
YouTube top earners: A seven-year-old making $22M - happy-go-lucky
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46427910
======
TravHatesMe
What I find interesting is that many of these youtubers have created personas
to appeal to their audience, like true entertainers. However loyal viewers are
fooled into this false sense of reality, where they are friends with content
creator and this is not a persona at all, he's my friend. Over time, the
content creator and the audience share so many moments together, it becomes an
emotional bond and a substitute for people's social needs. People grow
attached to this persona, sometimes obsessively. I think it could create of a
scary pattern of disassociation, has it already?

Another thought: If the content creator chooses to optimize the money-making
persona, it eventually leads to sensationalized content to generate the
maximum possible number of views. I think there is some sadness in that: no
matter what form of art, so much of it is influenced (disrupted?) by money --
it almost seems inevitable.

~~~
anonymous5133
My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says the amount of kids who are
developing anti-social behaviors is increasing pretty rapidly. Kids these days
have computers and are basically simply "escaping" to the internet to live in
a fantasy world that is disconnected from reality. Some even display active
addictions to computer games, like minecraft, while others say they only have
friends online in the games or with these youtube personalities like you say.
These kids literally do not know how to make friends or interact with other
kids because they are so used to just sitting in front of a game or computer
basically having a "friend" entertain them with only one-direction of
interaction. They think this is normal relationship for a friend. They don't
understand that in the real world in order to get friends you need to talk to
other kids and interact with them. They literally do not know how to do this
because they've learned it is not necessary...

Parents need to take it very seriously and limit the amount of time the child
uses the computer...otherwise these behaviors continue into adulthood. If you
are socially incompetent then it will hold you back in terms of jobs and so
on. Very troublesome is that parents are basically using computers to babysit
the kids or to keep them occupied...which only helps to reinforce the lack of
social skills they get. How many times do you see a kid in a shopping cart
holding a tablet watching some movie or whatever? Very common.

~~~
a_imho
Youtube is turning 14 next year and computers have been mainstream way longer
than that. Personally I was a kid when it was the TVs fault and video games
were making kids violent, but imo things turned out just fine.

~~~
qwertay
Trading card games and D&D is ruining kids.

~~~
Jaruzel
Those darn stick-and-hoop games are ruining our Victorian kids.

~~~
xxs
That sort of games do require physical activity, though; plus some verbal
contact.

------
zanek
My 7 year old son watches Dude Perfect on YouTube, which I had never heard of.
Apparently its all the rage, in elementary schools and he heard about it via
other kids.

I watched a few to make sure they were ok, but they mostly came off as older
guys doing elaborate stunts that kids would do on a much smaller scale (like
throwing balls off tall buildings, fat suits on cars, etc )

I'm not shocked they are making $20M or so. One of the episodes showcased
their new Dude Perfect headquarters that looked like a block long warehouse
with basketball courts, foam pits , etc in it with their DP logo all over it.

I guess it pays to cater to kids base desires on a grander scale

~~~
lazyjones
> _I 'm not shocked they are making $20M or so._

I'm slightly shocked that the money comes from advertisers interested in
influencing 6-7 year old kids.

~~~
wbillingsley
Then again, thinking about the kids' tv shows that only really existed to sell
the toys (eg, Transformers) it's not that surprising.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Not surprising, but I find the practice disturbing. I imagine it's hard for
busy parents to police the commercials the children sees, and much of the
marketing to children likely occurs in this unwanted but hard to avoid space.
The end result is corporations trying to train children that the best way to
live and enjoy one's self is if they buy a steady stream plastic goods made
overseas, eventually to be discarded in landfills.

One could imagine a world where advertising to children is no longer
considered appropriate, with the understanding that the young minds of the
world should not be manipulated by corporate interests.

Or those who want that kind of environment need to find a new way to fund
media.

~~~
LitFan
> I imagine it's hard for busy parents to police the commercials the children
> sees

I hear things like this a lot. It's not hard, it just takes time. Is it hard
to make that time? If it is too hard to make time to do something with your
kids that you yourself think is important, you have to reconsider your
priorities.

If you didn't plan appropriately, and decided to have kids before realizing
the effort required, then you need to do some risk-reward analysis and
determine which things you "have time" to pay attention to and which you
don't.

> unwanted but hard to avoid space

Again, not hard, just time consuming. Time and interest will make sure your
kids are well adjusted (well, at least as well adjusted as their parents).

~~~
TaylorAlexander
My issue with this (I don’t have kids) is that the people with the least time
are the poor. They’re chronically busy, and so taking the time to keep your
kids off of this stuff is a privilege not everyone can enjoy.

