
YouTube Advertiser Meltdown: An Opportunity for Startups - renegadesensei
https://righteousruminations.blogspot.com/2017/04/startup-opportunity-youtube-advertiser.html
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DavidSJ
_Strictly speaking it isn 't censorship when Youtube removes a channel for
being politically too extreme._

Not to distract from the larger point, but this isn't true. The definition of
censorship says nothing about the government being the one suppressing the
content.

~~~
gwright
Discussion is terribly confused when 'censorship' is interpreted in this
general sense. Censorship enforced by the state is something distinctly
different from editorial control exercised by private entities. When the
single word can represent either concept (and other related concepts)
ambiguity and confusion isn't far behind.

I used to argue that 'censorship' should be interpreted as something done by
governments and enforced by the legal system but that battle has been lost.
Now the unqualified 'censorship' can mean just about any sort of content
restrictions and as such is almost useless in its unqualified form.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Discussion is terribly confused when 'censorship' is interpreted in this
> general sense.

It's the original sense.

> Censorship enforced by the state is something distinctly different from
> editorial control exercised by private entities.

Yes, government censorship is different in important ways than censorship by a
publishing or distributing entity, but both are censorship (and they are also
similar in important ways.)

> When the single word can represent either concept (and other related
> concepts) ambiguity and confusion isn't far behind.

Heavy water is different from drinking water in some quite important ways, but
its not at all a problem that both are identified with the word "water",
because we can use more than one word when the differentiating features are
important to the discussion.

> I used to argue that 'censorship' should be interpreted as something done by
> governments and enforced by the legal system but that battle has been lost.

That battle was lost centuries ago. What the _censor librorum_ does in
granting, or denying, the _nihil obstat_ has always been censorship, even
where the Catholic Church is not an established Church and so is in now way
part of the government.

> Now the unqualified 'censorship' can mean just about any sort of content
> restrictions and as such is almost useless in its unqualified form.

It has pretty much always meant that, and just because the general sense of
censorship is not something you are interested in talking about doesn't mean
it's not useful.

~~~
gwright
I'm willing to concede that that 'censorship' has always been an expansive
term. Perhaps my perspective is just a personal idiosyncrasy.

But that is really ancillary to my point that in order to communicate clearly
about the public policy issues involved it is important to avoid the generic
use of the term because that obfuscates the arguments making it harder to
explore the issues.

In particular I think that in the US context, 1st Amendment proscriptions
regarding freedom of speech and of the press are often implicitly assumed to
be reasons why Google, for example, shouldn't be able to have a restrictive
editorial policy. The negative aspects of censorship in the 1st Amendment
sense are misleadingly attached to censorship in the editorial sense.

Sure it is possible to talk about 'censorship' in the 'general sense' but that
is uninteresting to me and I would argue isn't very helpful in understanding
the distinct aspects of different types of 'censorship'.

~~~
hueving
>The negative aspects of censorship in the 1st Amendment sense are
misleadingly attached to censorship in the editorial sense.

The very presence of anti-censorship in the 1st amendment is the reason many
people in the US get outraged when companies censor views. They view free
speech as a fundamental right, even though the 1st amendment only applies to
the government.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The very presence of anti-censorship in the 1st amendment is the reason many
> people in the US get outraged when companies censor views.

No, it's not. The value of free expression and the concept of the marketplace
of ideas to which it is essential predates and goes beyond the 1st Amendment.
The 1st Amendment isn't the cause, it's a product of the same cause.

Though it's a lot trickier to _apply_ the concept to private censorship, which
is both, in one sense, an exercise of the right of free speech and,
potentially, a restriction on it in some cases. Government censorship is a lot
more of a clear issue (even if there are issues of drawing the precise
boundary.)

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geff82
I think there still is a big opportunity for ad companies that try to actually
show stuff the user might interested in. Let me explain.

Let's say you are an amateur astronomer, like me. You have subscribed to a
paper magazine about astronomy, like me. If, again, you are like me, then you
also read the magazine for the ads in it. Ads showing new telescopes, ads
talking about astronomy expeditions, ads for the astronomy club. It is
advertisement on the one hand, but still relevant information for my hobby.
The companies that buy ads for a longer period burn their brand into my brain,
in the "relevant" section of it.

Now let's talk about how this would be on the web. When I visit a site about
astronomy, I can expect the ads to show: flight offers for the business trip I
recently googled. SAS software because I recently did a certification with
them and visited their website. Amazon ads showing me business books I
recently searched there. But what they often do not show: relevant, juicy
astronomy related ads. And when they do, the ad is gone the next time I
refresh the page replaced by something else. The ads on the web are most often
totally out of context. They might be shown to you because of your recorded
behavior before, but still they are totally irrelevant.

Probably running an ad network with great ads would be much more manual work
than running the next past-behavior based network that tries to mine user data
for new ideas. But at least for special interest sites, it could be a gold
mine.

