support the hosting costs and turned down the deal because of that, we wouldn't vilify that company, their business model requires hosting be paid for in some manner.
Everyone is treating Youtibe differently because a) it was previously free for Blender, and b) we're all used to it being "free" to host stuff on Youtube. In the end, that's irrelevant, because that's in the past, and there's no contract.
Really, Blender should just thank Youtube for the years of free hosting they got out of it, and seek a hosting solution that better fits their needs. Youtube is clearly heading a specific direction, and if Blender is very explicitly opting out of that design, it's to be expected eventually there would be a parting.
That's not to say we all should just be happy with Youtube and continue to watch and use it. If as a consumer you don't like advertising and aren't willing to pay for their ad-free service, avoiding it when possible is the clearest possible signal you can send that you want to support other types of content and revenue models. And as a bonus, we'll get an ecosystem which isn't so heavily weighted towards Youtube, and more options in general.
Blender leaving is a good thing. I wish there were a lot less cries along the lines of "the near-monopoly in video that I use doesn't want to host this company I believe in, I wish they would just host it!" and a lot more along the lines of "oh good, now maybe we'll see even more content being spread around so there's more competition."
This is like Apple emailing you, "hey, your free app is costing us too much money in bandwidth. Add IAP, or we're deleting your app in 24 hours."
If YouTube wants to require large channels to enable monetisation, it should standardise this policy, and give reasonable notice; not suddenly disabling a channel.
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Note that all of this is moot, because apparently Blender being disabled is an error: https://www.blender.org/media-exposure/youtube-blocks-blende...
Is the implication there that "platform" means there's no rules? Because that's clearly not the case on any platform, and if there are rules, I'm not sure what specific difference you're trying to call out. I suspect it's something to to with freedom of choice or money, but I'm not exactly sure how to reply without knowing where you're going with that.
> Individualised, private requirements and restrictions for channels goes against all of that.
Just because we've only heard of one or a few cases, doesn't mean it's individualized. It could very well be that if oyu hit some threshold of content serving costs they require it be paid for in some manner.
If I wanted to upload every public domain movie I could fine and then heavily promote them, but refused all monetization by Youtube, should they be forced to allow that? Should they be demonized for disallowing what to their eyes is likely me clearly abusing their system?
> If YouTube wants to require large channels to enable monetisation, it should advertise this policy, and give reasonable notice; not suddenly disabling a channel.
If that's what you want, you want a contract. If you want a contract, you generally pay for the luxury. If you're running a business, or a professional organization of some sort, or even if you just want assurance things won't change on your, you get a contract.
Blender had to deal with a day of figuring out new hosting and changing some webpage links, and all they got in exchange was a few years of free very high quality hosting up to that point. Certainly, they got the short end of the stick, right?
> Note that all of this is moot, because apparently Blender being disabled is an error
Like I said, contracts. Whether it's an error or not, now Blender truly knows how important the video hosting is or is not to them, and whether it's worth switching still, or at a a minimum setting up a secondary video host they can switch to very quickly if needed, but costs very little or nothing until used.
Less upset likely, but still upset. My interpretation of most the comments I saw is that the immediacy spurred them to post their feelings, but their feelings seemed heavily weighted towards being upset by Google taking any action at all.
I think people are too caught up in it being a big company and an open source project. Really, it's just two parties, and if you can't substitute other examples and come to the same conclusion, there needs to be an examination of specifically what makes it different, and whether that's valid. If I colocated a server and had fairly cheap bandwidth costs and agreed to host someone's videos for free, if I then decided a year later that this is costing me far too much, how much time am I required to give that person before disabling the serving of the videos? Every moment they are still up costs me real money, and the other party has paid nothing, ever. I can be nice and give them some time, but my niceness costs me money. Should I feel bad for disabling hosting immediately? Presumably, if it was really important, they have a backup method for serving and weren't basing everything on some ad-hoc free service, right?
I would feel perfectly fine disabling hosting immediately for them. Why should I expect differently of Youtube?
> If it's such a problem for them, then why do they offer the option to disable ads in the first place?
Maybe for 99.999% of channels exposure and bandwidth aren't large enough to really matter, but they want to police that 0.001% and either move them towards being profitable (or closer to break-even), or get them off the platform? The correct way to handle a subgroup that small (or smaller even) may well be to change their behavior or get rid of them. The overhead of making special accounts types and keeping track of any special behavior they require as development goes on and any bugs that might produce could very well outweigh the benefits of that account type existing.
The truth is, there's no reason to expect Youtube will, or should continue any behavior they do today tomorrow, much less a year or more in the future, unless you're paying them on some contract which ensures this.
I'd like to agree with you, but video streaming platforms like YouTube are expensive - there's a reason we lack competition in this space outside a few niche players. Google is still probably losing money on YouTube, they're trying REALLY hard to monetize the platform as of late hence the introduction of YouTube Red/Premium/WhateverTheyRenameItNextYear and the "advertiser friendly" policies they've adopted for AdSense-monetized videos.