~~~
dragonwriter
Not providing access to YouTube is pretty low effort. Providing supervised
access is harder, sure.

------
rapnie
It may not be all that much fun and games..

Half a year ago I saw a documentary (can't remember which), where a number of
popular YouTube vloggers were followed to see what being an influencer
entails.

While each of them were enjoying the good stuff - the money earned, the free
gadgets and trips, etc. - in general each of them also felt trapped. To me it
seemed like hell to live a life like this.

Huge social pressure from followers to crank out new content on a continuous
basis. No time to take real breaks, let alone a longer vacation. Totally
focused on social metrics. A wrong move leading to loss of 1,000s of
followers. A vacation or even being sick leads to people complaining in your
feeds, or even starting to threaten you. Responsibilities and contracts with
influence marketers.

Being an influencer is a kind of topsport. You are a professional, while you
are also still a kid.

And the longer you keep doing it, the more you've made a life's choice
(neglecting school, building real social network, etc.) and it is harder to
get out of it.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention that the real famous vloggers also can no longer
come outside without being recognized everywhere. E.g. 16-20yr olds that cause
young children to go histerical when they see them, giving signatures all the
time. Literally no rest anywhere.

~~~
rorykoehler
With $22m in the bank he could give it all up at a drop of a hat, put it all
into passive investments and live the life of a king off the proceeds.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
It's very easy to blow $22m in a very short amount of time, especially with
his teenage years not all that far ahead of him.

~~~
rorykoehler
Not if you can't touch it

------
ACow_Adonis
To me this little news snippet had just hit home how much of a bubble I live
in, and how we're diverging into multiple streams of media for different
cultures and classes.

These million dollar media businesses exist that I have no idea about and no
exposure to. Presumably when my child reaches approx 8, he'll have been
brought up without ads and with most of this content having been blocked (or
more accurately, just never coming into the house/houses of his friends,
blocking, even though that's what it is we're doing is almost too 'active' a
word). And there will be a whole sub-class of the population brought up on
this stuff that we never mix with.

Or maybe I'm naive and these media will get in past our defences, but judging
by how current media bubbles work it's a distinct possibility that it will
remain a bubble I'm never exposed to (I.e I know pay TV options and certain
newspapers/you tube things exist, but struggle to tell you a single person I
know under the age of 50 who subscribes).

I can't be the only one who feels a little sick at the prospect of making
money heaping consumerism on children...?

~~~
sjg007
Eh? I mean, most of the money comes from sponsored videos.. So hot wheels,
thomas the train, surprise eggs.. etc.. some are obvious, some are the kid
playing with the thing. It's funny that we cut the cord and don't allow kids
to watch nick jr or disney jr but instead allow youtube where the subversion
is greater. My kids don't watch any (or very few) traditional ads but they
know exactly what is hip. Most of this was from youtube kids. And now they
have the surprise toys. Genius. Is it bad or good? I mean don't take your kid
to target or walmart or the supermarket or the airport...

~~~
Mtinie
“Forbes said all but $1m of the $22m total is generated by advertising shown
before videos, with the remainder coming from sponsored posts.”

Unless I’m misunderstanding your comment, most of the money comes from pre-
roll advertising, not sponsored content product placements.

------
wesleytodd
It amazes me the amount of advertising dollars funneled into advertising to
users who are not even allowed to use the website (those under 13).

~~~
eklitzke
Kids watch the videos, then ask their parents to buy the toys. Same way toy
advertising works on television.

~~~
sorum
Or like He-Man, where the entire premise was to create a cartoon they could
sell action figures from. Rewatching it, the plot wasn’t all that coherent.
But that didn’t matter, because Battle Cat was cool and Skeletor’s castle had
a microphone and speaker built in.

------
xte
A small point: did anybody notice how this reward mechanism prize the "idiocy"
far more than the "knowledge"? I mean most followed YT channels, most upvotes
on FB etc are about "brainless things", "brainless contents" vs valuable
technical or cultural contents.

An YT channel about "just for laugh" or "sport" or "how to decorate nails"
have FAR more subscribers and viewers than a tech, historic, physics, ... DIY
channels.

That's of course natural but prize it instead of fight it it's a means to push
toward stupidity.

~~~
salvar
Who decides what is valuable content and what is brainless stupidity?

~~~
dogma1138
Im pretty sure that we can easily define metrics to measure that and we had.