~~~
gregmac
> flight offers for the business trip I recently googled. SAS software because
> I recently did a certification with them and visited their website. Amazon
> ads showing me business books I recently searched there.

Really? My experience is much more:

Hotels/flights to a place I went to weeks/months ago and am not planning on
going to again.

Ads asking me to sign up for a service I am signed up to.

Amazon ads for something I just purchased (often the exact thing I purchased).
From Amazon. For weeks.

~~~
piva00
I really don't get this model of travel ads... I have the same experience,
even with what I consider "good" travel sites like Hipmunk: I went to the US
once in 2015 on vacations, to this day I still get the occasional spam e-mail
telling me about good offers to this or that airport that I just used as a
connecting point on my trip and I don't ever plan on going back.

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beezischillin
It's a weird thing because this seems to be the culmination of YouTube, as a
platform, becoming a worse place consistently for content creators. This ad-
hysteria seems to have just accelerated the process to its (yet unknown)
logical conclusion. I think a lot of content creators didn't look for
alternatives to YT as a platform because they've been a pretty alright place
for free speech (most of the time -- even during this debacle!), but it's been
having some pretty severe issues over the years (a lot of which are caused by
YouTube's absolute refusal to deal with people personally).

It's also a weird situation, because free video sharing on the Internet is not
really a profitable line of business when it exists in a way as liberal as
YouTube is (Vimeo, for example is limited for free users, etc.) so there are
not as many long term, similarly equipped alternatives to it, at least as of
now.

~~~
jopsen
Let's not forget that presence on YouTube likely increases viewer retention.
Being part of a channel eco-system where viewers subscribe to multiple
channels gives higher retention for all channels.

Note. YT did cultivate an entire market of independent media published as
subscribe-able channels of videos. It's no surprise moving is hard.

------
jsonne
This is such a manufactured controversy. Most modern advertisements are based
around audience rather than content. If brands are so uncomfortable with the
content their customers are consuming perhaps they should consider either new
customers or new products.

~~~
flukus
On that note, how much neo-nazi propaganda would I have to watch in order for
advertisers to avoid me?

~~~
syrrim
They never would. Unless _somebody_ decided to make public that they were
advertising to neo-nazis. Only then do they have to go into damage control.

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627467
Much prefer decent native/immutable adversiting. I don't care for 'smart' ads.
I don't want ads following me around the web, because they tend to advertise
things that either I already know/have or decided that I don't care for.
That's how 'smart' algorithmic advertising has been working. I never got
influenced into clicking that Amazon product ad that followed me through
dozens websites or that crowdufing product that's on Twitter/Facebook. If a
brand wants to reach me, they better find a good narrative and publisher that
gets me to manage the relationship. Not plant some cookie and try to guess my
taste based on pages I've been to.

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jasonkostempski
Here's an idea, advertisers directly pay the content creators they don't have
a problem with to show ads natively in their content at a point they both
agree is acceptable. And there could be a contract between the 2 parties that
covers any concerns either might have.

~~~
gcb0
But... But... I want to advertise for peanuts. I don't want to pay premium
publisher prices!

Give me premium content around my ads for free! now!

/sarcasm.

This is a solved problem. The only people complaining are the ones that want
the cake and eat it too.

There is Zero opportunity here. Because 100% of your market is already served
by premium publishers.

~~~
rtpg
OK so now content creators have to go out there and get ads from companies.

Or... they'll find some ad aggregator, and you're basically back to step one!

~~~
thanksgiving
Maybe you ought to be able to say "I only want to bid on PewDiePie videos​" or
a whitelist of approved channels. Is that possible now?

