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YouTube creators are highly undervalued. Many of them are highly influential amongst their viewers and have more views than your average mid-tier TV show. Yout

by LeonM 9y ago

YouTube creators are highly undervalued. Many of them are highly influential amongst their viewers and have more views than your average mid-tier TV show. Youtube also offers much better insight in the audience than TV channels ever can achieve. And yet, the content creators need to rely on Patreon and selling merchandise to pay for their expenses. I'm not saying all of them are struggling, in some niches (for example cosmetics) YouTube creators are known to make a pretty hefty buck in sponsorship deals, but the majority is highly undervalued. Alejandro Salomon recently talked about this in his podcast [1], since this phenomenon is especially true in the automotive sector. [1] https://youtu.be/fcIgvYzSFm4?t=1936 https://youtu.be/fcIgvYzSFm4?t=1936 edit: typo

komali2 9y ago
>undervalued I think this is arguable based on the meaning of "value." For example, what I would say are the "highest value" channels, i.e. educational, review, informational etc are not getting as much payout as "Spiderman and Elsa Sit On Eachother's Heads" or "man blows out his microphone screaming at minecraft" videos. I mean, capitalism, yea, I get it, people like Spiderman and Elsa more than learning about stuff.
- kbenson 9y ago
  I think it's fairly obvious that in a discussion about advertising, and how they are feeling the pinch of advertisers leaving youtube, in this discussion value is based on advertisers, since they are the ones paying. This interpretation seems to be supported by the supporting statements included. Their value to you might be entirely different.
- Namrog84 9y ago
  True but there are likely a few channels or videos that bring new users to the platform and then view other content and yet that creator only gets what that user viewed on their video. Not the fact that they likely brought a lot of views to the platform (rise in water lifts all hosts scenario) I highly suspect if you look at what all the content creators and people receive via ads. Plus overhead of running YouTube. They are likely making tons more money in profit when main content creators are getting the short stick.
- gotchange 9y ago
  These questionable material in your opinion could have more entertainment value than other those educational and scientific material on YT and entertainment is more lucrative for advertisers than other genres. This is a value judgement and therefore it's subjective and function of personal preferences.
- SilasX 9y ago
  Agreed. When I think of "goods that are underproduced relative to the social optimum due to how little of the value the producer is able to capture", youtube stars are nowhere near that list.
- puranjay 9y ago
  Well, I noticed that Dr. Jordan Peterson is getting like $32k in Patreon every month, so there's that.
Taylor_OD 9y ago
Yes. Highly Undervalued. I look forward to the weekly videos from my favorite Youtubers almost as much as my favorite big budget HBO/TV shows. I'm fairly young (24) but I'm not exactly the audience that most people picture when they think of people who are really into Youtube.
- stupidhn 9y ago
  >Yes. Highly Undervalued. I look forward to the weekly videos from my favorite Youtubers almost as much as my favorite big budget HBO/TV shows. How much of a monthly contribution are you making to the content creator?
  - wcfields 9y ago
    Me viewing it along with the advertisements
    - stupidhn 9y ago
      This is nothing against you, I do it too: I find it hard to reconcile people arguing that they love content, and how it's "undervalued" on one hand, then stating that they pay <$1 for the product.
      - electroly 9y ago
        There's nothing to reconcile. "Spot the hypocrite" is just a form of ad-hominem attack and has no place here. Arguments stand on their own merits. If it's true that YouTube creators are undervalued, then it's still true even if the person who said it doesn't pay at all.
  - jerf 9y ago
    I'm not Taylor_OD, but Patreon's currently running me about $70/month, with a non-trivial fraction of that being Youtube shows. Having occasionally been pitching Patreon to the point that I almost feel like I'm shilling it, I do at least put my money where my mouth is.
noobermin 9y ago
Youtube created a place where thousands of content creators were free to produce and generate a following while making a decent living. The issue of course is once Youtube fell, that ecosystem felt the pinch. Once again, we are seeing yet another issue with having a monopoly in a market. People are spinning this as either incompetence of Youtube or the sheepish fears of advertizers, but I think the real story here is this serves as a good example when there isn't competition and there are a lack of alternate providers.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Yup, and this is the fundamental challenge Youtube has yet to overcome. Why is it worth $40,000 for a company to run a commercial on a TV show with half a million viewers but only $1,000 to spend on rolling their add before a Youtube video with half a million views? There is the temporal bit, a TV show ad hits all viewers at the same time and on a particular date so you can put time specific information in it. And there is a diffusion bit, you can spend $40,000 for your ad across all videos that are rolling with > 1M subscribers so your ad money hits a bunch of different people rather than one person. If Google could convince advertisers to pay more for advertising, they could compensate their content creators more. But they can't so they don't.
- rtkwe 9y ago
  There's also ad effectiveness to toss more variables into the mix. There's also the huge difference in the amount of possible content and time slots for a youtube vs a TV ad. There's a very limited amount of commercial time available in primetime popular shows vs the huge number of videos uploaded each day to youtube.
  - afarrell 9y ago
    I jist wish I could tell youtube "I've seen this ad more than 200 times. I am well aware that if I ever want to lose a bunch of money and feel shitty about myself, I can download Trading212. Please sell me different things." Then again, I can't convince gmail that I'm not interested in local singles, despite the fact that 70% of my emails are sent to another gmail user that I share bunches of calendar events with.
    - doubleplusgood 9y ago
      If you're logged in, you can blacklist specific topics on Google's Ad Settings page[0] quite easily (you can also turn off tailored ads completely). https://www.google.com/settings/ads/ https://www.google.com/settings/ads/