This cult of relativism really needs to stop.

~~~
xte
The modern "need" (mania) of defining metrics have a deep root not in
knowledge but in ignorance. Smart people can reason autonomously like Galilean
scientific models, ignorant can only follow Aristotelian model.

That's also the reason today we have substantial ZERO innovations and capacity
to produce new things.

~~~
dogma1138
I think you have a poor understanding of what metrics mean, and in case it’s
pretty ironic since Galileo essentially defined the modern scientific method
of observation, experimentation, and mathematization which birthed
quantitative assessment.

~~~
xte
I think not. I think I have a clear understating on how we trade Science for
neoaristotelism because someone want brainless, managerial-driven, commercial-
servant research instead of Science and culture.

~~~
dogma1138
You are really barking up the wrong tree, I think you took a wrong turn on
your way to the rally comrade.

~~~
xte
A small example: take a young CAD/CAE/CAM engineer, ask he/she to design
something for doing a certain job. Ask the same to an ancient engineer.
Compare results.

The young will give you a well simulated part/assembly ready for first
prototype, the ancient normally gives you small note and a drawing. Prototype
the two: the younger one is generally far more complex to being build, costly
and far less effective than the ancient one. And it's not a matter of
experience, it's a matter of different way of thinking.

Today we spent enormous time in bureaucracy with ridiculous stuff from
ITIL/Kanban to the last bit, we spent enormous time in detailed reasoning
being on contrary incapable of see the big picture. That's why for instance in
shipping company when a (rare) EU doctor (we have less reformed medicine
studies than the USA) went in the USA local seafarers they put themselves in
the queue for being visited by "real" doctors.

~~~
dogma1138
Your rant has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter nor reality.

------
ravenstine
> As he is still a child, 15% of Ryan's earnings are put into a bank account
> that he can only access when he becomes a legal adult.

Why 15%? Why not 100%? Why not even 50%?

Should this sit right with me? I want to believe this child isn't being
exploited.

EDIT: Thanks for clearing that up for me. It seems I was misunderstanding.

~~~
wingerlang
It says 15% OF this earnings, he might be getting more than that but 15% is
locked up until he is an adult.

Even so, the parents are probably the actual 'runners' of the company (?)
doing all the work except being on camera. Meaning administrative work,
accounting, filming, editing, marketing maybe and so on.

~~~
ehsankia
Exactly, it's not like the kid is writing the scripts, creating the sets,
buying the equipment, paying for lawyers, settings up advertiser deals, paying
for video production and editing, etc. From the videos, it seems like they've
now got a much fancier house too, which I'm assuming was paid with the
earnings.

------
diminish
My 6 y.o. lives in a youtube universe. Every content he creates, he makes a
video and publishes on youtube. Making slimes, building stamps, building paper
train wagons, visiting places, and of course unpacking toys and stuff. He
always concludes video or other stories like `pls press the Like button, and
subscribe to my channel in order not to miss a thing`. When I talk too much he
says 'papa skip ad', with a tap gesture. on air.

youtube is the definite leader for <10 y.o.s around me.

~~~
Rjevski
You should explain to him that whatever you publish on the Internet is forever
and whether he'd like someone in his adult life to be able to find that
content.

~~~
freyir
Why should anybody be embarrassed about playing with toys or making stamps as
a child?

It's the stupid stuff they'll do in high school and college they should be
worried about.

------
porjo
I was interested to see that the top 10 earners are all male.[1] I wonder if
this is merely a reflection of greater male patronage of Youtube generally but
the topics that these top earners are focusing on are not all stereotypically
male interests. The 7 year old kid reviews toys which seems quite gender
neutral and then there's the makeup artist which, presumably, would be of more
interest to a female audience. What is stopping women and girls from
dominating Youtube?

[1]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2018/12/03/high...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2018/12/03/highest-
paid-youtube-stars-2018-markiplier-jake-paul-pewdiepie-and-more/#7ec9f901909a)

~~~
PunchTornado
why force equal outcomes on such a niche place like Youtube?

on Instagram the top earners are all females. Kylie Jenner makes $1 million
per post, Selena Gomez 800k. And it is ok to be like that as Instagram is 70%
female.

~~~
wastedhours
> why force equal outcomes on such a niche place like Youtube?

I didn't get that from the OP at all - I think it's a valid (and quite an
interesting) question to pose (especially as a marketer): what is it about
YouTube's audience that seemingly favours male creators?

