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[ElBoxyBrown]

I don't think YouTube will go under. Much like Twitch, there isn't any other service like it that can step up and compete. Everyone thinks Vidme is gonna blow up and the truth is, it's not. What will happen is the big creators will continue on doing what they do cuz at this point they have multiple income sources due to how big they're influence is. The mid-tier creators now have a wall in front of them that's gonna take a long time to climb unless they dramatically change and the small creators are still fucked.

 

[btrboyev]

YouTube as a platform to make money is dead unless you are already at the point where you have an huge audience. Even then, ad revenue has been going on a downward spiral. Many youtubers now use patreon as a backbone to income.

 

[Hasney]

There's clearly something I'm not understand about "why not just put your stuff on Twitch"?

That's the whole point of free markets. If YT is a shitty place to do games related content, someone should come along and make a better one (or has, with Twitch?)

I don't follow any YT personalities so i'm somewhat ignorant to the process, but it seems like other people are doing fine either through Twitch or Patreon?

Patreon and Twitch do require your users to fund you mostly as the ad-revenue on Twitch is tiny, so as long as you have an fanbase that has disposable income and is engaged they are options. You'll probably still need to host your videos on YouTube for the discover-ability aspect and Twitch will only allow some kinds of content and not store it easily (or make it easy for people to find when you're not streaming).

Creators could go to DailyMotion or Vimeo right now, but if the advertisers aren't willing to pay, the money isn't going to come rolling in. Advertisers call the shots so I find it hard to just point at YouTube and blame them for everything. If they don't err on the side of caution, then everyone loses advertising. They're not a public company providing a utility. They have to side with those that are paying the bills.

Since they can't fully police the several hundreds of hours of videos per second that gets uploaded, they really should try and categorise them as Teen, mature and Restricted and let advertisers opt into those categories rather than just Normal and Restricted though.

 

[TSM]

The end result of this is that people won't necessarily be able to make a living off their hobby. If they want to make good money off Youtube they may have to develop content in areas advertisers find desirable. It'll be like TV in that they will have to develop projects aimed at particular demographics. If there is a glut of content being created for areas with smaller advertising pools like gaming then there just won't be enough advertising money to go around for everyone. Patreon and sponsors will be necessary to make up the difference if you are in it to make money. The Youtubers that have already gone in this direction will have a huge advantage over anyone starting late. I'd imagine that most of the smaller channels will either be starved out or have to carry on realizing that they are doing it for the love of it.

On the other hand advertisers may end up realizing there isn't enough popular safe content to go around and have to either make compromises on what they support or live with a much smaller advertising presence for the demographics Youtube serves.

 

[Lunar15]

You might ask yourself: why is this happening in gaming? Why would channels that had no problem with this in the past suddenly find a problem?

It's PewDiePie. That event came in the midst of a perfect storm of everyone suddenly beginning to question targeting abilities for advertising, and it made advertising executives realize that they couldn't just say "Oh, pewdiepie is loved by the kids, so this is a perfect place for kids advertising!".

The amount of trust in youtube and other content providers to accurately place ads is crushed right now. And no, it's not really a moral-high ground movement. That would be more concerned with showing risque ads to young children - another problem with in the advertising world. This is purely agencies not knowing where their ads are running and pulling everything until they can figure it out.

 

[Gator86]

I don't think YouTube will go under. Much like Twitch, there isn't any other service like it that can step up and compete. Everyone thinks Vidme is gonna blow up and the truth is, it's not. What will happen is the big creators will continue on doing what they do cuz at this point they have multiple income sources due to how big they're influence is. The mid-tier creators now have a wall in front of them that's gonna take a long time to climb unless they dramatically change and the small creators are still fucked.

Are there actually people out there who think YouTube might go under because people can't make money with cod videos? The platform is far bigger than the creators here. If the most popular YouTubers left, other people would simply take their spots.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

I think this is a good thing. Hopefully it pushes developers to focus on less violent and more creative content.

This is such a backwards way of thinking that extends beyond video games media.

Ugh.

 

[Kinyou]

Youtube needs to find a way to moderate this. From what I understand are advertisters afraid to be connected with the nazi, alt right stuff etc. but youtube's approach seems to be just to demonetize anything that might even have the slightest hind of offensiveness.

 

[LordRaptor]

What's with the salt and jealousy in this thread? What the fuck a "real job" even is? These youtubers are making more money than most people complaining about "real jobs".