    - daemin 9y ago
      So the ad has worked, in that it has raised awareness and you know of the product. For the record I do find those annoying, but I often let them roll so the content creator gets that cash. What I do find annoying are the really long ads, ones that are several minutes long and are played before a short several minute video.
stcredzero 9y ago
YouTube creators are highly undervalued. How far away are we from direct micropayments to creators, as envisioned by Scott McCloud? http://www.scottmccloud.com/3-home/essays/2003-09-micros/micros.html http://www.scottmccloud.com/3-home/essays/2003-09-micros/mic... Right now, YouTube has to deal with advertisers on behalf of its creators, which means the perverse incentives of advertisers leak through and affect YouTube's relationship with its creators. YouTube could seek to outsource the advertiser relationship to the "Networks" that aggregate YouTube creators. There could be a model where you have independent creators that thrive off of micropayments, while larger channels could be aggregated by networks which deal with the advertisers. Right now, Patreon is great, but the friction is still a bit too high.
- derefr 9y ago
  Micropayments are hard in general, because you have to solve a problem "for everybody" without creating a single monopoly ad-network-alike corporation to handle the money in the process. But they can be solved in the specific case. Spotify is basically micropayments: you pay a subscription, the site tracks plays, and then the site reimburses content creators proportionally to their plays. I feel like you could create a "Youtube killer" that used the Spotify system pretty easily. But, of course, you would need people to actually pay a subscription. Youtube Red doesn't seem to be doing very well. (That might just be because people expect Youtube content to be free, though. It might be different if all the content is behind the subscription paywall from the start.) Either way, you'll lose Youtube's viral aspect, that comes down to millions of ten-year-olds with tons of time and no money spreading your content.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    (That might just be because people expect Youtube content to be free, though. It might be different if all the content is behind the subscription paywall from the start.) Either way, you'll lose Youtube's viral aspect, that comes down to millions of ten-year-olds with tons of time and no money spreading your content. You can have advertiser-driven content for ten-year-olds and paywalled content for people who have money.
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
If you want to see a really crisp example of this it's with food shows. Look at this disparity: "In 2015, more than 400,000 people on average are watching Food Network at some point during the day." [1] Then check out Nerdy Nummies (a YT channel I found out b/c my 6yo loves it). [2] which is regularly breaking 1M views per episode, has 8+Million subscribers and lifetime has generated 1,949,110,170 views for YouTube [3] And all of those numbers in a demographic that doesn't even realize the Food Network exists, with a pittance of the resources, no outside marketing and compensated a fraction as well. 1 - http://brandongaille.com/40-captivating-food-network-demographics/ http://brandongaille.com/40-captivating-food-network-demogra... 2 - https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino 3 - https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino/about https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino/about
- johnnydoe9 9y ago
  Even the more niche creators are getting pretty good attention, I've been watching Binging With Babish [1] and he recreates dishes seen on movies and tv shows. They taste bad mostly so he fixes them. Has been getting good amount of views consistently. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/user/bgfilms/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/bgfilms/videos
  - michaelbuckbee 9y ago
    A great example. He has a Patreon [1] that's making him $6k / month as he's getting pretty near 1M views per video. 1 - https://www.patreon.com/bingingwithbabish https://www.patreon.com/bingingwithbabish
- Pulcinella 9y ago
  How "valuable" is a viewer of YouTube channel like that versus a viewer of the food network. For example, I've heard that many viewers of various toy unboxing videos are young children. I can't imagine most advertisers want to pay money only to have their ad viewed by somebody with basically no disposable income. Edit: My comment was not about advertising to children directly. I was using that as an example. I'm not sure if a view on YouTube has the same value as a view in more traditional media (e.g. Television).
jasonkostempski 9y ago
I feel like YouTubers of this caliber should have a more direct relationship with YouTube and the advertisers. They should be able to agree to set specific points in videos for commercial breaks and have the commercial steam directly as part of the main content to avoid ad blocking.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  For this to work fully, you'd also have to get rid of the ability to seek the video.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    It would help, but you don't have to....more and more people are treating YouTube like TV - I watch on my TV via Chromecast, laying down on the couch, if a commercial comes on, I'm not getting up to skip it, first because I'm too lazy, and second because a 30 second commercial now and then seems perfectly reasonable compared to the alternative.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      A wireless mouse will relieve you of the need to get up.
  - gkop 9y ago
    Even using DASH?
  - jasonkostempski 9y ago
    It shouldn't work fully, the preference and power ads are given now is already way too much, which is why everyone is trying so hard to block them. Besides, there are things that can be done, such as, if the user seeks past a commercial point, they get a commercial and then the normal content resumes. I'm sure cable providers would love this evil power for their DVRs too but even normal people would flip out over that.
stuffedBelly 9y ago
I recently started seeing some great YouTube musicians (Davie504, Pellek, etc) have to make videos to promote their Patreon due to sharp decline of revenue and I feel bad for them. Music production, especially for indie musicians, is very expensive (equipments, DAW plugins, hiring people to mix and master, etc). It's a very sad situation and a massive discouragement for YouTubers to keep up their video quality, in a long run, bad for YouTube as a content distribution platform.
pjc50 9y ago
Youtube creators are also highly oversupplied. :(