There's also a network effect that's developed on YouTube, and as much as I hate to admit it when I want to search for video content (reviews, how-to's, and a hell of a lot more) the first (and often only) place I search is in fact YouTube. Hell, I even pay for YouTube Premium so I can run uBlock without feeling guilty.
I'd love for there to be a proper competitor for YouTube, but truth be told I think it's easier to compete with Facebook.
Which is part of my point. If you find that nobody else can serve your content for as cheap, maybe that points towards the original host having a point in trying to find a way to pay for it.
> There's also a network effect that's developed on YouTube, and as much as I hate to admit it when I want to search for video content (reviews, how-to's, and a hell of a lot more) the first (and often only) place I search is in fact YouTube.
Well, I think we've had this problem before, and it was mostly solved with search engines. Google already returns Youtube and other hosted video content in searches. The only thing I think we'd really be losing is a more powerful recommendation system, but that's a small price to pay in my eyes.
> I'd love for there to be a proper competitor for YouTube, but truth be told I think it's easier to compete with Facebook.
I don't doubt it's easier to start a Facebook competitor. That said, I think its a lot easier to actually compete with Youtube, at least now that they are actually trying to monetize their platform. Creators have already been playing with other platforms, like Twitch. It only made sense to do so for a lot of people after Youtube started making specific changes and requirements of people that they chafed at. This announcement is both another option for creators, but also comes with it's own set of requirements. The minimum membership fee, for example, is quite a high, and some creators might find it's not the right price point for their audience. I support quite a few people through Patreon (not much in video though), and one of the features of that which I like is the ability to do specific amounts per month, or if the artist sets it up, an amount per item delivered, but with a cap. Some people will find this much more amenable to their needs, which is the market at work.
When I was on Twitch streaming the ad revenue just wasn't worth it as most of our people were running ad blockers anyway. We also didn't like showing ads. So we just didn't make money as I really wasn't trying to make a living on it anyway. But some of my friends from that community had a lot of subs and I am sure if I put it on we would have had a bunch as we had some dedicated fans. I just didn't like pandering. Unfortunately this is going to become a thing on YT now, but it is nice to provide support other than ads.
I guess your point stands about it being a donation, more for dedicated fans that want to support their favourite creators. But I feel like there are plenty of people with similar opinions to mine and the parent poster - I'd happily pay a similar price to a Netflix/Spotify subscription to YouTube, if the money was going towards creators of good content. But I'm not as interested in giving £5/month to specific channels.
Of course, almost all decent creators have Patreons these days, so I should probably go and put my money where my mouth is...
I feel like YouTube is trying too hard to protect their brand here by forcing people into a cookie cutter subscription model, rather than letting them accept support on the creators own terms.
Anyway, I already pay for YouTube Premium, if I'm going to give anything extra to content creators beyond the chunk of that Google divides among them I'm not going to do it through the platform that's actively hostile to the people creating the videos I'm watching.
If the content is controversial, so the advertisers bail...the force to the rescue has been Patreon. But Patreon donations help the content creator, and they help Patreon, but YouTube is cut out of the profitability altogether. They are the ones hosting the content, as well as taking the opportunity cost hit of recommending you content from demonetized videos that they know you like.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy to see them recognize that there should be ways to monetize content that exist independently from how appetizing content is to advertisers...while still remaining financial beneficiaries in the process. They're hosting the content!
YouTube wants to be NetFlix. It is a more business friendly model. It does not need to deal with a million creators but a few thousand easy to handle ones.
To give more services to the professional layer while starving the social-media side of it is a trend that has been going for some time now.
Very real, even for huge content creators, that can - on a whim - get their butts handed to them.
As this settles into the status quo... i gotta wonder what impact it has on content, who makes content and who doesn't, and etc.
Today creators complain about burnout and abuse from their subscribers. Now with a corporate angle stepping in, they might be worked even harder to ensure their income streams are secured and fluent. Coming years might be the worst years of being a creator.
It's easy to assume that this is "more corporate" and thus must be worse for everyone else, but that's lazy. It's a compiles topic, it deserves complex thought.
Either I accept it, or I can't visit the page. I don't see what GDPR has to do with reading an article, and/or why they won't let me read it unless I agree to whatever is they want me to do.
White label platform for medium to large producers who don't want the ops overhead of their own distribution system?
What can be read into this coincidence? Are these independent developments? Is it a similar strategy, are the big guys actively copying each other? Are they exploring alternatives revenue streams to advertising based on big data, and why should they be doing this?
Or maybe they don't like it that paetreon is becoming an important part of the ecosystem?
Many questions.
> It will also allow subscribers to gain access to members-only posts in the Community tab where creators will share custom perks from time to time, like access to an exclusive live stream, additional videos, shout-outs, news of upcoming events, early access to ticket sales and other things.