The State of Youtube.

[Gulrok]

I'm sure there are other members who are very big into YouTube like I am. Big into watching, and uploading. YouTube for me has replaced conventional television.

News for me is now learned from first person accounts of those who upload around their area, and what happens. Small factual clips are taken and you're able to pick and choose what you watch. I personally hate the political bias that every news place has. I love getting facts straight from the source. Skip all the nonsense and bullshit that the news adds in.

Anyway, .... YouTube has recently been demonetizing entire YouTube channels that don't come across as "family friendly" content. Conservative like ideal channels have taken an enormous hit. Primarily gun channels. People that review guns, touch them, or even have them in their videos are effected.

The main reason stems from advertisers that are pulling their advertisements off of YouTube because their advertisements are being placed on videos by an algorithm, and the content that is being shown doesn't align with the ideals of their company.

YouTube responded with mass-demonetization mid-late 2016. Apparently they've hit even harder in this last month by doing a huge target on gun-related channels... or channels featuring guns.

Now personally I'm all for advertisers picking and choosing what they will and will not want to advertise on. YouTube in some instances has taken it upon themselves to demonetize the video altogether rather than only allowing select ads to run on videos of such content.

I think if I was a knife maker, I might want to advertise on those gun videos, and less on videos of Casey Neistat who is popular youtube democrat.

Anyway... just informing on whats happening.

Also here is a shameless link to my YouTube Channel. Please Sub!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb48nbUR9xK6ozbATx1aZiA

 

[Gulrok]

For the record, I'm no big youtuber. The youtube channel I linked has about 34,000 views, and 60ish subscribers, and my older youtube channel has 200,000 or so views, and about 330 subscribers. YouTubers who stray away from some content will not notice any change. However others who mix it in to give a broader range of content will be hit the hardest.

 

[tothemax93]

I'm on you tube a lot, and I've been hearing the same thing from a lot of the guys I watch. strange stuff about notifications, people being unsubscribed, demonetizing, Just like your saying. I have a feeling it's gonna get worse.

 

[Kronx]

I'm on YouTube constantly and none of this is really that surprising. Their pay model always seemed unsustainable to me. Then factor in it's a digital media that is probably rampant with people exploiting that pay model (ie using bots to boost up subs/views/likes/etc) -- it's probably a nightmare of a problem they're trying to develop a system around. I know Twitter also faces similar challenges.

And so imagine a scenario where YouTube is paying out a lot of money to a content creator that may have some bot accounts subscribed. Just like TV, popular YouTube channels are going to have bigger costs if advertisers want advertise on them. But if advertisers dont see a return on that investment, and they wouldnt because bots aren't going to buy their products, then they're going to stop wasting their money on advertising.

So looking at it from that perspective, it wouldn't be crazy to assume YouTube isn't gonna slow down how they cut their checks and also try different ways to combat the bot/automation exploitation problem. I think that's another reason YouTube keeps pushing YouTube red more and more... bot's aren't going to sign up for a subscription fee.

But I can understand why some content creators are upset. That's their job... that's their source of income. I can only imagine how frustrating it is right now. And like tothemax93 said -- it probably isn't going to get much better. But I look all sorts of different content (guns, gaming, motorcycles, bushcraft, cooking, science, history, etc) and I've see people from all different areas mention their problems with these changes.