If you work as a salesman in a company that is regularly unprofitable, and one of your biggest salesman just cost the company $750 million because he called a client a fucking cunt on the phone, and now a memo has gone around saying that all percentage on earnings is going to be reduced for any salesmen that can't refrain from calling clients fucking cunts, how much sympathy for your right to continue calling people fucking cunts do you believe you would have?

 

[Alebrije]

Advertisers don't see the content as appropriate for their brands. YouTube cares more about advertisers then users.



People have legit almost lost their primary income source almost overnight. Would it kill you to be more sympathetic?

That was thier choice, You tube does not have a stable set of rules when you can work for years so a lot of things change over time. Those people choose to live from you tube instead of getting other source of income, just hope they were aware working on a plataform like You tube has its risk ( as any job) and saved money. My point is that a lot of them have earned money these years enought for not work anymore, if they are crying now surely is over a pile of money. I know there are other people that made just enought money to live just decently but specially those people should have gotten a second source of money since Yuo tube gave them just money to live on the edge.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

Are there actually people out there who think YouTube might go under because people can't make money with cod videos? The platform is far bigger than the creators here. If the most popular YouTubers left, other people would simply take their spots.

Some people do think it will go under and I've seen them migrate over to Vidme thinking it's gonna takeover YouTube like how people thought Hitbox was gonna takeover Twitch.

 

[Moon Presence]

Patreon won't blow off like YT or even Twitch. Isn't Patreon literally pay the channel to watch their vids? No one will do that, no in the same scale as watching "free" videos on YT.

I wasn't saying that those things would replace YT or reach the same status, they won't. But they are profiting with this. There are countless huge corporations who are seeing this shit show very close. I remember when Atari used to be the indisputable giant then shit happened.

 

[brunomartynhak]

Primarily yes, it's streaming. However you can save highlights of streams and I believe most recently (not 100% on this) you can upload videos as well.

Great question. I know stuff gets archived, but I'm not sure for how long?

I'm hardly the guiding light when it comes to Twitch.

Thanks! Yeah, so it is a bit different at least. Not that Twitch couldn't try to change depending on how drastic things go with Youtube.

 

[Gator86]

Some people do think it will go under and I've seen them migrate over to Vidme thinking it's gonna takeover YouTube like the how people thought Hitbox was gonna takeover Twitch.

 

[Toni]

Youtube is a joke. Trust me, if this bs continues they will suffer really hard. Someone is always eager to steal your spotlight, the next big thing is just around the corner. Patreon and Twitch are blowing up right now, let's wait and see.

Youtube will never die.

Its too big now and will survive for years and years to come.

 

[Lunar15]

Youtube needs to find a way to moderate this. From what I understand are advertisters afraid to be connected with the nazi, alt right stuff etc. but youtube's approach seems to be just to demonetize anything that might even have the slightest hind of offensiveness.

In Youtube's defense - all of this went down fast. I can't honestly say that Youtube will be able to find a way to moderate it, but it's a case of everyone suddenly caring about something they didn't care about before.

It's a fatal flaw in internet advertising that everyone ignored until now because everything was a cash cow.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

I think this is a good thing. Hopefully it pushes developers to focus on less violent and more creative content.

Devs still make money on their own vids. They just will have to rely less and less on YouTube personalities. Nowadays they go to Twitch personalities to rep their game.

 

[Kthulhu]

That was thier choice, You tube does not have a stable set of rules when you can work for years so a lot of things change over time. Those people choose to live from you tube instead of getting other source of income, just hope they were aware working on a plataform like You tube has its risk ( as any job) and saved money. My point is that a lot of them have earned money these years enought for not work anymore, if they are crying now surely is over a pile of money. I know there are other people that made just enought money to live just decently but specially those people should have gotten a second source of money since Yuo tube gave them just money to live on the edge.

One channel I follow has multiple sources of income. YouTube was still their biggest source of revenue, and this has hurt them hard. If it wasn't for Patreon they would've had to shut down and fire some of their employees.

 

[Lady Gaia]

Wtf are you talking about. That has nothing to do with the article at all

I'm surprised that this is the common consensus. I thought the poster was very clear that he thought advertisers choosing where to promote their brand, which is what the article is about, is an example of undue influence over the Internet.

