
As YouTube traffic soars, YouTubers say pay is plummeting - lladnar
https://onezero.medium.com/as-youtube-traffic-soars-youtubers-say-pay-is-plummeting-30dc1ba444db
======
code4tee
When companies struggle the first thing they tend to pull is advertising. Need
some help making this quarter’s numbers? Pull all the TV adverts for a few
weeks. “Go dark” as insiders say.

Short term this is all standard. The long term danger for Google and others is
when lots of companies realize they probably didn’t need to make all that
spend in the first place. That big “reset” is a new normal that advertising
dollar driven tech companies will need to adjust to.

~~~
bpodgursky
The most obvious case of the Dunning–Kruger effect is when random HN
commenters think that nobody in marketing is capable of using data-driven
metrics. I don't think you appreciate how numerical modern marketing is --
marketers use conversion rates, A/B tests, attribution, and a lot of other
techniques to actually calculate the ROI of advertising.

What you're describing may have been the case, in a number of companies, five
years ago, but it's just not meaningful now-days. Companies spend marketing
dollars because marketing dollars work.

Any other interpretation is ideology-driven wishful thinking. You might not
like marketing, but it's silly for the conclusion to be "thus, the entire
field is made of people who don't know what they are doing".

~~~
deanmoriarty
You might be underestimating the number of companies who absolutely don’t know
what they are doing budget-wise yet they manage to stay in business, and threw
a lot of dollars in ads/marketing without deeply analyzing its effectiveness,
just because raising money at stellar valuations was free until a month ago.

Anecdotally, I happen to work for a 300 people saas company who just started
drastically cutting expenses with the goal of reducing burn rate and delaying
the need for another round of financing in this terrible environment: ads were
one of the first few things to be dramatically cut (the second one was some
super inefficient AWS spending).

The ads budget shrank from 6 figures a year to near 0 overnight, and it’s
unlikely to return to its former level any time soon. Also, half of the
marketing team was laid off. Having 30 people in marketing for such a small
company was definitely way too much (just like engineering, sales, ...), and
it anecdotally proves GP’s argument. All consequences of the fact that money
was free.

~~~
12xo
If this is the case, you should be thinking about your own job. There are very
few companies that can stay afloat without new customers. And even fewer SaaS
companies as churn is amplified during a downturn.

Do you know what the CFO is telling their lieutenants about now? Cut all
superfluous spending and reduce monthly expenses. That means your sales people
are going to be getting calls from their clients asking for a fee reduction or
a contract revision. Very few SaaS companies are critical or defensible.

~~~
deanmoriarty
I 100% agree, in fact a couple weeks ago I gave my notice despite me being
insulated from the current layoffs. I had been wanting to do this for a while,
and hearing the CEO giving projections of how much our revenues are going to
shrink due to covid, compared to our crazy speculative company valuation, was
the last nail in the coffin. They should have managed the company better and
more frugally, so I vote with my feet.

This is my last week and I’ll be starting next week in a much more solid
company with a much better compensation too, wish me luck :-)

~~~
12xo
Nice user name. Good luck!

------
ilikehurdles
The whole advertising industry is imploding during this pandemic. I mean, it
was falling apart before with privacy regulations and browsers fighting an
industry that put all their eggs in the "personalized targeting" bucket, but
performance is exceptionally bad now.

It kind of makes sense. There are ads for products you can't buy at stores
that are closed, for cars you won't need to commute with, insurance you're
already not using, other goods that won't ship for a month, and small gadgets
that are totally out of stock; and that's assuming the person viewing the ad
isn't avoiding spending due to financial risks.

If ads aren't converting viewers into customers, it doesn't matter if there
are 2x or 20x more viewers than there were before, the ad placements are just
worth less.

~~~
vsskanth
What about the massive increase in views from people being stuck at home ?
wouldn't that lead to a higher ROI when people eventually spend ?

In terms of ad spend reduction, How would this compare to regular media
advertising spend (TV etc.) ?

~~~
code4tee
Most executives are very short term thinkers and thus while your logic makes
sense it’s generally not how most people think. They need cash now so they cut
first and think later.

You’re right that some smart execs will run into the fire as everyone is
fleeing, buying up cheap adverts for a long term investment. There are some
signs of this with a few companies seemingly increasing spend to take
advantage of the cheap prices. Purely anecdotally I noticed a lot more adverts
from Scott’s on lawn care products. Their pitch is basically “hey so the lawn
care guy is on lockdown... go to our site and we’ll ship you fertilizer and
tell you how to apply it.”