Not about "forcing" anything, but it's always interesting to dive into why
platform demographics differ and the reasons behind it.

(Also, my assumption is "dominate" here isn't like take over, but just "do it
really well" \- feel free to correct me OP).

~~~
PunchTornado
> What is stopping women and girls from dominating Youtube?

I think it is valid in English language to consider this sentence as saying
women doing better than men on the platform. dominate is not another word for
equality in English.

~~~
wastedhours
True, but it's also valid in English colloquially to use "dominate" as to just
be really good at something too, and that was my interpretation in this
context.

------
preommr
There are so many things wrong with youtube such as accountability, standards
and advertising value. These problems get even weirder when kids are involved.

Obviously the reason this kid is making 22m is because other kids are
watching. Which isn't bad. This kid basically won the lottery and good for
him.

But then you have things like elsagate which is/was (idk if it's over) so
weird. I still don't know what the hell was going on there. I can only assume
that, once again, kids are mindlessly watching these videos and that's fairly
disturbing.

Also I am curious about what people that buy ad spots on youtube think about
the fact that a lot of the views they're paying for are kids that won't care
about products like their makeup or adult oriented products/services.

~~~
briga
Well ten years ago kids were mindlessly watching cartoons on TV, which
probably had just as much advetisement. The main difference with YouTube, I
figure, is that the money is mainly going to content creators rather than TV
executives.

On the other hand, the recommended video feed is something akin to heroin for
the brain, so giving kids unbridled access to YouTube is probably not the best
parenting strategy

~~~
godot
The main difference is not just the money going to content creators. Like
preommr said, the real main difference is all the creepy stuff that's on
Youtube that you don't normally see as an adult on your YT account recommended
videos/related videos, but that kids see because things are targeted at them.
There's some real creepy scary stuff out there. TV back in the days, even if
kids watch them obsessively, at least don't have "dangerous" stuff like that.
They were curated by reasonable people working at the networks, not
algorithms.

I will never give my kid unbridled access to YT. When she's old enough to
watch videos, I would consider downloading specific content from YT filtered
by myself, for offline viewing.

------
lynnetye
I just watched a few minutes of "Ryan disappear[s] through a Secret Portal in
the house to the North Pole" and am thoroughly impressed. Clearly a lot goes
into the concepts, sets, and overall production of these videos. I don't know
all of the details, but I can imagine how building a business like this could
be one of the cooler ways for a family to spend quality time together.

~~~
ehsankia
I'm not sure if you're being serious, but that video was honestly minimal
amount of effort when it came to effects, sets and production. There are
channels on Youtube with a fraction of the following that produce content
orders of magnitude more professional than that. This kind of video can be
made by some amateur producer in their bedroom. Considering they make 22M,
you'd really think they'd spend money on at least getting a single
professional video editor, if not more.

~~~
codetrotter
OTOH, maybe the family enjoys doing as much as possible themselves.

If everything needs to be professionalized, where does that leave the
hobbyists and the amateurs? Should there not be room for them? If not, why?

~~~
saghm
Not disagreeing with you per se, but if you're making $22 million off
something, I'm not sure the terms "hobbyist" or "amateur" apply there.

------
Bjorkbat
I’m kind of surprised that Logan Paul is still doing so well.

Living embodiment of YouTube gone wrong, still made $3 million more than he
did last year according to this article.

~~~
jzl
Best summary I've ever read about Logan Paul is this (since-deleted) tweet:
"Watching adults learn about Logan Paul is like seeing Mt. Everest base
campers leave for the summit with a windbreaker and a granola bar."

------
InGodsName
It creates bigger winners and even bigger losers.

There are kids who have been depressed since age 8, no idea when their
depression will end.

The number is increasing at huge rate.

There are kids who will look upto these kids and get in competition mode while
other kids gonna be depressed because they can't afford or can't do as good as
them.

I've no idea if it's good or bad.

------
ishikawa
It's interesting how so many people criticize this family that is making tens
of millions every year. If that is wrong, they should start with TV Shows in
which children that are much more exposed and sometimes not having fun doing
what they want, make actually a 6 fig salary. Too many grow to be poor and
lost adults. At 7 Ryan has enough money for a comfort life.

~~~
EADGBE
> At 7 Ryan has enough money for a comfort life.

 _wayyy more than comfortable_

------
gigatexal
This kid has made more money than I will ever see in my whole life. I’m not
jealous I’m proud! I hope he’s got some good support around him as all that
money so young could be a recipe for disaster if not managed right. High
school comes to mind: if I was a self made millionaire in high school oh man I
would likely have been even more wreckeless than I was.