Of course that argument is complete nonsense. The idea that companies should be required to pay content providers to advertise with them regardless of the content is absurd. It's similar to the hand wringing about first amendement rights when someone isn't getting free airtime to espouse their views. Nobody is under any obligation to financially support these YouTubers, and the sooner they realize that the better.

Does that mean the vast majority of what we see and read is influenced by corporate money? Yes, and it always has been. Time to wake up to that reality.

 

[Lights and Waves]

Screaming at people actually thinking YouTube will die because of this. Y'all really live in a fantasy world.

 

[Kalentan]

Good, get a real job.

Sorry that their job is something they enjoy.

Seriously, anyone who says: "Get a real job" is secretly jealous of youtubers.

 

[Gator86]

Screaming at people actually thinking YouTube will die because of this. Y'all really live in a fantasy world.

No way YouTube will survive without FatdoNkey69 making sick no-scope headshot videos.

 

[Yoda]

]The end result of this is that people won't necessarily be able to make a living off their hobby[/B]. If they want to make good money off Youtube they may have to develop content in areas advertisers find desirable. It'll be like TV in that they will have to develop projects aimed at particular demographics. If there is a glut of content being created for areas with smaller advertising pools like gaming then there just won't be enough advertising money to go around for everyone. Patreon and sponsors will be necessary to make up the difference if you are in it to make money. The Youtubers that have already gone in this direction will have a huge advantage over anyone starting late. I'd imagine that most of the smaller channels will either be starved out or have to carry on realizing that they are doing it for the love of it.

On the other hand advertisers may end up realizing there isn't enough popular safe content to go around and have to either make compromises on what they support or live with a much smaller advertising presence for the demographics Youtube serves.

For a lot of creators it isn't a hobby, it's their full time job. Creating a video which has any semblance of decent production quality, even if it's just you talking over another video (recorded gameplay) take a long time to produce. I'd also push back against the idea channels aren't targeting demographics. Most channels have a subject and/or theme of content they stick to (gaming, political punditry, science, etc...) the only exceptions are pure vlog channels, but only a small handful of those channels ever reach enough success where it can become your full-time job. So viewer X subscribes to a channel after enough time a channel accumulates a large amount of subs turns into what you'd call a "target demographic". Unlike a network which throws a bunch of content and sees what sticks, users act as the filter to what they want and watch it. This model is a win-win for content creators and viewers, the business model that doesn't work is traditional network television which tries to cater to hundreds of different demographics.

 

[Some Nobody]

Some people do think it will go under and I've seen them migrate over to Vidme thinking it's gonna takeover YouTube like the how people thought Hitbox was gonna takeover Twitch.

I wouldn't say another company is going to "takeover" , thats unrealistic. But I can see YT suffering if they can't figure this out. It's not just hitting gaming channels. It's everybody--wrestling, some music, etc... Eventually that's going to take a toll. People will only keep watching YT until they realize the content they want isn't there anymore.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

Advertisers are slowly becoming more tech savvy. Before they would just throw shit and hopefully it worked -- they did it in the mail days and they did it in the digital days. Eventually it changes. It's why the bulk mailed garbage you see nowadays is usually scams while legit companies target their audience through special criteria. It's the same for the Internet since we can get enough data on who's visiting or watching what. The example below is kind of the reason why advertisers may be leaving.

If your audience is kids, you aren't going to make shit off patreon

Kids don't have good conversion rates. They'll have to adapt and change their demographics and that's not YouTube's fault if you cannot.

The only companies that are willing to throw shit at wall are Tide and other brands who have enough money to convince you to think of Tide whenever you need laundry washed.

 

[Lunar15]

Screaming at people actually thinking YouTube will die because of this. Y'all really live in a fantasy world.

Youtube would never die from something like this. Advertisers know that Youtube will remain a large audience worth capturing. The only thing that changes is who makes money off of youtube.

 

[rhandino]

I work in online advertising and shit is apocalyptic. The amount of paranoia is off the charts and it's not just on Youtube.

It boils down to the fact that marketing executives had no clue how internet advertising worked, but as soon as there were headlines about fake news, neo nazis, and donald trump, they found themselves in hot water and now have to pull the plug in order to justify their jobs. Everyone was sold on "targeting" bullshit science that doesn't work nearly as good as they thought it did, and now they're freaking out because most digital agencies have no idea where their ads run.

It's a collapsing bubble and it's going to affect the entire internet.

You might ask yourself: why is this happening in gaming? Why would channels that had no problem with this in the past suddenly find a problem?