~~~
gruez
off topic: why should they be on lockdown? There shouldn't be any infection
risk from a guy working solo outdoors.

~~~
myself248
Because it's apparently hard for the people writing the lockdown orders to
differentiate between a solo lawn guy or gardener, and a four-dudes-in-one-
pickup lawn crew.

~~~
bluGill
The same 4 guys in the truck are low risk so long as they never mix crews.

------
finiteloops
There's no long term risk to google and other ad exchanges because the
advertisers are in a prisoners dilemma.

If the advertisers collude or trust that the competitors won't increases ad
spend, the relative market share stays the same and all companies
participating enjoy increased margins.

The first company to break gains market share, so as a result they all
"overspend" and google is the only one that benefits.

The worst part is the cost of google's margin is baked into product pricing,
so the end result is we pay more to have the companies compete to advertise to
us.

~~~
tmpz22
OR ads aren't that effective in the first place and the whole industry is a
house of cards propped up by middleman making their fat margins convincing
people ads are necessary...

~~~
pembrook
I've noticed HN often has two opinions about advertising depending on the day
of the week:

1) It's an unchecked, all-powerful evil, making people buy or believe in
things they don't want or need by hoarding their data

or

2) It's a giant ineffective scam that stupid companies who aren't led by
engineers waste VC money on

The two are diametrically opposed, yet, I've seen the same person argue #1 on
Monday when it fits the narrative, and then on Tuesday start arguing #2--
blissfully unaware of how both cannot be true at the same time.

Could it be, that both 1 and 2 are wrong, and that advertising spend is simply
reduced during recessions in reaction to the reduction in spending by
consumers? Why pay money to acquire customers when the customers aren't
willing to spend money on new products?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It's possible for both 1 and 2 to be _right_.

Suppose that if you're peddling cheap junk and snake oil, advertising is
effective, because nobody will have heard of your product by word of mouth (no
one would recommend it and previous victims are ashamed to admit being
suckered), but if you spam enough people you'll reach enough suckers to exceed
the advertising expense.

But if you're peddling a popular and quality product, everyone has already
heard of it and additional advertising has low marginal utility because you
were going to get most of the sales anyway.

This furthermore doesn't get you out of the prisoner's dilemma, because even
if buying advertising is only break-even rather than profitable, your
competitor is doing it so you have to do it too or they gain a volume
advantage over you and use that to kill you on unit pricing. But then you all
do it and all that happens is that everyone pays money to cancel each other
out.

~~~
cletus
I appreciate the attempt at reconciling these this contradiction but I don't
think it holds up.

For one, if you accept that advertising can sell "cheap junk" or "snake oil"
then you've accepted that advertising can sell something. That could just as
easily be a useful product no one has heard of so the issue isn't the
advertising, it's what's being sold and advertising is effective (which
invalidates (2)).

For another, you use the example of a product "everyone has already heard of".
You could point to something like Coca-Cola here. But this argument has two
problems:

1\. There are variations companies make to keep their product "fresh". Think
Vanilla Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke Zero (or whatever the current form is) and so
on. By virtue of them being new, potential customers won't have heard of them
and advertising solves that problem; and

2\. A lot of advertising isn't about direct customer conversion but "brand
lift". Now companies have dreamed of the ability to accurately measure the
brand lift of advertising spend but it hasn't materialized yet.

This is also why common comments here like "I don't ever click on an ad" don't
really mean anything. Now you can argue that the ability to make you desire
something you don't need is "evil", which is a reasonable argument to have. I
think there are cases where this is true, such as advertising to children, and
these should be restricted as some countries have done.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> For one, if you accept that advertising can sell "cheap junk" or "snake oil"
> then you've accepted that advertising can sell something. That could just as
> easily be a useful product no one has heard of so the issue isn't the
> advertising, it's what's being sold and advertising is effective (which
> invalidates (2)).

It can sell something unknown, because then the advertising makes it sound
good, they don't know anything else about it, and they wouldn't have heard of
it otherwise.

Which is the opposite of what's happening in case 2 when the product being
advertised is well known. It's not causing you to hear about it for the first
time and if the product is low quality then the advertising is less able to
overcome your existing negative impression of it than for something you've
never heard of.

> There are variations companies make to keep their product "fresh". Think
> Vanilla Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke Zero (or whatever the current form is) and
> so on. By virtue of them being new, potential customers won't have heard of
> them and advertising solves that problem

This doesn't really explain all the ads for Coke Classic, or for that matter
why so much advertising even for new products emphasizes characteristics that
are either meaningless or unrelated to the product. There isn't really any
information content in telling the customer that a new cola is "refreshing" or
showing random people dancing.

> A lot of advertising isn't about direct customer conversion but "brand
> lift". Now companies have dreamed of the ability to accurately measure the
> brand lift of advertising spend but it hasn't materialized yet.

"Brand lift" is the prisoner's dilemma thing. When everybody does it they just
cancel each other out.

