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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

The problem is - and this goes for all the apologists for this person in this thread - that having your stuff on Youtube isn't a thing you should count on. If you run a small business and you make that business entirely dependent on a third party you are inherently setting yourself up for failure.

Whether it is Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Medium or any other user generated content site you give up control the moment you start using them and you are essentially working for whatever crumbs they decide to throw your way.

Being fired in many countries actually does come with a whole pile of assurances about your continued income, but it is ridiculous to compare the situation of a content producer on a free platform with the one of a salaried employee.

And to take that anger out on the employees of Youtube is utterly ridiculous, if you feel that there is some form of breach of contract then the courts would be your avenue to seek redress.

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Calling the critics of YouTube's whims 'apologists for the shooter' even in the context of this thread is a dirty rhetorical trick. Nobody is saying the shooter was justified.

I don't think the previous poster is being an apologist, but just pointing out that sudden changes in income can trigger people. My wife lost her shit when one fine morning she was laid off without any prior warning. 99% of people don't act out, but 1% do.

I want to see what the reaction here would look like if instead AWS we dropping a bunch of customers with no warning.

You said the magic word: customers. People uploading videos to YouTube aren't customers and don't generally have a contract guaranteeing that they'll receive anything – ad revenue or even the ability to continue uploading.

Even AWS customers who don't have a contract (like reserved instances or an Enterprise Agreement) may not have any claim to receive ongoing service.

Hopefully it would simply mean more customers for other hosting centers. If you feel that people should take up arms against AWS employees in that case then you have other problems.

Business disputes are as old as businesses and we have ways to resolve those disputes: the courts.

And be sure to read the fine print of any service or company that you are going to do business with if your business will be dependent on that other party. Avoid such dependencies as much as possible.

So yes, signing up with AWS is a calculated risk. You should know the possible downsides of that decision, and you should be aware of your position, rights and obligations as well as the terms of service.

Migrating off of AWS is a difficult, drawn-out process which can take months, if you've got a lot of stuff there or are using a lot of AWS-specific features. That's part of why I chose that example. A lot of businesses a lot of people here work for would be in quite difficult straits if that happened.

> if you've got a lot of stuff there or are using a lot of AWS-specific features.

If you allow yourself to be locked in to your hosting provider you are doing it wrong.

AWS is very clever about this but it is still your decision on whether or not you allow yourself to be suckered in. I point this out with some regularity to the companies I look at.

... but the fact remains: AWS is a service provided by a private corporation, not the government. There's no requirement or mandate in criminal law that it exist or continue to function. It could be dropped without warning at any time, and the only recourse customers would have is whatever contracts provide for them. This isn't something Amazon would do, because "Leaving millions of dollars of revenue on the table" isn't in their best interest. But if it ever becomes in their best interest? Nothing but civil contracts stopping them.

Most of society actually works like this, and we somehow manage to muddle through without shooting each other most of the time.

Well, again, I'm not advocating murder. But cris de coueur about changes to services like AWS or the App Store get plenty of upvotes and attention here, while the attitude toward people trying to make a living off of YouTube is different. Why?

The courts are for rich people. Suing a major corporation is all but hopeless.

Practically, when you have a business dispute with a major corporation, your only option is to give up.

I've sued several very large corporations over the last 30 years and have to this date come out the winner in each and every case. Yes it cost some money but the pay-off was substantially higher than the money invested in the court case. And no, we were not rich by any definition.

In Europe the courts are still accessible for companies that do not have millions of $.

This story doesn't take place in Europe.

It couldn't take place in Europe.

I know little about European courts, so I'll just take you at your word. I'm not sure how this observation is relevant to the discussion.

Most of Europe has reasonably strict gun laws and it would be hard to get a gun in the first place.

Again, it seems like a non sequitur, if the discussion is about YouTube monetization policies.

https://theultralinx.com/2012/10/youtubes-awesome-headquarte...