It's PewDiePie. That event came in the midst of a perfect storm of everyone suddenly beginning to question targeting abilities for advertising, and it made advertising executives realize that they couldn't just say "Oh, pewdiepie is loved by the kids, so this is a perfect place for kids advertising!".

The amount of trust in youtube and other content providers to accurately place ads is crushed right now. And no, it's not really a moral-high ground movement. That would be more concerned with showing risque ads to young children - another problem with in the advertising world. This is purely agencies not knowing where their ads are running and pulling everything until they can figure it out.

Thanks for the insight! Heard similar things from some friends that work on advertising and I thought they were just a bit paranoid but then last weeks has been proving them right lol

Will be interesting to see how and when things are going to normalize.

 

[jdmonmou]

It sucks to have your livelihood impacted by things beyond your control. I hope Youtubers impacted are still able to do what they love and make a living.

Could YouTube Red be used by those impacted as a way to still make money without having to rely on advertisers?

 

[xxMaximusxx]

Lot of victim blaming going on here. I don't think content creators are the bad guys

 

[ClosingADoor]

Lot of victim blaming going on here. I don't think content creators are the bad guys

When you lose ad revenue, you are not a victim. That is part of the business you run.

 

[Kthulhu]

It sucks to have your livelihood impacted by things beyond your control. I hope Youtubers impacted are still able to do what they love and make a living.

Could YouTube Red be used by those impacted as a way to still make money without having to rely on advertisers?

That requires your audience to actually have YouTube Red. Which as far as I know, isn't very popular.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

I really don't know that much about YouTube it seems.

Wasn't the money formula...

Subscribers + Likes + Views = $$$



Did that change?

 

[dead souls]

How could you think this was sustainable in the long run if your audience was children?

Hey, it worked for PiperChat.

 

[LiK]

There's a lot of misconceptions about Youtubers in here. Not everyone makes LPs or reaction videos only. There is a lot of quality content out there like docs that I find just as good as stuff you see on TV and on Netflix. Sure,t here's a ton of trash and fluff but good original content exists and I hope those guys survive from other means.

 

[Hidden One]

RIP YouTube Money

 

[Subpar Spatula]

It sucks to have your livelihood impacted by things beyond your control. I hope Youtubers impacted are still able to do what they love and make a living.

Could YouTube Red be used by those impacted as a way to still make money without having to rely on advertisers?

Think of YouTube channels as MTV; There's a reason why MTV doesn't play music all the time anymore: they have a new audience so they adapted and changed or else they die out. A YouTube channel will not survive if it's not willing to change up their audience that investors want.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

I really don't know that much about YouTube it seems.

Wasn't the money formula...

Subscribers + Likes + Views = $$$



Did that change?

Without advertisers the subs, likes, and views don't mean shit.

 

[oti]

I work in online advertising and shit is apocalyptic. The amount of paranoia is off the charts and it's not just on Youtube.

It boils down to the fact that marketing executives had no clue how internet advertising worked, but as soon as there were headlines about fake news, neo nazis, and donald trump, they found themselves in hot water and now have to pull the plug in order to justify their jobs. Everyone was sold on "targeting" bullshit science that doesn't work nearly as good as they thought it did, and now they're freaking out because most digital agencies have no idea where their ads run.

It's a collapsing bubble and it's going to affect the entire internet.

Thanks for the insight, much appreciated.

Beyond that I'd love to know how successfull influencer campaigns on YouTube actually are when it comes to video games.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

It sucks to have your livelihood impacted by things beyond your control.

Which is why you don't base your entire livelihood on the policies and procedures of another company that doesn't give a fuck about you.

 

[thsantos]

What makes YouTube as a job any less legitimate than a musician or an actor. They serve no purpose to the world besides entertainment.

Musician and Actors are artists. Art is our primal cultural manifestation. How come they serve no purpose? They are much more important than some teenager discussing news or whether they like a game or not on youtube. That being said, I appreciate the job of youtubers who spread the word of games as an art form.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

Without advertisers the subs, likes, and views don't mean shit.

Is there a place I can read about this? I was under the incorrect assumption that advertising revenue went to Google.

 

[rhandino]

I really don't know that much about YouTube it seems.

Wasn't the money formula...

Subscribers + Likes + Views = $$$



Did that change?

You need advertisers on your videos to convert those subscriptions, likes and views into money.