~~~
coliveira
The reality of advertisement for established products is that they need to do
it to maintain good will from the media. For example, in the aftermath of the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, BP spent billions of dollars in
advertisement in all kinds of media. It became very difficult for the media to
be too harsh on BP, since in the midsts of the Great Recession, they were one
or the largest advertisers. Similarly it is very difficult for the media to
say bad things about Coke or the Big automakers when so much of their revenue
comes from these big accounts.

Another example (this one not in advertisement) is the situation of Bloomberg.
They have one of the largest financial journalism organizations and, AT THE
SAME TIME, they sell overvalued software to the largest financial companies in
the world. One can only guess what can happen to a financial company that
stops paying the fees to Bloomberg. Even though there is no real threat (and
most certainly this was never expressed by the company), every financial
outlet wants to be on the good side of Bloomberg reporting. The conclusion is
that having a journalist institution receiving money from companies that they
are covering is a kind of moral hazard that very few people understand, unless
you are part of the business.

------
stanmancan
I run a website that gets decent ad revenue (usually around $2,000/month) and
so far month to date in April is down 54% versus the same day last month, and
March was already down 14% from February. CPC for March was $0.60 but April is
only $0.30 so far. Traffic, CTR, and fill rate haven’t changed, just
drastically lower CPC.

~~~
freedomben
If you don't want to answer, it's totally fine.

What ad platform do you use? Google?

~~~
stanmancan
Google Adsense

------
jrobn
YouTubers already don’t make a lot of money off Adsense. The shift is already
happening with companies working with individual youtubers. An integrated ad
from someone you like/trust/have a relationship with is orders of magnitude
more effective than a typical YouTube ad.

Expect to YouTube to try and get a piece of this pie as well when there is a
“integrated” ads apocalypse when YouTube changes its terms of service.

It’s expensive to store, process, and deliver all this video.

YouTube has been making money off advertisement to kids for years. Now that is
being regulated.

~~~
anticsapp
I'm shocked YouTube hasn't cloned Patreon for video creators. YouTube needs a
tip jar if the content creators are resorting to Patreon, and that was back
when the getting was good.

~~~
detaro
The channel membership thing is YouTube's Patreon clone. But I don't know how
far they've rolled it out yet, and it doesn't seem as flexible or popular with
creators as Patreon. And the fact that it is tied to Youtube, and thus the
same channel shutdown etc mechanisms, will be a big minus for many.

~~~
detaro
Case in point, after writing this I looked into it a bit more and it does a
bunch of things I thought it didn't. Waaay to hidden and unattractive UI IMHO.

------
thow16161
There are a lot more people at home right now, but many are out of work and
spending less. An increase in eyeballs don't always translate to an increase
in revenue.

My girlfriend is a camgirl, and she tells me that while she has more people in
her "room", they are tipping less and she's making less.

~~~
rock_hard
Camgirls making less money might be the one true metric of how consumer
behavior is changing

------
CivBase
I am baffled as to why YouTube is still primarily monetized by ads. Ad revenue
is unreliable and inherently restricts the kind of content YouTube can even
monetize.

The model used by Twitch seems far more reliable. I thought they were going
that way with YouTube Red, but that ended up being a huge disappointment.
After about a year I switched to just donating to my subs on external
platforms.

