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Post by throwawaytuber on Mar 5, 2018 6:44:45 GMT
I just happened to find this Youtube Union and I think it could be really beneficial thing to have to balance things between youtubers and youtube. But at the moment the risk/reward ratio of taking part is bit too poor for bigger youtubers in my mind. Most of the demands that union has at the moment are aimed for small channels and channels that have problems with monetization etc. So there isn't that much of to gain at the moment for big channels that have everything fine with the platform. And since this is so loosely controlled effort you can't control what the union does as an whole and how they are using their bigger names as an tool against Youtube or at possible media coverage about the union. I am also bit worried about this unmoderated forum. So far everything is surprisingly fine but when the numbers grow this can turn into quite rough place  But here is couple tips to make this bit more attractive also for bigger youtubers: -Make the demands bit more realistic since you have just started. For example I think Youtube is not ditching demonetization any time soon and specify that you wan't to stop bots making strikes on big channels not deleting some porn videos that are uploaded to youtube. There is lot of work for bots so I wouldn't say that they have to get rid of bot's -Spreading the money to all channels even those that won't show ads doesn't sound probably good on most of the channels that are 100% monetized and happy about that. I am not saying that it is right that only the channels that have ads get money but life isn't always fair and usually people are not willing to give part of their income away just to feel better. And the channels that are running the ads are already paying the server room and badwith for channels that don't have ads. -Keep the forum and facebook group well moderated and discussion clean of any racism, politics, gender issues or any other shit like that get's SJWs and click bate reporters exited. If you manage to get some publicity for this they will come and search stuff like that from here and facebook group so be ready. -Bigger channels have some issues that you don't have on your list so think about adding something to please them also. For example the fact that subscribers don't see your videos on their homepage anymore or the totally rigged trending page are probably stuff that are interesting to bigger channels. -Give possibility to take part on this while staying anonymous. At the moment there is too big of an brand risk to be part of this with channel/brand that is making lot money and have made 10 years to create. -Try to contact MCNs. They have shit load of channels that do this as an their living under their organizations and they also have good connections to youtube. They are probably quite hard to convince to take part on this becouse things that I mentioned above but if you get those things sorted you might have a shot on getting some MCNs to join you and that will bring your numbers up dramatically. The last point is probably the key to success with the union. You really need lot of big channels and getting them one by one to join you is really hard. The MCNs also know how to work with youtube so they could really help you on that side also. |
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Post by Joerg Sprave on Mar 5, 2018 7:06:24 GMT
Don't know about the part that the demands are for smaller YouTubers only. My channel has 1,9 million subs and I have suffered a lot from the adpocalypse. I lost about 80% of my adsense income, and I know several other YouTubers with more than 500k subs who experience exactly the same issues.
Even as a larger YouTuber you are not safe from the bots. They will demonetize, issue strikes and eventually remove large channels too.
The few chosen YouTubers that made it into "Preferred" are cashing in like crazy, but they are under full scrutiny and lost all creative independence.
The intransparency, same thing. I can only talk to my powerless partner manager, and it seems I got lucky with mine. Other creators tell me their managers never even respond.
Of course some large Creators are on the winning end of this. If your content is entirely unaffected from the adpocalypse because you are doing what YouTube "likes", then you are probably making much more money than before. I agree, for such creators it may be silly to join our union.
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Post by throwawaytuber on Mar 5, 2018 7:50:07 GMT
Yep I might put that bit wrong since even the bigger channels have same problems, like for your channel for example. I probably should have said that big channels that have everything ok with the platform. And the intransparency is good point to make since that tends to limit content because everyone has to be so careful when you don't really know what is right and what is not. My own experience with the bots have been that they sure make mistakes but for big channels those situations are cleared really fast and I am not too worried about some false flagging etc. that can make some 1-2 day strikes on the channel. I think some channels are even benefited from strike since they tend to generate lot of drama and views But even if my channel and other big channels that are doing videos that youtube likes are doing really great at the moment I think current situation is harming youtube in general and this union would help a lot. But it would need to be more general Yuoutuber's union than just union for channels that are being demonetized and censored by the bots to really get lot of big names and MCNs behind it. There would be also lot more things to do for union like that than just argue with the google. If it could be something like Performance rights organisation for music artist it would be able to fight also companies like Facebook and Instagram to make better tools to remove stolen youtube videos. But I also well understand that the current situation with demonetizing and stuff like that is much more urgent. I just fear that with current message you don't get big enough of numbers to make an impact. The workers union won't have much of negotiation power if only 5% of workers are willing to go strike and same is true here. |
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Post by spartacus on Mar 5, 2018 7:54:06 GMT
Jörg list is exactly right - the adpocapypse has hit across all YouTube sizes for creators. The only ones that have been exempt are the big broadcasters. You can also see this in how subscriptions developed in 2017. TV comedians and TV networks are the biggest winners with providers like BBC, Fox News. The daily Show, The Late Show and so on shooting through the roof.
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Post by throwawaytuber on Mar 5, 2018 8:08:45 GMT
I am quite sure that the adpocalypse hasn't hit that many big channels that people think. For example I got something like 5 old videos demonetized that weren't making that much of money and now for the last 6 months the cpm has been 1.5x times the last years cpm so I have probably benefited from the whole thing and couple of my friends that have also big channels have similar experiences. So probably if you haven't been impacted negatively by these things you have benefited.
But even if the business is good I still think that strong union/interest group would benefit all youtubers greatly it just needs to get really big following to work and that's why I am bit concerned about that the current message isn't selling for channels that have everything great at the moment.
