Google is taking advantage of its near monopoly of online streaming once again. Earlier this year they dropped ad revenue for content creators down to 55%, significantly lower than competitors such as Spotify. Now they are essentially repeating what they did just over a year ago with independent artists, either you sign up for YouTube Red or your content will no longer be visible to anyone. This will only effect those content contributors who make a fair amount of ad revenue, the average uploader will not need to pay the $10/month to enusre their videos are not blocked. One question that doesn't seem to be answered at either The Register nor Techcrunch is the effect YouTube Red will have on ad revenue, if you sign up for the service as a viewer you will no longer see ads, so how exactly will content creators make anything from ads that no longer show up or generate revenue?
"YouTube Red is Google's ad-free subscription service, and rolls up both music and video for $9.99 a month. Google Play subscribers will be opted in, and find that Red videos will be available offline too. Amateur uploaders aren't affected: what Google wants to do is nail down producers who have drawn an audience, and who already draw a tangible quantity of shared advertising revenue."
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Brace yourselves for a new
Brace yourselves for a new version of the youtube API… my guess is that this is going to break everything in the development ecosystem once again.
but google is doing this….
but google is doing this…. so nobody will care.
I’m not sure why they keep
I’m not sure why they keep doing this. Their ad framework isn’t going anywhere so they could keep ads on the uploaders who don’t want to participate. Ideally they should offer an actual incentive to transfer over to YTR, but at least leave it to the channel followers to pressure content creators to kill ads. It should always be carrot over stick.
who the hell is going to pay
who the hell is going to pay for this? You’re asking for it when you do! Think content is expensive now (cable)? Wait until it is al la carte!
This is not true!
Youtube
This is not true!
Youtube creators have to opt in to show their own videos to Youtube Red subscribers. Otherwise they can no longer monetize their videos. They don’t have to pay Red themselves.
…, so how exactly will content creators make anything from ads that no longer show up or generate revenue?
They will be paid with a portion of the 10$ per month, which is more than they would make from ads.
This post really doesn’t live up to the usual quality of this site.
They MAY earn more money
They MAY earn more money under YT Red. It seems to matter what the # of viewers are for each channel and the length of the content. YT is going to take into account all videos viewed and their length and then divide the money from YT Red among the content creators based on the # of vids and their length. So a content creator that makes 100s of vids but all of them are really short might not do as well under YT Red as the old ad system because the YT Red money will tend to go those creators that make longer vids.
How many popular YT creators
How many popular YT creators do this though? Plus, 1 view is nothing when it comes to Add Revenue. Plus, you have to actually pay from Red before this even becomes an issue and i am sure the majority of people won’t so it most likely won’t change much.
You are right.
Most of my
You are right.
Most of my info came from this video by John Green (from the Vlogbrothers)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOWNIoTjLbM
He reckons that in vast majority of cases, YT Red viewers will bring more money to the creators.
Youtube is all ready a poor
Youtube is all ready a poor fit for people who make short form content. The way ads are divvied up VERY much favors people who make longer videos. People who do short form content like animations for youtube have had to turn to revenue sources like patreon for some time now.
Really jeremy? What is with
Really jeremy? What is with all the fear mongering and misinformation. Youtube creators have to agree to a new TOS agreement they are NOT being charged money. The sub fee is split up the same way ad rev is. I would also like to point out that youtube has UPPED the ad split rate this year in 2013 they standardized it at 55% towards youtube and 45% towards the creator and this year they flipped that to 55% to the creator and 45% towards youtube. As for “competitors” like spotify, spotify is not profitable and is losing a lot of money even with there subs. According to the wsj youtube is not a money maker for google as of early this year the best they have managed is to make it break even. As for why somebody would pay for youtube red the “exclusive” premium content doesn’t look like anything I would car about. What might get me to pay for it is a desire to support the channels I watch on youtube.
:edit: this is my source https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/youtube-red
The most relevant difference
The most relevant difference I see wrt Spotify is that in the music space a lot of the most valuable content is owned by just a few powerful rights holder, who already have other good distribution options. Bottom line Spotify needs them a lot more than they need Spotify. Not to mention they also have in place lots of negotiators and lawyers with decades of experience in content rights.
I’m reserving my final
I'm reserving my final judgment until the dust clears. It is a new market, there are lots of experiments going on but generally the changes benefit the company, not the content provider. They are in business to make money after all.
Are there really that many
Are there really that many people who don’t already use an ad blocker and don’t know how that they will pay $10 a month instead? It blows my mind that they believe this is a viable offering but I’m sure they’ve done their research.
I am thinking about this and
I am thinking about this and I do use an ad-blocker. I want to support the content creators and unfortunately ads are the current engine of this eco-system. I am happy to see that there is an alternative to ads that does not involve cheating the content creators. You may not like the intermediaries like YouTube, but until someone else does the expensive job of hosting this stuff this is the choice we have.
I already pay $8 to Netflix and I watch far more YT, so while my initial reaction was that this was a little too much, it might not be a bad deal from my perspective. Ask me again in a couple of months.