Just let me make small, monthly donations to the creators I like. In exchange,
spare me the ads. YouTube can even take 50% of the cut or whatever. It's more
stable that way for both YouTube and its creators.

~~~
kawfey
I think this is because that idea isn't sustainable for the majority of
youtube content, which isn't produced by professional YouTubers. Most video is
hardly even edited. In the current system, all video can be monetized whether
or not it's a music video, well-produced documentary, a sponsored gear review,
some video of someone's baby crawling around, an explanation of taylor series,
or a 24/7 webcam livestream of someone's backyard.

In a viewer-contributed system, only creators that have a good audience worth
paying into would receive donations, but those lesser known videos would
essentially have to be subsidized by those donations since those videos
wouldn't bring donations in themselves. YouTube's cut, 50% as you suggest,
would probably be better spent making the platform better for those creators
than hosting videos that brings in no donations.

Also only a very very small subset of the audience will donate. Platforms that
have been predicated on donating or subscribing to receive content are
struggling to lift off (besides Patreon, which is effectively a marketplace
for content, merchandise, behind the scenes stuff, etc rather than just a
video hosting platform).

~~~
henryfjordan
Most of the views land on professional channels. You basically have to be at
least semi-pro to reach the numbers you need for "monetization" by Youtube
anyway.

There are 2 Youtubes, one for embedded viral clips you discover around the web
and one for professional content that viewers subscribe to.

I think Youtube has issues shoe-horning both systems into one monetization
scheme. I think this is mostly a problem of inertia but either they need to
make things more stable for their professional creators or someone else needs
to build a better platform for these pros.

~~~
hrktb
> 2 youtubes

There’s a whole ecosystem of niche review channels that have decent but
transient viewership.

For instance some chromebook reviewing channel posts reviews of almost every
chromebook coming out to market. There might be some people subscribing to
that, but the bulk of the views will be from search results, and only for 3 or
4 videos per viewer (once they make their buying decision they’re done).

That’s an example I could think of on the spot, but there are many many facets
of youtube that have a decent traffic with no allegiance from the viewer. They
also survive by managing in-content ads themselves, having affiliates or any
other system external to youtube, but youtube ads must still represent
something to them.

------
yakshaving_jgt
Well the ad quality is garbage, IME.

> This is a cardinal sin of EDM

SKIP AD FROM MASTERCLASS.COM

> We live in strange times

SKIP AD FROM MASTERCLASS.COM

> Little Red Riding Hood… Let’s start the story a different way!

SKIP AD FROM MASTERCLASS.COM

These adverts never end. They are relentless. There _must_ be something wrong
with the platform.

~~~
dleslie
This is why I exclusively view Youtube with adblockers, and prefer to view it
with NewPipe or VLC+ytdl.

I'm not opposed to ads at the beginning and end, but numerous _jarring_ cuts
in a ten minute video to play a couple of ads every two or three minutes? No
thanks.

~~~
mgninad
Why don't you subscribe to YT premium. If there is a way to remove ads a
support the platform, why not do that?

~~~
dx87
Subscribing gives a worse experience than blocking the ads. If you're
subscribed and accidentally open another youtube video, it'll pause the
currently playing video with a message saying that a video is playing in
another window.

~~~
falcolas
It doesn't for me, and hasn't. Perhaps this is a browser or addon behavior?

------
bkraz
Data point from Applied Science: view count is constant over last 90 days. Ad
revenue is down maybe 10%. Patreon is up slightly. Patreon has always been a
really good idea for YT creators, and it's even better now.

~~~
coopsmgoops
Hey Ben, love your videos. Do you think your audience might be served
different advertisements then the bulk of YouTube, and hence your revenue is
more stable?

~~~
bkraz
Yes, I think that may be true. It's fairly opaque even to us creators -- I
don't know which ads are served, or how many people click, etc. Patreon has
been a huge help, and if it gets high enough, I'll probably turn off ads
altogether.

