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Comment by nfoz | Hacker News Reader

Unpopular opinion, but this whole career choice of "YouTube content creator" seems like a frightful gamble in the first place. You've intrinsically tied yourself into a particular company's product. I guess I don't see YouTube's website as a public space and I don't see how anyone is "entitled" to monetization.

But to be more sympathetic, in this case it just sounds like YouTube should have done most of its automated content scans before posting the video in the first place.

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Okay? But you can apply that logic anywhere to anything. Its also a "frightful gamble" that Google needs Microsofts and Apples blessing to operate on their platform. They have intrinsically tied themselves to a particular company's product. They also need Cisco's blessing for routing their packets. The default configuration of all of these products could be to ban google's products and services because they spy on their users or -insert-other-privacy-rationale-. I don't think just because you use and depend on another companies product that you should expect them to be malicious towards you.

But Google has the resources to fight Apple and Microsoft, in the markets and in the courts, if denied a level playing field in a way that is illegal or bad optics. YouTube content creators, and content creators in general, have no defense against this since the big aggregation companies like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram have market power over hundreds of millions of creators instead of just a few powerhouses.

I fully agree. I'm just pushing back against the sentiment of shitting on the little guy, because of a personal opinion that what this person is doing is vapid or devoid of value to me.

Philosophically I agree with you, but the reality of the situation makes it very difficult to have those views and not be concerned.

- YouTube is owned by Google.

- Furthermore, the world's most popular browser is owned by Google.

- Furthermore, even the other popular browsers will forward your location bar text to Google as default behavior.

So if I am a content creator, my platform decision is guided by these realities plus:

1) Most folks type what they are looking for in their browser's location bar.

2) The result of this action is most often a Google search result page

3) Google search results seem to favor YouTube over other video platforms

So if I want to publish a video review of the iPhone 12, and I decide to go with Vimeo. I am doing so despite all of the above.

Let's say I stick with YouTube. What if Alphabet buys 30% stake in Engadget.com and their AI mysteriously starts to "bug out" and de-monetize all the independent phone reviewers. Is there any transparency? Is it illegal?

You can also argue that there's no compulsion to depend on YouTube for monetization, but YouTube's very existence is owed to content creators. Folks were on places like LiveLeak and other platforms until YouTube essentially "bribed" everyone into switching over by offering monetization. Now YouTube has a monopoly over the audience. YouTube has the power to hand-pick the next big star by just "tweaking" their visibility. They could even hand-pick the next President. This kind of power ought to concern anyone.

Very true. And let's not forget Android and Adsense. It's scary how many developers, publishers, and creators depend on Google for revenue today. A tiny change in Google's opaque algorithms can and will affect many's livelihood.

I agree with that in principle, but increasingly lots of gigs are tied to some kind of platform as intermediary, so it's getting harder to avoid tying yourself to some company's whims. I guess you can try to diversify and at least hedge your bets, but that's easier to do with some kinds of jobs than others.

Besides YouTube, some other platforms that many people's businesses/livelihoods depend on in one way or another: Google AdSense, Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Associates, Steam, Patreon, Square, Uber, ...

The Platform vs Publisher debate.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/platform-or-publisher-1588...

Note this article is more about speech but you get the idea.

I don't think it's entitlement but the creators want to know the "rules".

> The Platform vs Publisher debate.

Not really. If the discussion was about weather a video should be allowed to exist, or be taken down, then yes it would be publisher vs platform. But this is a case of monetization vs non-monetization. I think YouTube, Twitter, ect. should be treated as "Platforms" and that nothing should ever be deleted/banned/taken down unless it is strictly illegal. That said, monetization is entirely a different beast, YouTube as a business can pick and choose which videos to monetize and which ones not to. Restricting content is a violation of the 1st amendment, refusing to pay creators is a business decision.

Let's say YouTube's parent company invests in a new cosmetics company that's doing make-up tutorials on YouTube. Is it fair for YouTube to then de-monetize the independent content creators who are creating make-up tutorials and therefore hurt their revenue stream? Let's say their algorithm does it by "mistake" all the time, what can be done about it?

Over time, the independent creators have less YouTube ad revenue share. Their competitor (in which Alphabet has a stake), is "coincidentally" given higher search ranking and more visibility in the recommendations as well.

What happens to the independent content creators over time?

What is the legal remedy for the above scenario?

How would one even prove this case in court?

>Is it fair for YouTube to then de-monetize the independent content creators who are creating make-up tutorials

Fair, no. Legal? Yes.

> Over time, the independent creators have less YouTube ad revenue share.

OK, and? There is no fundamental right to YouTube monetization.

>Their competitor (in which Alphabet has a stake), is "coincidentally" given higher search ranking and more visibility in the recommendations as well.

Ranking is a problem, if you are platform then everyone has equal voice then the ranking system needs to be 100% equal and transparent, which it is current neither.

> What happens to the independent content creators over time?

