Creators Say They’ve Cracked YouTube’s Monetization Algorithm | Hacker News Reader

Creators Say They’ve Cracked YouTube’s Monetization Algorithm

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46 pointscolinprince13 comments

The problem with YouTube’s algorithm is that it’s clearly biased towards the mainstream sources that have high P-Scores.

If Jimmy Kimmel does a monologue about his anti-gun stance, or about a recent mass shooting, he’s monetized, no problem.

But if an indie YouTuber talks about guns or school shootings, they’re almost immediately demonetized due to “non advertiser friendly content.”

Independent creators are obviously upset because they are demonetized. But they are also upset that there is a clear double standard.

Youtube was way better before it was seen as a way to make a living. People did stuff just because they loved it.

Now it's a lot of spam. Every channel constantly begs for "patrons", sometimes for 2 or more minutes at the beginning of a short video. I can't trust any "creator" to be doing it for any reason other than inserting ads.

I paid $10 a month to Youtube to remove ads, and now this is the state of the world. It sucks.

"Begging" for Patreon subscribers should be more than enough of a red flag for the state of Youtube Creators. They're resorting to platforms like Patreon because they have a much clearer estimate for their paychecks, unlike Youtube where your video can be claimed, demonitized, etc and you instantly lose that revenue.

This is exactly why content is suffering on the platform, you can't afford to invest money and time into a video which might be taken down by some Copyright bot.

I’m sorry to hear you hold this view, there is a lot of great content on YouTube when you don’t subscribe to those trying to turn a quick dollar.

For example, high quality educational content on YouTube is invaluable and only possible because of the support of their audiences.

How YouTube rewards content however, is an issue.

Rewarding longer videos, incentivising click bait and prioritising regular upload schedules invite a breed of video that isn’t high quality and ought to be the focus of change.

Patreon is actually a way to lessen reliance on ads.

You could have just used an ad blocker and then spread the $120/yr you're giving to YouTube amongst channels you enjoy, and you'd be helping the people making the videos a lot more, while experiencing no less convenience.

I see a selfcontradiction. If youtube was way to make living creators would even mention crowdfunding systems...

Also, maybe I watch different content but I do not see begging, just credits. Technically it's different but essentially the same, making people aware of them. What's so bad abut it? it's like any other sponsor supported content.

I concur except I would generalize to the entire worldwide web!

Pretty impressive and amazing besides the late night talk shows and two news channels, Linus Tech Tips is the highest "p-score" individual channel. Not bad for a tech centric concept that essentially builds PC gaming rigs.

One of the key dynamics of the modern era is the result of a conflict between the old beauracracy on wall street and the rising aristocracy of silicon valley tech executives. While wall street controls the flow of money, silicon valley controls the flow of information. The secret algorithms of social media companies like youtube are their primary source of power, and to control the algorithm means to have a massive ability to manipulate public opinion and control the public mind. I believe its only a matter of time until silicon valley emerges as the victor of the current conflict.

It's only a matter of time until Facebook and Twitter are regulated or partly under state control. The battle isn't between Wal Street and silicon valley it's the existing political structure attempting to rein in but benefit from them.

I agree it was a pretty big simplification which ignored the role of the state. I consider "the existing political structure" to consist of both "wall st" and "silicon valley" and that these elites are in conflict with each other.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how this has anything to do with "cracking" the algorithm, or really with cracking anything.

YouTube openly admits to having a metric for scoring videos, which, of course they do. Then they accidentally, seemingly, leak the scores of videos. It turns out that content that is really successful on YouTube has a really high score. Meaning the score... works.

I suppose there's the question of whether the score is the cause or an effect of the success of these videos, though it's almost certainly a bit of both, since that's how virality and feedback loops work.

I think the thing a lot of content creators object to is the lack of equity in the system and the sieving process that happens to content.

All else being equal, content that can be paired with ads is preferred over other content to the extent that equal access to the base service is impaired. IE, Youtube is not a fair place where anyone can upload a video and become a sort of "star", it's just another extension of the existing Media corporations, where advertising dollars rule and the standard for what content is "ok" is based on the complaints of the most easily offended segment of the population.

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