~~~
dirtydroog
If Youtube can't make money from you why would they host your content?

~~~
bittercynic
If they don't continue hosting Ben's content they would be inviting
competition.

------
cm2187
Silicon valley discovering advertising is pro-cyclical. Which may not have
been obvious in 2008 when the big tech companies were ramping up their
platform in the middle of a crisis.

The other thing that is known to be pro-cyclical: luxury products. I am
looking at you Apple. Again 2008 was the ramp up of smartphones, I don’t think
it informs us much on how high margin smartphones will do in a severe
recession.

~~~
bb123
Hmm I am not sure that Apple's products are really luxury products any more.
For many many people they are quite essential.

~~~
umeshunni
Smartphones are essential. $1000 smartphones are luxuries.

~~~
vikramkr
Unless you are locked into the platform. Sure, people hold off upgrading for a
bit or buy an older phone, but people dont leave the ecosystem for a 200
dollar android. They'll be safe in the long run.

~~~
empath75
This makes me realize that a lot of people have never experienced real
poverty.

If a depression comes, people will soon have to choose between eating and
paying their rent and utilities. Phones won’t even enter the picture.

~~~
askafriend
A smartphone is more important than paying your electricity bill.

I really think you're living in denial of modern reality. A smartphone gives
you access to jobs among other things.

~~~
cm2187
We are not talking about a smartphone vs no smartphone, we are talking about a
$1,000 vs a $200 smartphone (or a 4y old model).

~~~
vikramkr
And to my point, both of those models will be iPhones for a lot of people, and
apple's brand will be fine.

~~~
cm2187
I don't know if apple makes any cheap phone, but either way, the problem isn't
apple's brand, it is apple's profits.

~~~
askafriend
Apple's operating margin is the lowest it's been in a decade. What are you
talking about?

------
adequateness
It makes sense. I imagine a lot of companies are reducing ad spend right now
which means the bids on ad spots will be lower. If there is more content being
made on YouTube right now then that increases the supply of videos that ads
can be placed on.

------
ghaff
"Soars" seems like a rather hyperbolic description of the 15% rise given in
the article. I'm not really that surprised. Yeah, people are out of work and
social activities are curtailed. But a lot of people are also home-schooling
and many of us just working like we normally would. I've shifted activities
around because I'm not traveling but I'm certainly not watching YouTube all
day.

~~~
throwaway2048
15% growth when you are already ontop of a saturated market is a big deal.

------
anonytrary
Who is everyone? Sure, local gyms and recreational centers may temporarily cut
advertising via YouTube workout channels, but I would imagine other types of
advertising increasing for online stuff like mobile games.

Also if you want true income on YouTube, your best bet is affiliate marketing
and sponsorships. Many YouTube personalities have already moved to this model
-- they seamlessly integrate paid sponsorships and links into their content by
working directly with the sponsors. Not only does this render ad-blockers
obsolete, but it cuts the middleman (YouTube) out of the equation. It also
vastly improves engagement, click-through rate, purchase rate, etc.

~~~
tempestn
Sponsorships are down too. It's true that mobile game ads and sponsorships are
up, as well as a few other niche fields. Doesn't come close to making up for
the drop in ads and sponsorships from many other fields though. (Including
automotive, with which I'm most familiar.) It's not just obvious things like
gyms, rec centers and restaurants. People are buying less of almost everything
now, both because their incomes are down and/or less certain, and because
there's less ability to use many common products (like cars). Therefore
advertising has less impact, so even those companies that still have the
cashflow for advertising are cutting back since the ROI isn't there.

~~~
anonytrary
> Sponsorships are down too. It's true that mobile game ads and sponsorships
> are up, as well as a few other niche fields.

Interesting, thanks for verifying that -- honestly I was mostly just making an
educated guess. The rest of your reasoning makes sense, too. At this point, we
can only guess as to what the extent of the damage will be.

------
annoyingnoob
"Hey Y'All, I'm back with another video! Be sure to hit that Like button and
be sure to subscribe, just click the little subscribe button there below this
video. I always love your comments and feedback so keep it coming. Be sure to
tell me if you have ideas for videos you'd like me to make! I have lots more
videos..."

You mean that crap at the beginning, middle, and end of every video isn't
working? Cry me a river. Its about content not your unoriginal gibberish.

------
tanilama
On the other side, as part of the entertainment community, they are at least
sustaining some of their income, which I would consider good under the current
climate.

------
ancarda
I pulled my YouTube Premium subscription once I was furloughed, along with
Spotify and Netflix. I imagine many have done similar things to cut down on
expenses.

------
larrywright
Probably related: all of the ads I’m being shown on Facebook and Instagram the
last few weeks are really low quality. I’m assuming the ad inventory is really
low right now and therefore rates have plummeted, making ads for sketchy
products more cost effective. I think the quality of YouTube ads has gone down
as well, but it’s not nearly as bad as Facebook and Instagram.

------
macintux
I recall reading that some newspapers have gone out of business due to the
advertising crash. This is hardly surprising.

Ripples gonna ripple.