Then other customers would be worried and might decide to move away? That's the key difference here, you're paying for AWS, you're not paying for Youtube. On top of that if you find that Youtube doesn't pay you enough then... Well, there's not much you can do since you'll probably earn even less on other platforms.

AWS on the other hand has plenty of competition, as long as you don't willingly lock yourself into their platform you'll be fine.

That would suck for many people, but would totally be in their right. Again - how are people confused about this. If AWS drops you as a customer use an alternative. Moreover, these people's videos are still hosted on YouTube's servers.

One distinction is that AWS has major competitors you could switch to, but YouTube essentially has a monopoly on that kind of content distribution.

Another is that AWS customers tend to be businesses with full-time workers and not one person trying to eke out a living.

Youtube does not have a monopoly at all. What Youtube has a monopoly on is that your content will get a lot of eyeballs that you don't actually have to do much work for.

It's a mall with a large number of people flowing through it rather than just a content distribution engine.

No the true reaction one should measure is by asking how one should react, if you put anything on the free tier usage of AWS S3, like say a video or a book and then expect Amazon to pay you for it.

I don't think this woman went through a rational process of "deciding" that she was upset with YouTube because they are alleged to have cut off the income on her videos.

She snapped, identified the target of her rage, and took violent revenge.

She did not take revenge on Youtube, she took out her (unjustified) murderous rage on employees of Youtube. People who are even more dependent on Youtube than she ever was.

As I said in a different subthread, YouTube is in no way responsible for the actions Ms. Nasim took.

However, it could be helpful to understand Ms. Nasim's motivations insofar as they stem from losing a source of revenue to which she had no entitlement.

To that end, our collective social good might be promoted by platform owners like YouTube giving content-generators greater say over the monetization of their content.

This is not an apology and I accord no blame for Ms. Nasim's actions to YouTube. Mine is just a suggestion that Ms. Nasim had an unjustified grievance which might have been alleviated by giving more agency to the content-generators upon whom platforms such as YouTube depend.

EDIT: add "insofar"

I think we lack evidence that Ms. Nasim's shooting rampage would have been stopped by YouTube changing their policy. Possilby this shooting rampage, but we don't at present have enough evidence to hypothesize that something wouldn't have set her off. She had a lot of anger directed at a lot of targets.

I wasn't even looking at a particular solution when I posted this. Maybe YouTube should change something, maybe the social safety net should change, maybe gun laws should change. Lots of options. I just am skeptical that, compared to those options or maybe even others, repeating to people that they have no legally cognizant reliance interests on income that is not contractually guaranteed is a promising way out. I mean, yes, true, but some big billboards proclaiming that is not going to solve the problem.

> Being fired in many countries actually does come with a whole pile of assurances about your continued income

What insurances that are not part of earning nothing from youtube?

> And to take that anger out on the employees of Youtube is utterly ridiculous

So? The same is true for any sort of anger from between partners to countries. Even if someone has been laid off. If a person can literally shoot someone, then this advice won't have the ears.

And over time, our economic model is to squeeze more and more profit out of a service. The downside of receiving an income from Youtube, as a subcontractor of Youtube, is that they'll want to make more money from you...or the next person to come along to create content for slightly less money.

> having your stuff on Youtube isn't a thing you should count on

Sure, and having an at-will employment contract, which is what almost all YC companies offer, isn't something you should count on either. So I fail to comprehend your attempt to distinguish.

An employer does not provide a service for their employees, it's the other way around. Youtube provides a service to its users. That you can get paid for that is optional, that the service even functions is optional.

So the service-provider service-consumer relationship is inverted.

Well, that's at least not the relationship that YouTube claims between itself and the content providers that it has chosen to hire commercially. YouTube's official position is that it has retained them as independent contractors and paid them in a manner reportable on a 1099 because they provide a bona-fide service to the company. YouTube files legal documents both to the IRS and to their shareholders that claim this under penalty of perjury.

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