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Comment by mastax | Hacker News Reader

Last I checked YouTube premium doesn't pay out for your views like ads do. It goes into a single pot that is split amongst creators based on their views or ad revenue (can't remember).

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Premium views pay out part of your subscription to the creator you watched. A normal ad view is worth fractions of a fraction of a penny, but YouTube premium views pay out much more.

That’s interesting. Do you have an idea what fraction of the YouTube premium fee goes to the content creators?

Cant be ad revenue, it would be stupid. But going into a pot Spotify style is also evil and not fair.

Your monthly subscription fee minus a little off the top is split by your watch time amongst those you watch.

> Currently, new revenue from YouTube Premium membership fees is distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content. As with our advertising business, most of the revenue will go to creators

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zipp...

It's pretty vague, but my reading of this is that it's paid out of a single pool based on the watch time of all YouTube Premium Members. So e.g. if you only watch one video a month, that creator doesn't get all of your money.

I subscribe to YouTube premium solely for the music service, which I listen to for hours a day. I watch maybe 15 minutes of YouTube a month. How do they split this up? Do they pay out more to the music copyright holders since I listen to music so much more? Or does each side of the house have its own "bucket" to draw down?

If so, maybe I should seek out worthy YouTubers to donate to be leaving it running in the background.

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