~~~
iso947
Lower circulation too - a friend is an editor of a major UK magazine, their
subscriptions are up massively, but not enough to offset the drop the copies
normally sold at airports, railway stations, service stations and local shops,
let alone the massive drop in adverts

------
ping_pong
If Google ad revenues are down 50%, how can Google be at $1200/share? Doesn't
that make this a good short candidate? Nothing else Google has is profitable
except for the ad business. The same goes for Facebook as well.

~~~
crazygringo
Because share prices are based on what people think Google will bring in over
the next say 20 years, not the next 6 months.

Everybody expects ad revenue to rebound fairly quickly once this is over. You
don't expect COVID-19 to be cutting Google's revenue in half over the next 20
years, do you?

~~~
ping_pong
The idea that share price is based on the next 20 years is truly laughable.
The company themselves don't plan anything concrete more than 12 months out
and anything further than that is guesswork. To think that you can project
revenue even 3 years out is simply fictional (Source: my wife is in finance
exec at a public tech company and one of her fields of expertise is FP&A).

That said, analysts will make guesses based on financial projections and then
give multiples to things like revenue or earnings, depending on the company.
If a quarter of Google's revenues is impacted, it will have immediate effects.
Of course, that's assuming that it's only a single quarter's revenue which in
this case would be wrong. You're talking months of high unemployment globally.

~~~
crazygringo
> _anything further than that is guesswork_

Well of course! Nobody _knows_ what the future will be -- it's all best-
educated guesses. That doesn't contradict my point.

The stock price winds up being a kind of market-driven wisdom-of-crowds
situation of a ton of different people's guesswork, mostly institutions with
teams of researchers.

Obviously Google's price _has_ been impacted. But the point is the _price_
hasn't been impacted nearly to the same degree as immediate revenue. Because?
People expect Google to be around and doing fine for a couple of decades.

So you're right that these things can't be perfectly predicted... but the
stock price still _is_ the result of everyone's predictions, as imperfect as
they are. It's not "laughable" \-- it's literally how it works, and if you
don't believe that, I don't know what to tell you.

------
noizejoy
I just searched this page for “lifetime” to find any mention of “lifetime
customer value”.

I was surprised not to find any, since lifetime customer value creates an
upper bound for marketing and ad spending. So when there’s less overall
economic activity, the lifetime customer value may very well also be going
down - at least for discretionary spending - meaning the upper bound for ad
spending is also coming down.

I wouldn’t be surprised in shifts of lifetime customer value in many
industries in at least the medium term. And therefore in ad spending for those
sectors of the economy.

------
scottmcleod
more inventory and demand than advertisers.. CPM falls. What do they expect?

~~~
scottmcleod
Things will course correct

~~~
kleer001
Reality has a funny way of reasserting its self.

------
itronitron
seems like the perfect time for popular youtubers to move to a different
platform

~~~
ortusdux
Are there better paying alternatives?

~~~
toomuchtodo
[https://watchnebula.com/](https://watchnebula.com/)

~~~
gexla
Can you explain further? Is this a better paying alternative to Youtube?

But aren't we really talking about Adsense? If we're talking about Adsense,
aren't we really talking about the overall capabilities of the system?

Is there any alternatives to Adsense? No, if Adsense isn't working for you,
then you're looking for a totally different approach for monetizing your
content.

But we still haven't arrived to the fundamental issue, which is that we're in
the midst of a global economic meltdown. A lot of Adsense buyers are pulling
out and that's driving down the market for ads.

I'm not a marketing guru, but I'm guessing that advertising spend in general
is one of the first things to get cut during difficult economic times.

