I think that's a rather one-sided entitled point of view, and here's why.
YouTube provides a hosting service for video content with no up-front hosting fees. They do charge advertisers to host their content and use a large portion of those fees to run their business, turn a profit themselves, etc. Also, they share a percentage of those fees with the content creator so they have a financial incentive to create more content.
Now, if those advertisers don't like your content they shouldn't be forced to pay for it. The creators only get paid if the advertisers don't disapprove of the message; YouTube is the middle-man in that scenario and basically bears all of the risk for the advertisers and have to "police" the content.
Granted everyone is better off if there is clear communication between all three parties and sure it would suck to rely on that as your sole source of income but that's some of the risk when you're in business for yourself. Content creators are basically throwing a video up on a market and hoping someone will pay them for it, right? Or am I completely off base here?
I really hate to post these links three times in one thread, but I feel it really drives home my point.
This is not about advertisers disapproving of the content that their ads are displayed over. Coca Cola had no objection to spamming people watching coverage of the worst mass shooting in history[1], nor did other advertisers[2]. The evidence clearly shows that they will associate their brands with the worst acts of horror and violence, and YouTube will pay corporate channels to show us horrible violence to an almost fetishistic degree.
And YouTube discloses none of this. YouTube entices people to spend their own time and money creating content, and then misleads them about their monetization policies, and secretly picks winners for monetization. I also think that this gaslighting on their part is part of a concerted effort to "gentrify" their platform, and drive away independent creators, without openly admitting that they are no longer welcome on their platform.
> Content creators are basically throwing a video up on a market and hoping someone will pay them for it, right? Or am I completely off base here?
You are completely off base. For years, YouTube was very loose with their monetization. Now, they are imposing self serving and byzantine rules on independent content creators, which are virtually impossible to follow properly if you are doing anything other than makeup tutorials. Except if you are someone they like, then none of these rules apply.
If YouTube is handling money, then they have a responsibility to be more transparent. Both morally and I think legally.
[1] https://twitter.com/h3h3productions/status/91474720399799091...
Compare this to traditional media. You make a pilot episode and sell the show. Usually the "you" in this case is a multi-million dollar studio. The network then pays you to produce one or more seasons of the show or they don't. They may decide to cancel your show, but you still get paid.
Most of them don't really have an option if they want to capture an audience and make money but it's the reality of a market where there's basically one buyer.
You might argue that the audience is YouTube’s and not yours, but in practice it doesn’t really work that way on the internet.
Now you wake up and say those investments of your years of work are in jeopardy ?
Google is just google. It's nature is clear from the beginning. Their business model is clear from the beginning. The pros and cons of using youtube and the potential future pitfall were known from the beginning.
And even after that, they demonstrating by their actions that you could have problems with them. Many times before today.
It's like complaining about your weight after years of drinking soda.
Soda is not the problem.
If you want to have control of the deal, use something like dtube, otherwise remember you are __doing business__ with google.
Google may arbitrarily choose to place ads in your video and still not pay you for it. The behavior of Google is completely arbitrary with no real accountability. Google has clearly encouraged people to create businesses around Youtube video creation. And yet they retain all the power to destroy your business on a whim with no explanation and no legal recourse.