by LeonM 9y ago

komali2 9y ago

>undervalued I think this is arguable based on the meaning of "value." For example, what I would say are the "highest value" channels, i.e. educational, review, informational etc are not getting as much payout as "Spiderman and Elsa Sit On Eachother's Heads" or "man blows out his microphone screaming at minecraft" videos. I mean, capitalism, yea, I get it, people like Spiderman and Elsa more than learning about stuff.

kbenson 9y ago
I think it's fairly obvious that in a discussion about advertising, and how they are feeling the pinch of advertisers leaving youtube, in this discussion value is based on advertisers, since they are the ones paying. This interpretation seems to be supported by the supporting statements included. Their value to you might be entirely different.
Namrog84 9y ago
True but there are likely a few channels or videos that bring new users to the platform and then view other content and yet that creator only gets what that user viewed on their video. Not the fact that they likely brought a lot of views to the platform (rise in water lifts all hosts scenario) I highly suspect if you look at what all the content creators and people receive via ads. Plus overhead of running YouTube. They are likely making tons more money in profit when main content creators are getting the short stick.
gotchange 9y ago
These questionable material in your opinion could have more entertainment value than other those educational and scientific material on YT and entertainment is more lucrative for advertisers than other genres. This is a value judgement and therefore it's subjective and function of personal preferences.
SilasX 9y ago
Agreed. When I think of "goods that are underproduced relative to the social optimum due to how little of the value the producer is able to capture", youtube stars are nowhere near that list.
puranjay 9y ago
Well, I noticed that Dr. Jordan Peterson is getting like $32k in Patreon every month, so there's that.