~~~
Androider
That would be fantastic. Like another post in the thread mentioned, if I'm
selling telescopes I'd only want to show those ads in front of astronomy
videos. Being able to whitelist specific channels (say, DeepSkyVideos and 60
Symbols) or even videos would open up a whole new long tail ad market and
allow very low friction "partnering" between content creators and relevant
advertisers.

------
autokad
> "Perhaps what we need is a browser plugin with a wallet that allows for
> microtransactions. It could charge a user a penny for every page load on a
> creator's blog"

this sounds like a terrible idea. i imagine being directed to pages that tick
me a penny, or leaving a browser tab open for months (i do that) without
looking at it but getting ticked for refreshes.

or even worse, viruses that try to log visits to pages trying to take pennies
from you hopping you dont notice. and who is going to try and fight a 1 penny
fraud?

even in the best circumstances, i wouldn't want to revisit someones page for
fear that ill get charged but the content might not be that interesting or
original

------
Udo
_> 1\. A smarter advertising-based model._

That would be the wrong lesson to take away here. By and large, ads are a scam
on many levels, and it's not at all clear how that could change. Individual
deals between content producers and companies seem like the sanest
alternative, but it's obvious how that's not an option for the internet at
large.

 _> 2\. A model that does not rely on advertising._

Ads are a _symptom_ of what brought non-corporate Youtube content down, but
it's not the root cause. Youtube and its parent company will always be
susceptible to repeats and variations of the WSJ attack, and Youtube didn't
exactly have a respectful relationship with their content creators to begin
with. "Controversial" content such as LGBT-focused videos doesn't just get
less ads, it gets suppressed by YT in other ways designed to prevent
discoverability.

 _Siloization_ is the disease.

Any crisis is an opportunity for startups. The larger point here is a wakeup
call about the structure of the web. There are still opportunities to change
this, but companies and governments are fast at work changing that. The time
would be now.

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theartfuldodger
eh, it's not a real problem to solve, the large new buyers in the digital
video space just are avoiding the complexity of intentional targeting and
placements. The measly 100k-250k I spend on video ads on YouTube can be
monitored and controlled to appear exactly where necessary. The large media
buyers just didn't feel like doing the work.

------
Buge
It mentions "removing a channel" and "banning unpopular opinions". But that's
not necessary to appease advertisers. You just need to unmonetize those
videos. And that's what Youtube's been doing as far as I know.

------
RichardHeart
I've lost lots of money with Youtube ads sending me children trying to learn
their abc's. Lot's and lots of children searching for cartoons landing on my
channel against my geo/language/age/interest filters.

A few hours on the phone with their Indian tech support got me only false
promises of call backs and refunds.

I'm unable to reach intelligent/useful person at google adwords tech support.
Which is terrible, because I think that's where most of their revenue comes
from?

------
norea-armozel
I don't get why so many folks thought Google was going to give them a free
pass forever when it comes to various touchy subjects. Google depends on
advertisers to pay its bills and make profit for its shareholders. If that
means Youtube becomes more vanilla than vanilla then that's what will happen.
It's not an issue of left/right political spectrum as it is more to do with
the fear of alienating their clients (the advertisers) who aren't the
consumers or people who make videos on Youtube. So if content creators want to
take this an opportunity to find a better distribution and payment scheme I
think that would be wise rather than trying to change the beast that is Google
because when it comes down to your content Google can easily replace it with
the generic PBS channel videos or even hire their own content creators to
replace you at a discount.

------
visarga
Problem with ads is that we don't want to buy from them, we want to search and
evaluate products instead. I never buy anything online unless I test both the
seller and the product for bad reviews. Ads are just too risky to buy from. I
need to trust before I buy, and it's silly to keep watching ads when I know I
am not going to buy anything from them.

~~~
Neliquat
Most ads are 'impressions' not primary sales drivers now.

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Mrtierne
It's more growing pains. Advertisers are starting to better understand the
digital space so will hopefully concentrate their efforts and dollars on those
creating premium video (like Kurzgesagt). Youtube could help the case by
adjusting their recommendation algorithms ... watch one weird video and your
recs are ruined.

