
How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media - ytNumbers
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/arts/youtube-broadcasters-algorithm-ads.html
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jerf
I know at times I may sound like a shill for Patreon, but I have no connection
to them whatsoever beyond "normal customer", and don't care if you use a
competitive service to them or whatever. But if you are in the position of
finding yourself with a growing show like this, I implore you to set up some
sort of voluntary subscription revenue as soon as possible, before you embed
into the very foundation of your content a dependency on ad dollars. Even if
you use it as an augment to ad revenue, it's so much better for you. It's more
stable against Youtube deciding to tweak an algorithm one day. It's more
stable month-to-month. It's even more socially stable since it releases you
from having to chase ad dollars by keeping advertisers happy instead of your
"actual" customers. If your primary money base is subscriptions rather than
ads, you could even completely shift video services if you need to without
crashing your income.

My interest in pitching this so often is my desire to play my little part in
sticking a stake in the idea that getting advertising money is the default
path to monetization. I'd rather move to a world where it's either merely one
option among many, or even, dare I dream, a last resort considered vaguely
déclassé.

Oh, and I would also implore you, let your patrons download video directly
somehow. I'd love to not even have to go through YouTube at all. Of course,
I'm a crazy Linux user for whom YouTube isn't as convenient as it could be,
but it's another way to detach your patrons from a particular video service.

~~~
elsonrodriguez
The flipside to this is that there are people who will never ever pay money
for your content, and ad revenue is the only way to directly capitalize on
your popularity among those people.

This also means that when your ad revenue disappears, you will NEVER get that
revenue back. Your only recourse is to get more popular, as your supporters
are already buying your merchandise and donating.

It's going to become much more difficult to support yourself via creating
content if step 1 becomes "be famous".

~~~
bigtimeidiot
> _ad revenue is the only way to directly capitalize on your popularity among
> those people._

Are these people clicking ads, though? I doubt it. And if not, you aren't
monetizing them directly via that method, either.

~~~
elsonrodriguez
They don't have to click to monetize, but yes, some click.

Enough so that you can offset the cost of the hobby in many cases, and make a
living in that rarest, most desirable of cases.

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creaghpatr
It's funny because the NYT pushed an entire beat about companies needing to
limit their digital advertising to only respected outlets...you know, like the
NYT.

In hindsight it was easy for them to play up the "offensive content" straw
man, get a few execs riled up, and convince google to kill their upstart
competitors.

~~~
makomk
Precisely. It's not "YouTube's shifting algorithms" that are killing
independent media, it's the wave of bad publicity in publications like the New
York Times that lead to advertisers pulling out and made allowing ads on
anything even vaguely political or controversial an existential danger to
YouTube. The algorithms didn't do this by itself. And the clear-cut line
between "videos that espoused extremism and hate speech" and "video makers who
bear no resemblance to terrorist sympathizers and racists" that the NYT is
attacking YouTube for not recognising doesn't exist. There are definitely
loud, vocal, media-connected groups who classify The David Pakman Show under
the former category, for example, because of his choice of guests.

~~~
Oxitendwe
Terrorist sympathizers are equivalent to racists now?

~~~
Danihan
Hell, Google themselves celebrated a terrorist sympathizer with a special
custom doodle.

\- [http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11713686/yuri-
kochiyama](http://www.vox.com/2016/5/19/11713686/yuri-kochiyama)

\-
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/CSW...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/CSWQzrBOfjU)

~~~
Oxitendwe
It really tells us a lot about their values and priorities when they celebrate
(by making doodles) people like that instead of, for example, Easter.

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robotjosh
I canceled my youtube red over this. They've blacklisted channels that are
specifically against racism because of some channels that support racism. They
don't want to offend racists? I'm keeping my 5/month and will not consider
their new 30/month service that I had been excited about.

~~~
KyleJune
$5/month? My Youtube Red subscription is $9.99/month.

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arca_vorago
A few years ago I did an evaluation of google seo to assist with a project. I
distinctly remember my conclusion being that due to the proprietary and closed
source nature of the algorithms google is using, I predicted they would be
tempted to artificially manipulate them to produce profit through siphoning
the ad revenue, and that I suspected it was already happening to the blackhat
seo technique sites. They weren't taking measures to stop blackhat seo, they
were taking measures to profit off them.

All conjecture on my part, but perhaps it's relevant to this story? If the
algorithms are the dark secret sauce of your power that no-one talks about,
why not abuse them for profit? Publicly you have plausible deniability,
because no one can see inside your box but you. If there is enough of a PR
issue you can artifically adjust to match the needed PR stance, but still keep
the rest of the manipulation system in place.

Especially given googles close ties to the gov, and certain political groups,
I question if we really want such a power to exist over the future of the
internet.

~~~
Eridrus
Legal discovery is a pretty good disincentive to trying this when you're
Google's size.

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EJTH
Well. I guess that the NYT, WaPo and WSJ can be proud of their accomplishment.

They managed to hurt the independent media on its revenue, but to their vein
it seems like most youtubers actually have a passion for what they do and
their subscribers are also smart enough to see through all this bullshit and
support their favorite content creators through other means than watching ads.

~~~
zobzu
but theyre nazi creators! (i wish i was misrepresenting their words...)

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norea-armozel
It's all about YouTube becoming profitable. It's not about the algorithms or
any specific political ideology or any other silly idea. It's cold hard cash
that Alphabet wants from YouTube and it's not delivering. So how do they
handle that? Especially if the advertisers are the ones funding this? More
control over content and more gate keeping are the likely options YouTube's
bosses are going to pick. It's just inevitable that Youtube content creators
are going to get squeezed harder. I expect YouTube soon to have moderators
that will vet any content of channels of a certain size before that channel's
owners see a dime. Hell, I expect YouTube to require content creators to fork
out a few hundred bucks to be given free license to publish videos on the site
eventually. Why? Because showing an ad on a video is a risk and if it doesn't
generate enough money or have enough people viewing it then why are they
hosting it? We all have to think like this when approaching YouTube and
Alphabet with respect to the current and future changes to YouTube.

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jtwebman
This is why people should not put all their eggs in one basket. He can get
sponsors. He can drive people to other places like Facebook and his own site.
That way when some company needs to change something to be better for them it
does tank your business. If you have a show you are a business. If you want to
keep it then learn business.

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chrshawkes
I get around 500,000 views a month. No way would I ever invest my career in
YouTube not just due to shifting algorithms but the fact that there is no
competition makes it next to impossible to invest heavy amounts of time.

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ptr_void
I don't understand why non-youtubers care about these nuisance. These
'independent media' provides little to no value or productivity, these people
are mostly equivalent to those who dance on the train or street to get money.
Online, they get the money by deterring from their own content to who-knows-
what advertisers who paid the most.

If anyone actually produces any value in need, they should be able to create a
business model where people would exchange money for it.

~~~
gizmo686
Because people enjoy the content provided by these creators.

For what its worth, all the ones I follow switched from ads to Patreon or
ads+Patreon.

~~~
Consultant32452
This has been my experience too. Just in the last few weeks basically all of
the channels I follow have had a total freak out and started patreon to save
their livelihood.