They find other ways to make $$ or they find another career. Lots of YT's are now pushing things like pateron membership. There is also nothing stopping any YT from going out and securing their own advertisers and doing their own ads in their videos.

>What is the legal remedy for the above scenario?

Legal remedy is simple, YT can't ban/restrict/bury content. YT can decide who, if anyone, they want to monetize.

>How would one even prove this case in court?

It is obvious when a video is taken down, and if the ranking system was 100% transparent it would also be easy to verify if there was tampering ("My video had 1mil views in the first 24 hours, this other video had 200k views the first 24 hours, the other video was trending, mine wasn't.")

There should be a box you can tick as a YouTube creator for "monetized views only". Meaning, if this video gets demonetized, take it down while I dispute that, and show my viewers a notice instead.

This isn't a rights thing, it's just a sane business decision thing, to not alienate creators. Can you imagine if cable companies could just arbitrarily decide to "demonetize" a football game, and then show it for free with no ads?

That article links to a better sourced and more reasoned argument which seems to disagree with the premise of the article: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/no-section-230-does-no...

The article you linked does not refute the claims in the eff article, but the eff article does refute the claims in the city-journal article.

Some call it tech neofeudalism and the more I study it the more it makes sense to describe this kind of situations.

Kings used to own the land and serfs work it with no rights.

Platforms as Youtube own a new kind of land and Youtubers work on it with no rights.

As John Dewey said, “politics is the shadow casted by big business” and until businesses are democratically owned and managed, this will continue to be the case.

What are you referring to?

I think feudal serfs might have faced stiffer penalties for opting out of their existence vs Youtubers opting for another platform/career.

This analogy stinks, sorry.

I agree it's not comparable. Still, it can be pretty hard.

Airbnb deplatforming comes to mind: when it happens, some people lose their only source of income and finding an alternative may not be easy or quick.

Now, imagine this happening to a person in a developing country and the scenario may be not too far from feudalism.

People don't just play on platforms, they live off them.

I mean there are lots of jobs like that. The bottom line is that there has to be a level of trust between the rent seeking platform and the people creating content for them for the platform to keep existing as it is. Youtube is currently diversifying to that it doesn't need to rely solely on content creators, and can instead rely on a more traditional "studio" model for portions of its income. Great for Youtube, less great for creators as they are becoming less valuable over time.

Well the you in YouTube is becoming redundant yes. But a lot of people like me go there because I can't stand a lot of mainstream content.

Sure there is a lot of crap on there but there are some real gems on YouTube.

Very few visit youtube for studio content unless you are counting clips of shows uploaded by fans. Probably the same percentage that buy playboy for the articles.

If youtube suddenly stopped supporting user content we would see youtube shutdown like google+.

There are enough places for studios to provide content and many more streaming options coming your way shortly.

Now if youtube decided to copy netflix and started pouring in billions for new self produced content yearly that might be an option.

So you're telling me that youtube premium isn't a diversity play on youtube's part? They're copying netflix right now, making "youtube original shows" as well. They're absolutely adding other content sources to their platform beyond "kid self publishing a vlog in their home" style material they started with all those years ago. It's not the majority of their page views yet, but when Netflix first launched people were mostly using them to rent physical DVDs, so we'll see how this plays out long term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...

YouTube has a monopoly on self-published videos on the internet. "Don't use YouTube" is the equivalent of "shut down your business", so content creators do need to be protected.

"YouTube content creators" still have the ability to monetize the video content they create in other places, in other ways.

They could do Patreon, make their own products..etc.

These people should think of Youtube as one distributor only, and just like a TV show can move from NBC to Netflix, they should open to change distribution channels whenever it benefits them.

I know the community/audience is on Youtube argument makes this a difficult problem, but I feel like this has been somewhat solved. You can still advertise on Youtube. You can still promote teasers of your brand on Youtube.

Look at Russel Brand right now, he levered iTunes to create a new Podcast, which then became a Premium product that is only accessible from the Luminary app. But that doesn't mean he can't still benefit from iTunes and use it as a sales channel to move his audience over.

Then you must like the gamble many young people make: becoming a professional athlete.

First you must spend years, to the exclusion of much else, to even have a chance to become one. And even if you succeed you're very likely to be just an average athlete. Most won't earn enough money in their ~20 year career to live on for the rest of their life, so you still need to make a big career shift late in your life.

And you're always at the mercy of facing a career-ending injury, similar to how Google can wreck your channel for whatever reason.

I for one agree wholeheartedly, it makes a lot more sense to have your own company with a product or service, and use YouTube to attract customers for your business, while AdSense revenue is just the cherry on the cake.

Tim Schmoyer for example talks about this a lot, of how he was making over 10k usd a month in a channel with 10k subs or less, because he built a business model around the channel and not just based himself on addsense.

Creating content is not a problem. Some of them will do it really badly, ripping off stuff and others will be creative and genuine. That's the magic of the market.

Imagine you're the kind of person who is willing to compete on YouTube as a way to make a living.

Well, it's safer than playing poker.

Would "platform risk" matter that much ?

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