~~~
Neliquat
Yup, i watched one frikkin video game playthru and now my suggestions are all
greasy pewdiepie ripoffs yelling into the mic for hours. Even seemingly normal
selections turn out to be video games, which I have precious little interest
in. I would pay cash for a way to filter all the little shits. The top 10 vids
are almost as bad.

------
bluetwo
I, for one, love the idea of advertisers showing some backbone.

About freaking time.

------
renegadesensei
Hey, this is my first time being on the front page so long. Cool. Thanks for
all the great comments, dudes.

------
jbob2000
This could just be a UI problem. When you see an ad on YouTube, it's right
under the video's title, so there's some subconscious association from the
video's content to the content in the ad.

What if YouTube ads worked more like TV commercials, where you're taking
explicitly out of the content (maybe to another page to view the ad?), and
then returned to the video? Would this ease advertiser's concerns about
placement?

~~~
threeseed
It seems like you're advocating pop up/under advertising which is universally
hated.

People aren't on YouTube to watch ads they are there to watch videos. The ads
need to be as unobtrusive as possible. The current approach is the only
solution.

~~~
greglindahl
I see pre-roll ads on YouTube, is that what you mean by the 'current
approach'?

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kusmi
An AI trained to identify extremist video content for an automated ad to video
pairing system? I've read enough sci-fi to know where this is going.

------
Lagged2Death
_Many channels are seeing their revenues plummet as big companies pull their
ads out of fear they will be shown in more controversial videos ... Strictly
speaking it isn 't censorship when Youtube removes a channel for being
politically too extreme._

Ugh. It's not _remotely_ censorship to stop funding something. You don't have
any _obligation_ to _pay_ me to jabber in front of a camera, and neither does
anyone else. Putting the distinct ideas of "refusing to pay for X" and
"censorship of X" in such proximity is either the result of confusion or a
deliberate attempt at emotional Roveian conflation.

The linked Guardian article makes no mention of YouTube removing either videos
or channels. If that's not happening, then whatever _is_ happening isn't even
_similar to_ censorship. Just because the Guardian author throws the term
around so casually doesn't make it _true_.

 _...we should ask ourselves how comfortable we are with large corporations
essentially setting the terms of acceptable political discourse by pressuring
media platforms into banning unpopular opinions._

Back in the 1970s, when video in America was dominated by three huge networks,
an argument like this would have made a glimmer of sense: if advertisers
pulled out of a program en masse, the network management would cancel the show
in search of something more profitable, and the attitudes or opinions the
program espoused might not be represented on television at all anymore.

But the internet isn't like that. YouTube isn't like that. You can keep making
your show, your blog, your own personal website, etc., regardless of what the
advertisers do. There is no panel of bean counters controlling access to
limited, valuable airwaves, because the "airwaves" are unbounded in breadth
and unmoored from time. One might argue that this is the principal, signature
difference between broadcast television and internet video.

Even if YouTube was deleting videos outright, they're hardly the only way to
share videos online. They simply aren't _capable_ of "banning unpopular
opinions" in any effective general way.

It's a little tough to take "righteous" "Wiseman's" internet-censorship-based
startup ideas seriously when 1) he doesn't seem to understand what censorship
is 2) he doesn't seem to understand important differences between the internet
and older media systems.

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vosper
OT: does blogspot look awful on iPhone for everyone else? I have to use the
"request desktop site" feature in Safari. I see even official Google posts on
blogspot so I would have thought they would make it work...

------
chrisco255
Steem is an interesting concept around rewarding content creators through
blockchain and cryptocurrency technology:
[https://steem.io/](https://steem.io/)

~~~
Neliquat
Good thing they wont get confused by any other huge online services with a
similar name... oh wait... Seriously though, wtf were they thinking?

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shams93
Is it really censorship or are we seeing the effects of the end of net
neutrality with 0 rated services. I'm wondering whether advertisers are using
placement as an excuse to try to weasel out of long term ad contracts if
youtube's numbers are taking a huge hit to 0 rated video services favored by
the carriers? Would you want your ad dollars trapped in a service in decline
with long term contracts or try to find some way to get out of it even if its
some excuse about a couple ad placements to find a way to break the contract
and free those ad dollars for 0 rated carrier favored services?

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BillyParadise
So... Patreon.

