I know this has been going on for a while now but I think the mass extinction phase is about to kick in…patreon or quit. I think a lot of content providers have waited and waited for some improvement and it’s only gotten crazier.
Also the caste system that seems to exist for who gets demonetized (200k subs won’t help you) and who doesn’t (4 million subs and our bots pass you no matter what) is EVIL. There. I said it. BE EVIL seems to be the new motto. Or incompetent I guess. The banality of Google’s Evil.
I’m going to really miss a lot of content providers that I have enjoyed over the years. Don’t know what I will do when somebody like Fudgemuppet finally throws in the towel.
It’s very irritating. I don’t make a lot of money on YouTube, few bucks a month, but it’s something I’ve been working on growing for quite some time. I have 300+ videos that are roughly an hour each in length. That’s just the time to record, then there’s the editing, etc.
A large chunk of my videos are now being auto-flagged as “not suitable for ads” which is hilarious. These are mostly the Shadow of Mordor bits I’ve done.
People have been urging me to create a Patreon for a long time, and I guess I’m going to do it. I’ll admit, though, I’m not psyched to see a number value attached to the work I do.
For those not in “the know” but interested in the topic because it’s part of the gaming industry, this is a good starting point for learning about the issue.
tl;dr - YouTube cracked down hard on content creators after some very high-profile (PewDiePie, JonTron) folks had some issues with their videos creeping into the violent/Nazi/generally unsuitable territory. Some major advertisers told YouTube to clean it up, and they reacted by demonetizing a ton of videos and creators.
Twitch has been slowly preparing for the Youtubepocalypse by creating and expanding their Affiliate program, making it possible for a lot more people to monetize after meeting minimal requirements. Of course the downside is that Twitch is still live, so if you prefer to record and edit then this isn’t going to help.
Oh, huh, I actually qualify now! One of the reasons I stopped streaming live was that it didn’t seem to matter because I would never get the 500 or whatever concurrent viewers to ever be able to get paid.
To be fair, the Nazi PewDiePie stuff shouldn’t really have had anything to do with most videogame content getting flagged, it was just that the major advertisers started pulling their money from the platform and YouTube reacted by making any footage of some videogames or content creators tagged as “not suitable for ads” regardless of the context. Call of Duty: WWII is a good example because the game features Nazis, shooty violence, and content creators were keen to talk about the ways the game’s MP features ahistorical women and minority models (some positive, some negative) which hit all the algorithms for YouTube’s system.
On the flipside, some people think this should’ve happened long ago.
I would much rather see people monetize through Patreon and similar than the incredibly obnoxious approach Youtube has taken to ads, but I hope this doesn’t discourage too many people.
Patreon is a nice system for sure, but it makes the money come directly out of my pocket rather than out of an advertiser’s pocket for which I am soft-billed through the imposition on my time. And the most desired target demographic often has more time available than money, which is the opposite of irrelevant old folks like myself.
On the other hand, ads are worth fractions of pennies. I wonder how many idle ad watchers you need to make up for one person willing to throw a buck your way? Although… I know firsthand how reluctant to part with a single buck the Internet can make you, what with all the free stuff in there.
That’s exactly the reason I’ve leaned toward using Patreon more recently myself. Tom was my first (and I’ll never forget him) and over time I’ve just kind of found that it fits into my general philosophy of trying to support the content I appreciate, whether it’s getting involved in Kickstarters for groups that I’ve enjoyed in the past or trying to find a way to support video content providers either with money or more esoteric methods, like heart-ing their videos. I don’t give much in the grand scheme of things but hopefully the little bits add up.
I hate ads on YouTube so much I turned them off ages ago and just take Patreon donations. I’m sorry, but I feel anyone who wants to do this full time is delusional.
The thing is, the money will come back to Youtube in time. The people watching Call of Duty videos ARE worth something to advertisers to reach. The algorithm is attempting to approximate who the advertisers want to reach. Right now they’ve overshot. It’s surprising that it hasn’t already been corrected, but it will come back when folks realize that there isn’t a 100% overlap between war gamers and nazis. (It’s not 0% though, so it will probably never be a simple algorithm.)
People in the middle now, struggling to make a living on game videos will probably shake out. When the money comes back, though, there will be others. We’ve proven the eyes are there, and that won’t change. When the advertisers realize they want those eyes back, the money will return. They will demand better categorization from Google than “War-like content”, and the segment will return to health.