Taylor_OD 9y ago

Yes. Highly Undervalued. I look forward to the weekly videos from my favorite Youtubers almost as much as my favorite big budget HBO/TV shows. I'm fairly young (24) but I'm not exactly the audience that most people picture when they think of people who are really into Youtube.

stupidhn 9y ago
>Yes. Highly Undervalued. I look forward to the weekly videos from my favorite Youtubers almost as much as my favorite big budget HBO/TV shows. How much of a monthly contribution are you making to the content creator?
- wcfields 9y ago
  Me viewing it along with the advertisements
  - stupidhn 9y ago
    This is nothing against you, I do it too: I find it hard to reconcile people arguing that they love content, and how it's "undervalued" on one hand, then stating that they pay <$1 for the product.
    - electroly 9y ago
      There's nothing to reconcile. "Spot the hypocrite" is just a form of ad-hominem attack and has no place here. Arguments stand on their own merits. If it's true that YouTube creators are undervalued, then it's still true even if the person who said it doesn't pay at all.
- jerf 9y ago
  I'm not Taylor_OD, but Patreon's currently running me about $70/month, with a non-trivial fraction of that being Youtube shows. Having occasionally been pitching Patreon to the point that I almost feel like I'm shilling it, I do at least put my money where my mouth is.

noobermin 9y ago

Youtube created a place where thousands of content creators were free to produce and generate a following while making a decent living. The issue of course is once Youtube fell, that ecosystem felt the pinch. Once again, we are seeing yet another issue with having a monopoly in a market. People are spinning this as either incompetence of Youtube or the sheepish fears of advertizers, but I think the real story here is this serves as a good example when there isn't competition and there are a lack of alternate providers.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

Yup, and this is the fundamental challenge Youtube has yet to overcome. Why is it worth $40,000 for a company to run a commercial on a TV show with half a million viewers but only $1,000 to spend on rolling their add before a Youtube video with half a million views? There is the temporal bit, a TV show ad hits all viewers at the same time and on a particular date so you can put time specific information in it. And there is a diffusion bit, you can spend $40,000 for your ad across all videos that are rolling with > 1M subscribers so your ad money hits a bunch of different people rather than one person. If Google could convince advertisers to pay more for advertising, they could compensate their content creators more. But they can't so they don't.

rtkwe 9y ago
There's also ad effectiveness to toss more variables into the mix. There's also the huge difference in the amount of possible content and time slots for a youtube vs a TV ad. There's a very limited amount of commercial time available in primetime popular shows vs the huge number of videos uploaded each day to youtube.
- afarrell 9y ago
  I jist wish I could tell youtube "I've seen this ad more than 200 times. I am well aware that if I ever want to lose a bunch of money and feel shitty about myself, I can download Trading212. Please sell me different things." Then again, I can't convince gmail that I'm not interested in local singles, despite the fact that 70% of my emails are sent to another gmail user that I share bunches of calendar events with.
  - doubleplusgood 9y ago
    If you're logged in, you can blacklist specific topics on Google's Ad Settings page[0] quite easily (you can also turn off tailored ads completely). https://www.google.com/settings/ads/ https://www.google.com/settings/ads/
  - daemin 9y ago
    So the ad has worked, in that it has raised awareness and you know of the product. For the record I do find those annoying, but I often let them roll so the content creator gets that cash. What I do find annoying are the really long ads, ones that are several minutes long and are played before a short several minute video.

stcredzero 9y ago

YouTube creators are highly undervalued. How far away are we from direct micropayments to creators, as envisioned by Scott McCloud? http://www.scottmccloud.com/3-home/essays/2003-09-micros/micros.html http://www.scottmccloud.com/3-home/essays/2003-09-micros/mic... Right now, YouTube has to deal with advertisers on behalf of its creators, which means the perverse incentives of advertisers leak through and affect YouTube's relationship with its creators. YouTube could seek to outsource the advertiser relationship to the "Networks" that aggregate YouTube creators. There could be a model where you have independent creators that thrive off of micropayments, while larger channels could be aggregated by networks which deal with the advertisers. Right now, Patreon is great, but the friction is still a bit too high.