~~~
EADGBE
"Youth is wasted on the young."

------
conanthe
I wonder how many views one needs to get such income and who pays it? I had a
blog with 500k monthly unique visitors and rarely made over $500 from AdSense.
I had pretty good bounce rate and average visit was 7 minutes.

~~~
ryanmercer
Top YouTube talent in general: ad revenue, endorsements, affiliate sales, sell
shirts/pins/hats, appearance fees etc.

The individual in this article:

>all but $1m of the $22m total is generated by advertising shown before
videos, with the remainder coming from sponsored posts.

But take people like Jenna and Julien: they make and sell limited edition
pins, they have a twitch that pretty mcuh always has someone as a top bits
tipper at 10k bits plus twitch subscribers, a cut of YouTube red subscribers
watching their streams, Jenna has done keynote and commencement speeches (a
quick google search shows her booking fee might be 20-50k$), she has a Sirius
XM show, she has a podcast.

------
ckastner
> _The amount generated by sponsored posts is small compared with other top
> YouTubers, Forbes writes. It is "the result not only of how few deals Ryan
> (or his family) chooses to accept, but also the fact that his pint-sized
> demographic isn't exactly all that flush"._

They then proceed to disprove this "fact" in (literally) the next sentence:

> _The toys featured in one of the channel 's videos can sell out instantly._

------
buboard
There really needs to be some regulation or at least self-regulation for this
kind of stuff. This child should remain the exception (this is technically
child labor), and advertising to kids on youtube should catch up with TV
standards. And i don't think this kind of publicity is doing any good to other
children.

Perhaps a startup that helps parents deal with this kind of stuff easier?

~~~
suddenstutter
oh my god. Please don't bring the government into this.

~~~
buboard
the government is already the protector of google's business

------
smilesnd
I wonder if these guess at the income of internet celebrates could some how
hurt them when doing taxes.

~~~
legostormtroopr
Only if they don't report. Tax departments usually don't care where the money
comes from, as long as they get their cut.

~~~
EADGBE
And regardless of whatever supposed income numbers there are out there, only
the IRS cares about the 1099's from Adwords and companies sponsoring their
content. If they get their appropriate tax checks from those, all is gravy.

------
jijojv
I banned Ryan's after they started peddling his Walmart toys - my 4 year old
hasn't seen/asked for Ryan's in last few months. So cut them off while young.

------
nautilus12
Something still feels wrong about something that takes _comaparatively_ so
little effort making so much money. I’m not saying it’s easy but it’s much
much easier than many other proffesions. Think of software engineers slaving
over brilliant designs staying up night after night for a few hundred thousand
per year, or even NFL stars that expose their brains to permanent damage. It’s
almost like a new form of the lottery. The viral lottery.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
It goes against everything we're lead to believe about hard work always paying
off. But that's life.

~~~
Nasrudith
Much of what we were taught about hard work was pushed by exploiters of
peasantry whose fallen descendants would literally risk a disgraceful death
and believed damnation as highwaymen rather than work a day in their lives. It
just perpetuated and their lies got out of their control and got many of them
killed several times historically - from Cromwell to communism. And it didn't
end too well for their deposers either - from their own actions no less.

The truth is hard work can pay off not that it does and working smarter is
always a better option.

------
demarq
Several times youtubers have called BS on these headline grabbing estimates.
So these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

------
random878
Could anyone point me toward a more comprehensive analysis of incomes from
YouTube?

Specifically, I'd like to get an idea about the distribution of income across
active monetised accounts. This would be far more interesting to me than
looking at some - I'm guessing - statistical outliers.

What does a average channel, with modest viewers, with niche content, earn for
the producer?

~~~
666lumberjack
Not sure if it's exactly what you're after, but I know of this[0] video from
CGPGrey talking about adsense specifically. There's also this[1] video
breaking down the income sources for Linus Tech Tips and related channels,
although they probably don't qualify as 'modest views'? This[2] is talking
about twitch streamers rather than youtube channels, but it's quite an
interesting breakdown too.

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW0eUrUiyxo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW0eUrUiyxo)
[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t73wXF8IF-8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t73wXF8IF-8)
[2][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m5P_n5njCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m5P_n5njCQ)

~~~
random878
Thanks, I'll give those vids a watch.

Yes, I'd definitely say that Linus' channel is much bigger than I'm interested
in. I'm thinking of the small channels who put out quality content, b with a
restricted audience. I watch some channels who make Linux and Chess videos and
the content is superb, but there's a natural threshold level of views they'll
get.

