Comment by spijdar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spijdar | Hacker News Reader

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> The only thing I really have any strong affection for is YouTube, and the people and content that made the platform special are constantly unhappy with it's corporate direction, not to mention the utter lack of support, claiming and affirming in appeals stupid pointless crap like "you said a naughty word in the first ten seconds of the video" when anyone with working ears can easily verify they did not.

This is mostly an aside, but it's worth putting into perspective that many of these complaints are related to Google's ads and automatic monetization through ads, as well as their content recommendation network/userbase.

In other words, I think as Google's ad-revenue shrinks (or the bubble bursts), the Youtube ad policies will seem to become more and more draconian, but despite all the anger towards Youtube, the alternatives involve... no (automatic) monetization at all.

I don't think a lot of people are really conscious of how a lot of modern Youtube (specifically the big content creators who have made careers out of Google's monetization options) are implicitly reliant on Google's ad-tech bubble. And most people are pretty derisive of Google's attempts at alternative monetization e.g. youtube premium. I fear when the bubble bursts (or just shrinks a lot), a lot of the high quality content people enjoy on youtube will burst or shrink with it.

Big YouTubers have seen the writing on the wall, and have been diversifying income streams for years. A lot of artists are migrating towards the "patron" model (think Renaissance patronage, but crowd-sourced) using tools like Patreon or Liberapay. This strikes me as inherently more pure than throwing videos at Google's algorithm to see which one can bring home the biggest slice of automatic-ad-revenue pie.

The attention economy is doomed, too many people are online now for it to be viable. Patronage and connecting with followers will come to dominate. Not to oversimplify, but there's a theory that all an artist needs to be financially stable is 1,000 true fans chipping in a few dollars a month. Google's YouTube middleware currently occupies a comfortable niche in the bringup process required to meet that figure... but they're ultimately nonessential.

As the bubble shrinks, creators will look back and wonder why they ever bothered driving millions of random people toward a platform that mostly pays out to Google.

I agree with most of what you say here, but a few small points to contest:

First, it's not just big YouTubers moving towards the patron model. I see many smaller creators doing the same, and I'm some cases thriving.

Second, I don't agree that the patron model will become the dominant model. I think this line of thinking is more of a medieval model from which the word derives. In terms of the number of people paying by ads & PII or through patronage, the ads& PII crowd will win. (the dollar value per contribution might be lower).

Third, I don't have any reason to believe that creators will "look back and wonder" why they would like to attract a million viewers. I think it might be a very good way to advertise to their patr(e)on-age.

Finally, there is another revenue model of direct sponsorship / placed ads which you do not seem to consider. I think it is a major contributor to the economics of medium-large creators.

Maybe my gut feeling is a response to your notion of the "attention economy being doomed" because "there are too many people online". To me, it seems the opposite. The attention economy is thriving because there are so many people online.

(Interesting topic! Thanks for making me type all of this)

> Google's YouTube middleware currently occupies a comfortable niche in the bringup process required to meet that figure... but they're ultimately nonessential.

I disagree with this, though I'd love (and genuinely hope) to be proven wrong. It's hard for me to imagine starting from nothing and building up a profitable following the way people have on Youtube without Youtube's userbase and infamous "algorithm".

It might just be a matter of semantics, though. I agree that content/media existed before Youtube and will exist long after it -- but I'm not sure Youtube's niche of non-traditional content creators without the money or social networks traditionally needed to publish media could do so in its absence.

More prosaically, there's a big gulf between starting out, and reaching 1,000 true fans throwing some money at you every month. Youtube plays a pretty big role IMO in bridging that gap, and without it, only people with traditional support networks or in higher economic classes will be able to afford "doing content creation" full time.

I feel like a common response (and one sort of echoed in another reply) is "Good, let's bring the old internet back, when people did things for passion and not money". I sympathize a lot with this, but I also think a lot of content I enjoy is the product of people putting tons of time and effort into making "good content" -- time spent doing pretty miserable and uninteresting work. So I'm inclined to think the end of the "youtube era" will bring the end of a certain class of creator.

