this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Paying YouTube for views on your channel (www.youtube.com)
submitted 1 year ago by wxboss@lemmy.sdf.org to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] sub_@beehaw.org 76 points 1 year ago (4 children)

After Louis pinned and liked an anti masker comment under on of his videos and moving to Texas where the comment section on his video is starting to be filled by pro-gun right wingers and free speech absolutists, I stopped watching his content altogether.

That might not be his intention, but his libertarian views sure attracts certain crowds.

It's sad, because he's convincing and persuasive when it comes to talking about repair rights, anti-monopoly, etc. But I suppose that's the same sentiments experienced by people who listen to Jordan Peterson, before sliding down into the incel rabbithole.

[–] Marsupial@quokk.au 29 points 1 year ago

“Libertarians” are those certain crowds

[–] HisNoodlyServant@beehaw.org 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yep he made a video talking about how his employee had some rare reaction to the vaccine and started to spew conspiracy theories and say that they aren't wrong. Sucks I agree with his right to repair stuff but his channel is a total cesspool of right wing nuts now. Not to mention he moved to Texas and doesn't seem to have a problem with some of their abortion and authoritarian laws.

[–] ikka@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago

What has any of that got to do with the video?

[–] Prandom_returns@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I was under the impression that he pins random shizzle to his YouTube videos. Sometimes he pins something and then replies to it, expecting everyone to see it.

I might be wrong here.

[–] Dankenstein@beehaw.org 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Eli the computer guy [...] had this show up in his dashboard: "grow your Channel's popularity and engagement by promoting your video on YouTube, running a promotion helps attract new viewers who can boost your subscriptions, views, likes, and other engagement" and the way this works is your videos will show up if you pay them. YouTube is trying to get people who make content on YouTube to pay for views now.

Isn't this kind of basic in terms of content marketing?

One entity makes content then pays another company to promote it?

What else would Luis being doing if he actually had to pay for the storage space YouTube gives him for free? Handing out CDs on the street?

Is he aware that companies like Pinterest already do this?

I can't say that the sudden huge drop in viewership isn't suspicious though.

[–] AnonTwo@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It makes sense if you think about it like basic marketing

But the thing is Youtube already promoted channels through it's algorithm. Having to pay for it implies that something has changed regarding it.

[–] sab@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think what's worse is that the content seemed to be less visible even to his subscribers. The discoverability of your content to new people who are not actively looking for it is one thing, bit hiding it from people who have actively said they want to view it is another thing entirely.

[–] FistfulOfStars@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

the content seemed to be less visible even to his subscribers

Am I the only one who still uses the subscriptions page? I get a chronological list of all my subscribed channel's video releases. I have seen zero indication that I'm missing anything at all, and I fairly frequently go to channel's pages to check that my subscription list is complete.

I've never clicked a single notification bell, and don't rely on the home page's recommendations/sorting, unless I'm actively seeking out new recommendations.

[–] PupBiru@kbin.social 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it became clear to me that the main discovery page on youtube would never be of any use to me when it suggested a video entitled “Andrew Tate Tucker Carlson Interview” by the channel “Gentleman Masterclass” and i almost projectile vomited all over my keyboard

[–] sab@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I try to give as little data about myself to Google as possible, so I do not maintain subscriptions on YouTube. The recommendations from youtube are awful beyond belief. And somehow the search function is even worse - I really cannot find shit other than whatever their algorithm wants to push on me.

One example: searching for Buddy Holly gives me the video "My drummer said that RINGO sucks, so I dared him to play THIS Beatles beat" as one of the first results, along with a video I've already watched of Chuck Berry jamming out with Keith Richards. On which fucking universe is this what I would be looking for with that search term. Meanwhile, even slightly obscure live recordings are almost impossible to find.

YouTube has made itself practically worthless to me. I don't want to spend my life watching what their algorithm wants to shove down my throat, and the way it currently works it's hardly any good for watching anything else.

[–] fuzzywolf23@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, you're in whatever the opposite of a sweet spot is. If you want better recommendations, you have to rate and maintain a subscription page. It takes information -- a lot of it -- to get a good personalized feed.

I've found my home page to be very useful -- it even recognizes I want to watch certain channels at different times of day.

[–] sab@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Yes, I'm bringing it on myself by not allowing them to create a good profile for me. I do, however, believe that the search function worked much better a few years ago. I don't really want content recommended to me on the front page, but it still amazes me how hard they are trying to become TikTok in the recommendations I do get served.

[–] Thedogspaw@midwest.social 6 points 1 year ago

I've only ever used the subscription page

[–] Dankenstein@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

That's what stuck out to me, I can surmise multiple-but-equally-unlikely reasons but it's just too strange.

[–] chahk@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google is triple-dipping at this point. Youtube advertisers are already paying, they want users to pay, and now they want content creators to pay. Might as well also ask their CDNs to pay at this point. Also don't forget to have the Linux Foundation pay for the privilege of having their source code in Google's proprietary codebase.