I was prompted to think about it after a conversation with a colleague. We
were talking about the market within medicine for giving exam prep courses to
med students and doctors. A recent day course we noted was £50 per student and
it was sold out (about 200 people I think). The person delivering the course
had multiple dates lined up across the UK.

We wondered whether it would be more profitable for this individual to use
youtube (there would be numerous pros/cons to this, but that's another topic).

We could quickly do the maths to work out the income from X students, on Y
dates, minus Z estimated costs, etc, for the traditional lectures... but we
just cant find any data for likely youtube profits. The information seems
almost deliberately obscured.

------
thelasthuman
Maybe if real life didn't suck as bad as it does for so many stuck here,
people would prefer real life interactions.

I'm happy for you if you've had any amount of good-natured uplifting human
interaction. This is not the case for everyone. A privilege.

------
budadre75
I feel sad about my life working so hard and will never able to even compete
with this kid.

~~~
ALittleLight
On the flip side there are probably peasants in rural East Asia who labor in
extremely challenging conditions and make a fraction of what you do. If they
understood that your job was to (probably) sit in an air conditioned room
tapping keys and talking to people for a few hours a day for significant
wealth they might feel what you feel.

~~~
budadre75
I don't really like this comparison to peasants, they can be happy and healthy
for doing what they do, but office jobs are just depressing and unhealthy in
comparison.

~~~
ALittleLight
Any office worker who feels this way should immediately start his own rice
paddy.

~~~
ldonley
I don't know if starting a rice farm is a feasible way to pay off student
loans or mortgages for most people.

------
tzm
I find my son consistently finding Ryan's Toy Review in YT, but as a parent I
have no control except to completely remove the app from his life.

Youtube should add personalized content filtering designed to remove such
content from search results and feeds.

------
14
sweet the hockey fad is kind of old I want my child to be a youtube star

------
cauldron
While 22M youtubers-wonna-be earning little to nothing.

~~~
romanovcode
As someone commented: This creates couple winners, but millions of depressed
losers.

------
tapan_pandita
Ok, but how much does the Bro Sweet website make?

------
jdlyga
I'm 34, and I just discovered PewDiePie. I thought he was one of those
irritating Let's Play guys, but I was definitely wrong. His videos are mostly
about reviewing memes, internet news, and funny videos these days. He's a
really entertaining guy. I highly recommend you subscribe.

------
joering2
Who is watching these videos? Youtube TOS states you have to be at least 13
years old to use their site. If I were to see my 13 (or older) children
watching a 7 year old unwrapping toys, I think I would go to the psychiatrist
just to check them out.

Unless of course YouTube allows for their own TOS to be violated and they have
a right to do so in the spirit of greed; their pockets are clearly filled up
by children clicking on Google ads; otherwise how do you think he made that
$22MM, from a GoFoundMe donations??

~~~
adventured
Children under 13 can legally watch videos on YouTube _with_ their parents.
Consider the premise: you must remove all children, including infants and
babies, from the room and or hearing/viewing distance before you utilize the
YouTube service. That's laughable to say the least. You can also take your
children to R rated films for example, they just can't go by themselves. The
same concept applies to video games - you can buy your 11 year old Grand Theft
Auto, they can't buy it for their self. It's not illegal for children to
listen to music with vulgar lyrics, they just can't buy it typically.

~~~
inerte
Thought so too, but that's not their ToS, unless I missed some part (didn't
read the whole thing and just scanned for age-related sections):
[https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms](https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms)

> In any case, you affirm that you are over the age of 13, as the Service is
> not intended for children under 13. If you are under 13 years of age, then
> please do not use the Service. There are lots of other great web sites for
> you. Talk to your parents about what sites are appropriate for you.

~~~
adventured
I read the ToS before posting that. It's overruled by the fact that the adult
can utilize the service and legally YouTube can't force a parent to remove
their child from the room while said parent is utilizing YouTube. It's
perfectly legal and does not violate the ToS. The parent is using YouTube, the
ToS applies to them and not the child.

It is that simple. It would be laughed out of court on any challenge as an
issue.

You can also use thousands of other popular sites that are 13 age restricted
while in the presence of your children.

~~~
inerte
I don’t think we’re talking about a parent using with an under 13 in the room,
but an actual under 13 using.

Does YouTube TOS allow a six year old use its service directly? Actually
interact with the service and not passively watch an adult do it?