Companies that invested ton of money creating and protecting their brands realized one day (apparently during the whole PewDiePie debacle) that their ads where appearing on troublesome videos that didn't mesh with their brands.

Companies decided to go nuclear and remove their ads while wondering what to do.

YouTubers got cought in the middle of this mess.

 

[Stone Ocean]

People thinking Youtube will die from this are crazy. Kid friendly stuff is huge and I would bet most of the ad money goes torwards that.

This will however kill off "adult" Youtube channels.

 

[enewtabie]

Sorry that their job is something they enjoy.

Seriously, anyone who says: "Get a real job" is secretly jealous of youtubers.

Or never spent hours editing video or buying equipment. I only do youtube for a Hobby since I actually just enjoy it,but the guys with millions of followers have to work to make money.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

You need advertisers on your videos to convert those subscriptions, likes and views into money.

Yeah...I didn't realize that advertisers were part of the equation as well.

I assumed that Google would pay out to youtubers based on their views, subs, etc...and they would charge tiered fees to companies for advertising based on how popular the youtuber was that their ads were being attached to.

I guess my way sounds a little too "hands on" and they went with a more fully automated process...which resulted in the current cluster fuck?

 

[foxdvd]

There needs to be a tab for advertisers to click that allows them to run ads over game content. I think there are 4 choices now if you want to run an ad on youtube..

All content
All Content except mature and unlabeled. (default)
All Content except mature unlabeled and sensitive.
Custom

Youtube has fucked this process up, but there are trying to bring advertisers back. The problem is most will use the default choice, and many games are labeled as mature..

The thing is a lot of advertisers love to run over game content. Mountain Dew, Monster, Gamestop, extreme sports and even the publishers themselves want their ads running over game videos..there needs to be a tab that tells advertisers that their ads will target game videos.

 

[KHlover]

Patreon and Twitch do require your users to fund you mostly as the ad-revenue on Twitch is tiny, so as long as you have an fanbase that has disposable income and is engaged they are options. You'll probably still need to host your videos on YouTube for the discover-ability aspect and Twitch will only allow some kinds of content and not store it easily (or make it easy for people to find when you're not streaming).

Creators could go to DailyMotion or Vimeo right now, but if the advertisers aren't willing to pay, the money isn't going to come rolling in. Advertisers call the shots so I find it hard to just point at YouTube and blame them for everything. If they don't err on the side of caution, then everyone loses advertising. They're not a public company providing a utility. They have to side with those that are paying the bills.

Since they can't fully police the several hundreds of hours of videos per second that gets uploaded, they really should try and categorise them as Teen, mature and Restricted and let advertisers opt into those categories rather than just Normal and Restricted though.

Did vimeo change their TOS? Last I checked video games weren't allowed on vimeo.

 

[oti]

There's a lot of misconceptions about Youtubers in here. Not everyone makes LPs or reaction videos only. There is a lot of quality content out there like docs that I find just as good as stuff you see on TV and on Netflix. Sure,t here's a ton of trash and fluff but good original content exists and I hope those guys survive from other means.

If there's a market for their product, people will pay for that product. Patreo is a market tool to correct the shortcomings of the marketplace, in this case YouTube.

Musician and Actors are artists. Art is our primal cultural manifestation. How come they serve no purpose? They are much more important than some teenager discussing news or whether they like a game or not on youtube. That being said, I appreciate the job of youtubers who spread the word of games as an art form.

This is where I'm at too, kinda. YouTube to me is a tool. A tool for artists to share their art. That can be documentaries, make up tutorials, singers, actors, writers and so on. Playing video games for an audience is entertainment and that's fine. But YouTube is just a tool. The further you go beyond that the more complicated it gets.

 

[Hasney]

Did vimeo change their TOS? Last I checked video games weren't allowed on vimeo.

Probably not. I just know them as a place serving videos, no idea they didn't allow games (especially when they allow Botchamania).

 

[Plum]

Yeah...I didn't realize that advertisers were part of the equation as well.

I assumed that Google would pay out to youtubers based on their views, subs, etc...and they would charge tiered fees to companies for advertising based on how popular the youtuber was that their ads were being attached to.

I guess my way sounds a little too "hands on" and they went with a more fully automated process...which resulted in the current cluster fuck?

Here's a pretty damn good video by CGPGrey on how the Youtube advertising system works. What many don't realize is that Youtube is massive, and even within the realm of those who monetize their videos it would be impossible for any firm to manually select how adverts are doled out.