[–] Dankenstein@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What about it? Conventions already do this.

Want to advertise at the convention? Gotta pay.

Want to have a booth for your content at the convention? Gotta pay.

Want to just go to the convention to see the advertisements and booths that companies paid to market to you? Believe it or not, gotta pay.

Steam does the same shit, pay to list your games, pay to run promotions, and players pay for the game.

IMO, YouTube is lagging behind on this one.

[–] chahk@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some fair points. Your convention analogy doesn't really work though. What would happen if convention organizers started asking the talent they are booking to also pay?

More people are catching onto the "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it any further" mentality of huge corporations that have only gotten to where they are because of content creators, and it should scare Google.

[–] Dankenstein@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't that then be the convention organizers paying for marketing? They have people that they want at the convention who don't necessarily even want to go to the convention in the first place, even to market themselves.

Is the talent marketing their talent or is the convention paying them in order to create interest in the event?

In any case, having talent pay to register for an event isn't something new.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 points 1 year ago

It is, but the idea of such is shockingly new to a lot of YouTubers. A lot of them will just trust the algorithm when they get good growth metrics and hate it when growth stalls.

[–] housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To my thinking, it's time to get folks on a federated platform. Here is a graphic of the various fediverse platforms. I know off of the top of my head about PeerTube. I just learned about the others.

[–] sab@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

PeerTube would absolutely be the alternative here. It's challenging though - if YouTube can't make money hosting your content on a large scale, what makes you think you'll make money hosting it on a smaller scale?

Some might manage to finance it through crowdfunding, and as the Fediverse grows hopefully it'll manage to self-sustain content creators here so that discoverability of content on PeerTube will increase. The future is not necessarily all that bleak, but it's still a long way to get there.

[–] housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

PeerTube and the fediverse at large do not lend themselves to earning a money. That is an appreciably difficult situation to be in. I suppose the most one could hope for is to gain some fame and having someone sponsor them through something like Patreon.

[–] PupBiru@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

i think it’d be possible, but probably more about sponsor ads entirely rather than youtube ad revenue… i believe that’s the way most youtubers make the majority of their money anyway - ads from youtube are worth peanuts

[–] SamXavia@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

@housepanther Yeah I think it will most likely be on a Tip based system unless people can work out something better for the Fediverse. It's not that bad if it does become a Tip based system as long as people are willing to spend a little on the creators they enjoy sometimes.

[–] thejevans@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There was an attempt to put together an open protocol for paywalled podcasts (could be generalized to basically anything rss based) by @c@qr.dev at RadioPublic called PodPass. Something like this could maybe be applied to fediverse content, too, as a way to do channel memberships. I keep hoping this can take off again.

The original spec for PodPass

[–] housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com 2 points 1 year ago

That's interesting. I had no idea this was attempted once.

[–] peter@feddit.uk 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm adamant the only viable YouTube replacement is a subscription service.

[–] Crewman@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

Nebula is an alternative with a lot of content creators I subscribe to. It started off very lanky, but is getting better. I'm just hoping they can attach more talent to switch from Youtube.

[–] sab@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

The very successful and famous couple probably take their sponsors and fanbase along to PeerTube. In the future, those with sponsors might be able to go there, if content on PeerTube becomes mainstream somehow.

For the more average channels it's probably more complicated. And then again, subscription models might be preferable for many viewers over sponsored content.

It will be interesting to see what takes over if YouTube allows itself to get bad enough that content creators start fleeing on a big scale. I'm not sure it'll happen though - Google might be increasingly evil, but they don't seem to be particularly erratic.

[–] SamXavia@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

@sab It's also about Quality, currently a lot of PeerTube Instances make you have a limit on how much space you have, if you self-host you can raise that limit to the amount of space you have. Most people who don't create quality content might not last and possibly would just shut down their servers removing their content from the Fediverse.

But those who get donations and any other form of revenue would be able to keep going and even expand their storage if they need to allow their content to be a bigger part of the Fediverse.

Let's take PewDiePie for instance, if he moved all his videos over to the Fediverse it would be only PewDiePie's videos across the whole Fediverse but because of his money behind him, he can host them. Merch, Donations, and any other sponsorship could keep him running the server for another month, especially if someone already has or builds up a community of people that are willing to spend money on them.

[–] OneRedFox@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think that professional content creators are going to like the Fediverse very much. The design inherently limits their reach and there's significantly less money in it for them. I don't think it works as a profession here in its current form.

[–] housepanther@lemmy.goblackcat.com 8 points 1 year ago

Agreed. The Fediverse does not lend itself to earning a living, at least for now. Maybe one day it will be possible.

[–] gaydarless@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

YouTube transcript link for anyone who needs it: https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=7wFqblQY6Dk

[–] brie@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Transcripts are also available through the YouTube site itself, hidden under the "..." menu.

[–] yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year ago

Yikes, that's really bad.

[–] Metaright@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

To be honest, I would be really tempted to do this if I could afford it and guarantee that it would kickstart a YouTube career.

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