Does Nebula address this? Are they giving away helicopter money? Perhaps the
service can open a portal into another dimension where COVID-19 has never
happened (or maybe not for a couple of months, so we can get some quick
partying in.)

~~~
coopsmgoops
Nebula is a competitor to YouTube that was created by a bunch of YouTubers in
the educational video space. It's a paid subscription only model.

I have a subscription but for some reason it doesn't scratch the same itch as
YouTube even though it has a lot of the same content that I watch on YouTube.
It may be because there isn't much Nebula only content so I might as well just
check one website instead of two. I also don't think it has comments. And all
round just isn't as slick of an experience as YouTube.

Also by design not just anyone can upload to it and so I belive it will
probably be quite limited in its growth.

~~~
gexla
If it's subscription only, then it's not a better paying alternative. It's a
different monetization method altogether. Thanks for the clarification on how
the service works. That's interesting, I'll check it out.

------
redsymbol
As an entrepreneur, with a company that relies on paid advertising, this is a
FANTASTIC time. Our cost per lead has cut in half. And I just hired three
people last week, to capitalize on the higher lead flow.

I'm sure it depends on the business sector. But for any company that can
operate in this environment, this is the time to spend MORE on ads, not less.

------
mrfusion
I think the flat earth movement would die off if youtube stopped paying out.

I don’t think anyone would have an incentive to make the videos anymore and
without fresh content believers would lose interest and Eventually evidence of
a round earth (plus peer pressure) would build up and outweigh their older
ideas of flat earth.

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datenhorst
I think you overestimate how big the flat earth movement actually is. There's
no way anyone of them actually makes any significant money off youtube ad
revenue when even the most well-known flat earth videos ("flat earth clues" by
Mark Sargent) only have a few 100k views each.

The flat earth debunking channels, on the other hand ...

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scared2
Totally expected. I was actually expecting that this pandemic would be a test
to the current business model of the internet.

Business closed means no need to advertise, no ads means no need to turn on
servers... But apparently it seems to be ok so far.

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Wingman4l7
Interesting, because it seems like I've been seeing an increase in ad displays
at the _end_ of videos (not running a Pi-hole yet so I'm still seeing ads on
mobile). Anecdata, I know.

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HashThis
What percent of YouTube's revenue goes to YouTubers?

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agigao
I (might) sound arrogant but never understood this industry, the value of it
(other than financial). Feels quite embarrassing to me.

Would love to hear opinions.

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thehappypm
Well, imagine you create a 1-person startup. You make the perfect tool, but
you have no customers. How do you acquire them? You can try pumping your own
personal network, organically market yourself every chance you get (like
HackerNews comments or Facebook posts). However you can, with a relatively low
investment, reach an order of magnitude more users with digital advertising.
Your startup makes a great product, right? So you'll naturally acquire at
least some of the users who see your ads.

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cbsmith
It's almost like revenue doesn't come from usage, but form ad dollars, and
there's fewer of those being spent right now.

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mandelbrotwurst
YouTube's algorithm adds another wrinkle to how many creators, especially
smaller ones, are likely to be negatively impacted by the fact that much of
our collective attention is on the coronavirus.

YT and other socials have essentially been creating a whitelist of who is
"trusted" to speak about coronavirus, allowing them to capture audiences by
promoting their content and opting to not display and essentially censor that
of smaller, independent ("fake") voices.

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LatteLazy
Lots of questionable citations (and many "facts" with no citations at all)
here...

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1024core
Could it be because companies are cutting advertising budgets and freezing all
non-essential spending?

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sys_64738
Is that bad?

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JackPoach
Well, it's the economy and not just food or travel sectors. Generally
speaking, many buying decisions have been postponed both in B2B and B2C
sectors. Essentially it means that doesn't really matter that viewership is
going up or that rates are going down, what matters is that purchases are way
down, so conversions are plummeting. Here's an example. Suppose, are sales
averaged 10 billions a month and 10% (1 billion) was pure profit. Some of that
money went toward buying ads. Now your sales went down 50% (5 billion) and
let's say for the simplicity sake that profit margin stayed the same, even
though that's not really true. So now your profit is only $500M. It doesn't
really matter if views go up or down and how cheap advertising becomes. What
REALLY matters is that your market is now half of what it used to be.

