Post by gwenn on Apr 19, 2018 19:30:09 GMT
Hey guys, I'm Gwen.
I've been following the movement for a while, joining the union myself today. I have some concerns when it comes to how we measure our strength.
So far, I have seen our strength measure in three different ways. These are Number of Union Members, Number of Combined Subscribers, and Number of active channel members.
These three, however, do not provide as much strength as they appear to.
To first understand how we should measure our strength, we need to consider what statistics can be used against YouTube. A union works by threatening to cause financial damage to a business or industry, this is how we should act. YouTube and similar platforms to not need to consider the number of subscribers or uploaders, for this is not the source of their revenue. Their revenue is attained from advertisement, which requires only one statistic: views. Hence, the number of views a member provides to YouTube is more decisive when determining our strength. In this regard, not all members are useful and the number of members and subscribers becomes less relevant.
Then, to measure our strength, we should only consider the 'views' we provide to YouTube. A single union member will provide views to YouTube in two ways (a YouTube user can be seen as a 'view' producer). Firstly, they can produce content. A content producer provides views by drawing others to produce views for them. We can measure this by polling current and joining members on their monthly views. A channel with few subscribers can have many views, or a large one can have few. A good example of this is Pewdiepie. Pewdiepie has vastly more subscribers than another content producer, but his subscriber to monthly view ratio is small by comparison to many similar channels.
The other method of view production is simply watching videos. It can be presumed that every member of the union watches YouTube somewhat regularly, but not all are equal. Some users may only watch videos on weekends, or just once a day. Viewers such as myself, however, can watch many videos throughout the day and produce many more views. I suggest we ask members to guess (or make note of) the number of videos they watch each day.
These two facts need to be considered if strikes and boycotts are to prove a successful tactic. The entire platform collectively produces almost 5 Billion views each day, the only way to influence them with boycotts is to cause a significant dent for each strike. I would suggest that a 1% decrease would be sufficient to cause damage, which would mean being able to remove approximately 50 million daily views at will. No small number. That much influence, however, would be more than enough to encourage YouTube to consider their policies.
[TL;DR]
Hence, our plan of action should be thus:
- Poll members, finding the daily view contribution of the union.
- Increase our view contribution to approximately 0.5-1% of daily views.
- Organize regular strikes. These need to be planned and well orchestrated. I propose the following sequence of events.
- Demand an action from YouTube (small, not major). Announce a deadline.
- On the deadline, if no change is made, remove views. This means: Do not watch YouTube for the duration of the strike. Do not upload for the duration of the strike. If you wish, use an alternative website until the strike is lifted.
- At the end of the strike, begin again.
- Eventually, they will anticipate the damage of the strike, and take actions before the strike can affect them.
I've been following the movement for a while, joining the union myself today. I have some concerns when it comes to how we measure our strength.
So far, I have seen our strength measure in three different ways. These are Number of Union Members, Number of Combined Subscribers, and Number of active channel members.
These three, however, do not provide as much strength as they appear to.
To first understand how we should measure our strength, we need to consider what statistics can be used against YouTube. A union works by threatening to cause financial damage to a business or industry, this is how we should act. YouTube and similar platforms to not need to consider the number of subscribers or uploaders, for this is not the source of their revenue. Their revenue is attained from advertisement, which requires only one statistic: views. Hence, the number of views a member provides to YouTube is more decisive when determining our strength. In this regard, not all members are useful and the number of members and subscribers becomes less relevant.
Then, to measure our strength, we should only consider the 'views' we provide to YouTube. A single union member will provide views to YouTube in two ways (a YouTube user can be seen as a 'view' producer). Firstly, they can produce content. A content producer provides views by drawing others to produce views for them. We can measure this by polling current and joining members on their monthly views. A channel with few subscribers can have many views, or a large one can have few. A good example of this is Pewdiepie. Pewdiepie has vastly more subscribers than another content producer, but his subscriber to monthly view ratio is small by comparison to many similar channels.
The other method of view production is simply watching videos. It can be presumed that every member of the union watches YouTube somewhat regularly, but not all are equal. Some users may only watch videos on weekends, or just once a day. Viewers such as myself, however, can watch many videos throughout the day and produce many more views. I suggest we ask members to guess (or make note of) the number of videos they watch each day.
These two facts need to be considered if strikes and boycotts are to prove a successful tactic. The entire platform collectively produces almost 5 Billion views each day, the only way to influence them with boycotts is to cause a significant dent for each strike. I would suggest that a 1% decrease would be sufficient to cause damage, which would mean being able to remove approximately 50 million daily views at will. No small number. That much influence, however, would be more than enough to encourage YouTube to consider their policies.
[TL;DR]
Hence, our plan of action should be thus:
- Poll members, finding the daily view contribution of the union.
- Increase our view contribution to approximately 0.5-1% of daily views.
- Organize regular strikes. These need to be planned and well orchestrated. I propose the following sequence of events.
- Demand an action from YouTube (small, not major). Announce a deadline.
- On the deadline, if no change is made, remove views. This means: Do not watch YouTube for the duration of the strike. Do not upload for the duration of the strike. If you wish, use an alternative website until the strike is lifted.
- At the end of the strike, begin again.
- Eventually, they will anticipate the damage of the strike, and take actions before the strike can affect them.