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Post by spartacus on Mar 5, 2018 8:44:36 GMT
The revenue per mile for a big channel (RPM is how much you get for every thousand views) went from over $2 in 2012 to around $1.50 in 2016. When the adpocalypse hit it dropped to $0.25, but quickly recovered to $0.50. At present it’s hovering around $0.70. Now if you don’t call that impact, i don’t know what impact is. For some big channels that have been thrown into one of the buckets the RPM remains below $0.25
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Post by throwawaytuber on Mar 5, 2018 9:02:02 GMT
I had revenue per thousand views around 1-2$/1k views in 14-17 usually closer to 1$ and now after adpocalypse and with 10 minute videos it between 3-4$/1k views. But I deleted all unmonetized videos and made sure that the rest of the content is really clean also and I think that benefitted me greatly. BUt it's quite pointless to compare these numbers since they vary so lot between different content, watch time per video etc.
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Post by spartacus on Mar 5, 2018 9:28:53 GMT
Actually it’s very sensible to compare - what’s your channel? I’d like to understand how the metrics have changed. If your numbers are general numbers for a large number of creators then we have another issue than faulty monetization rules.
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Post by Joerg Sprave on Mar 5, 2018 9:30:43 GMT
Mine is around 0.45 per 1000.
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Post by spartacus on Mar 5, 2018 9:43:31 GMT
BTW - i totally agree with your points in the OP (except the MCN bit, they won’t help),
Your numbers are astonishing and I’d like to understand more, but if you don’t want to advertise who you are, message me the channel link. I’ll keep it to myself.
If you wonder who I am: I founded the biggest MCN in Germany, Netherlands, Poland and Turkey. After I sold it in 2016 I’ve gone back to creation. I’ve created channels like The Great War together with Indy Neidell and produced some of Germany’s biggest YouTube stars like Ytitty and Apecrime. currently I’m working on TimeGhost with Indy and launching the biggest collaboration ever on YouTube for a six year documemtary on WWII together with folks like Forgotten Weapons, Real Engineering, Feature History and many more .
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Post by throwawaytuber on Mar 5, 2018 10:03:58 GMT
I'd rather stay anonymous still but we are doing content that isn't even close to being unmonetized and the videos that I got unmonetized were probably just faulty bots but I got scared and deleted them. But I think we are benefitting the most since our viewers are mostly adult males that probably watch also lot of channels with monetization issues so the supply of the videos that can show ads to that demographic has probably been cut by adpocalypse and therefore the price had gone up.
I am part of a quite large MCN and I feel that they have really helped me during this and in general also but I well understand how they treat small channels and how the business works. They have also said that they have noticed how some channels are making now really good money like my channel and other channels are having really low ad income, even with quite similar content the differences can be quite large without any obvious reason. So I think you have to just get on the list of channels that youtube likes and your videos will have a really good amount of good ads.
The MCN thing might still quite far fetch idea. Maybe if this would grow to be something like Performance rights organization for music artist but for YouTubers would interest them? And it would need to probably really loose involvement for them at the begin. Maybe you should do a declaration of right that youtubers should have and ask MCNs can you say that they support that declaration and rights on it. Just to be able to throw some big names on your homepage as an first step.
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Post by spartacus on Mar 5, 2018 10:08:56 GMT
Ahhh - your numbers could be explained by your MCN. If you have chosen wisely, your MCN is selling their own ads. The rub here is that the MCNs that sell well, don't spray over many channels.
Since I ran a very big and quite successful MCN for many years, I can tell you with some certainty that they wont be able to help the vast amount of YouTubes - in fact there are only two, or three MCNs that can help anyone at all - Studio71 being the best example.
I understand your desire for anonymity, if you change your mind and trust me to share (I will keep it to myself), I've messaged you my email and links to my channels.
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Post by throwawaytuber on Mar 5, 2018 10:21:27 GMT
My MCN doesn't sell ads for all countries and even the countries that are not covered by the MCN's ads do really well now, maybe between 2-3 dollars for countries that used to be 1-1.5 dollars.
But you are probably right that MCNs won't probably help but I would still think about some sort of declaration to get their numbers under your belt. Even if they won't probably do anything it would make your union look much larger to be able to throw their numbers into it even if they are not really willing to take part on much of the action.
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Post by coffekanon on Mar 5, 2018 13:50:17 GMT
-Spreading the money to all channels even those that won't show ads doesn't sound probably good on most of the channels that are 100% monetized and happy about that. I am not saying that it is right that only the channels that have ads get money but life isn't always fair and usually people are not willing to give part of their income away just to feel better. And the channels that are running the ads are already paying the server room and badwith for channels that don't have ads. It's not about "spreading the money" according to some socialist scheme. It's about views. Everyone should simply be paid accordingly to the views they gather. You should not be in a situation where you gathered hundreds of thousands of views and likes, but someone took offense to some small part of your video, and then Youtube just decide to "demonitize" it or calling it "advertiser unfriendly". If I gather the views, I should have a right to my fair share of the money, because regardless if you agree with my content or politics or not, I still gathered those views and got people to sit down, watch and get exposed to ads (that is the service that ad-companies are paying youtube for in the first place) It's not about handing out "free money" to smaller channels even when they can't gather any views. It's about getting channels paid accordingly to the views they DO manage to acquire. |
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Post by maximgunn on Mar 6, 2018 3:47:54 GMT
If I gather the views, I should have a right to my fair share of the money, because regardless if you agree with my content or politics or not, I still gathered those views and got people to sit down, watch and get exposed to ads (that is the service that ad-companies are paying youtube for in the first place) It's not about handing out "free money" to smaller channels even when they can't gather any views. It's about getting channels paid accordingly to the views they DO manage to acquire. Both fair and equitable. |
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