derefr 9y ago
Micropayments are hard in general, because you have to solve a problem "for everybody" without creating a single monopoly ad-network-alike corporation to handle the money in the process. But they can be solved in the specific case. Spotify is basically micropayments: you pay a subscription, the site tracks plays, and then the site reimburses content creators proportionally to their plays. I feel like you could create a "Youtube killer" that used the Spotify system pretty easily. But, of course, you would need people to actually pay a subscription. Youtube Red doesn't seem to be doing very well. (That might just be because people expect Youtube content to be free, though. It might be different if all the content is behind the subscription paywall from the start.) Either way, you'll lose Youtube's viral aspect, that comes down to millions of ten-year-olds with tons of time and no money spreading your content.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  (That might just be because people expect Youtube content to be free, though. It might be different if all the content is behind the subscription paywall from the start.) Either way, you'll lose Youtube's viral aspect, that comes down to millions of ten-year-olds with tons of time and no money spreading your content. You can have advertiser-driven content for ten-year-olds and paywalled content for people who have money.

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

If you want to see a really crisp example of this it's with food shows. Look at this disparity: "In 2015, more than 400,000 people on average are watching Food Network at some point during the day." [1] Then check out Nerdy Nummies (a YT channel I found out b/c my 6yo loves it). [2] which is regularly breaking 1M views per episode, has 8+Million subscribers and lifetime has generated 1,949,110,170 views for YouTube [3] And all of those numbers in a demographic that doesn't even realize the Food Network exists, with a pittance of the resources, no outside marketing and compensated a fraction as well. 1 - http://brandongaille.com/40-captivating-food-network-demographics/ http://brandongaille.com/40-captivating-food-network-demogra... 2 - https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino 3 - https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino/about https://www.youtube.com/user/RosannaPansino/about

johnnydoe9 9y ago
Even the more niche creators are getting pretty good attention, I've been watching Binging With Babish [1] and he recreates dishes seen on movies and tv shows. They taste bad mostly so he fixes them. Has been getting good amount of views consistently. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/user/bgfilms/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/bgfilms/videos
- michaelbuckbee 9y ago
  A great example. He has a Patreon [1] that's making him $6k / month as he's getting pretty near 1M views per video. 1 - https://www.patreon.com/bingingwithbabish https://www.patreon.com/bingingwithbabish
Pulcinella 9y ago
How "valuable" is a viewer of YouTube channel like that versus a viewer of the food network. For example, I've heard that many viewers of various toy unboxing videos are young children. I can't imagine most advertisers want to pay money only to have their ad viewed by somebody with basically no disposable income. Edit: My comment was not about advertising to children directly. I was using that as an example. I'm not sure if a view on YouTube has the same value as a view in more traditional media (e.g. Television).

jasonkostempski 9y ago

I feel like YouTubers of this caliber should have a more direct relationship with YouTube and the advertisers. They should be able to agree to set specific points in videos for commercial breaks and have the commercial steam directly as part of the main content to avoid ad blocking.

thaumasiotes 9y ago
For this to work fully, you'd also have to get rid of the ability to seek the video.
- mistermann 9y ago
  It would help, but you don't have to....more and more people are treating YouTube like TV - I watch on my TV via Chromecast, laying down on the couch, if a commercial comes on, I'm not getting up to skip it, first because I'm too lazy, and second because a 30 second commercial now and then seems perfectly reasonable compared to the alternative.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    A wireless mouse will relieve you of the need to get up.
- gkop 9y ago
  Even using DASH?
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  It shouldn't work fully, the preference and power ads are given now is already way too much, which is why everyone is trying so hard to block them. Besides, there are things that can be done, such as, if the user seeks past a commercial point, they get a commercial and then the normal content resumes. I'm sure cable providers would love this evil power for their DVRs too but even normal people would flip out over that.

stuffedBelly 9y ago

I recently started seeing some great YouTube musicians (Davie504, Pellek, etc) have to make videos to promote their Patreon due to sharp decline of revenue and I feel bad for them. Music production, especially for indie musicians, is very expensive (equipments, DAW plugins, hiring people to mix and master, etc). It's a very sad situation and a massive discouragement for YouTubers to keep up their video quality, in a long run, bad for YouTube as a content distribution platform.

pjc50 9y ago

Youtube creators are also highly oversupplied. :(