Not that I think this is preventable, since like others here, I think the whole ad thing is unsustainable, and we're seeing more and more writing on the wall. Hopefully Patreon + co. and more decentralized content aggregators like Mastodon can fill the void well enough.

Yeah, the 1000 fans thing can totally work, depending on what your market looks like. $10/mo * 1000 is $120k/yr, which is a perfectly reasonable stable base from which to pursue a creative career (music, art, indie game dev, writing).

And if you can make it to 1000, it's pretty easy to make it to 2000, and then more - of course just getting to that 1000 can be a long slow challenge to be sure.

That is a lot of money for one creator to command per month. I can’t imagine spending $120/yr just for one YouTubers content.

Twitch has proven that millions of people are willing to pay 5$ or more* a month to support someone else for essentially no extra benefits

*Excluding the more expensive subscriptions, donations, “bits”

> A lot of artists are migrating towards the "patron" model

If ad revenue shrinks, making ads less useful for them (or even if not, given the patronage trend) why wouldn’t Google just enable the patronage model as a monetization model within YouTube, unencumbered by concerns for ad-based (or general audience) monetization.

Going to a three-tier (1) free/nonmonetized, (2) premium (with or without ads as an alternative to viewer-pays-google flat rate), (3) paid-subscriber-only model for content (where any creator could particpate in any combination of tiwrs with different content), where the last would be free of most of the content monetization, or even just content, restrictions that apply at the other tiers, would seem to be a fairly simple and natural evolution of the service. And you could easily have the Google share at the last (and even the middle tier) ratchet down with longevity and established user base so you'd pay a bigger share when you benefit most from the platform for discovery, and less when you need it less.

Google has already created channel memberships, where the channel can offer perks like member-only content in exchange for additional payment to the channel owner. It certainly looks like an attempt to squeeze out Patreon and similar services.

The catch is that Google gets a 30% cut, compared to 3-5% for Patreon and such.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7491256

To be fair Patreon's pricing is somewhat complicated. By their own admission their cut is 5-12%

Good point, I forgot to account for the platform fee, which they charge in addition to the payment processing fees. So a creator on the Pro plan pays 8% just to use the services plus processing fees (2.9% plus $0.30 if over $3). So it seems like a typical creator would pay around 12%.

Still, that's an awful lot better than 30%.

> the alternatives involve... no (automatic) monetization at all.

This is 100% what it boils down to. Google is obviously not the only advertiser in town, but if the ad bubble pops, so does the free content economy on the internet. Some people will argue the internet would be better because of it, but the transition away from ad-supported viewership would decimate the web we know.

I'd argue the internet I liked most was decimated by the current free content economy, though.

I'm not saying I disagree with you by any means; a lot of what we would lose would be a great shame. Only the strongest creators could probably find a way to stay alive, likely through more direct sponsorship (both Patreon and well, traditional direct sponsors. You already see this a ton on YouTube anyways.)

I get that the internet will never be as scrappy and experimental as it once was, but the way monetization spread rewarded a lot of people who thrived off of essentially taking free stuff and monetizing it. I mean a lot. Think of "prominent" "content creators" and "influencers" like Fuck Jerry. In the process of doing this, I think all of the fun was milked out of everything. Today's internet feels like a giant strip mall.

I really do wonder if this is the best middleground we can get.

Of course, if ad-tech does turn out to be more or less a giant bubble and that bubble pops, we lose everything anyways, without any chance to transition, and all of the anguish was for naught. It feels like quite a gamble to keep hinging on this so strongly for the best content online, so I hope that the patronage model continues to grow.

Yea exactly. At this point I am checked out of the mass internet and the things I do use (other than HN I suppose) I’m glad to pay for.

Google is the only advertiser in town that matters. There's some private clubs you can go to (Facebook's properties, Amazon) but for generally placing ads or selling ad space on the internet it's Google.

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