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I've had a YouTube channel for years, and talk with other creators on a regular basis. This article is basically correct, but glosses over the point of sponsors

by bkraz 9y ago

I've had a YouTube channel for years, and talk with other creators on a regular basis. This article is basically correct, but glosses over the point of sponsorships, side deals, and most of all, Patreon. All YouTube creators that I know personally make more money via Patreon than ad revenue. Just a data point. In the old days, Patreon publicly displayed each Creator's pledge amount, and it could be compared to socialblade.com for estimated ad revenue.

ChuckMcM 9y ago
I expect at some point that Alphabet will require that 30% of your Patreon pledges be sent to Google in exchange for them providing you a platform. My reasoning is that Google has always gone after all revenue that was facilitated by something they did or provided.
- prklmn 9y ago
  No they haven’t. When someone clicks on a normal link (not an ad) they found through google search that ultimately facilitates business, google gets nothing.
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    If you are speaking strictly of cash from the person clicking you are correct. If you consider the advertisers however, you would be incorrect. When a person clicks on an "normal link", Google notes the search terms used, the link that was clicked, the time it took you to click that link (which goes to hesitation or not), the IP address from which you clicked that link (which tells where you live), any google cookies (which if you're "logged into chrome" or your web browser can be substantial) and if you land on a web page with Google Analytics and AdSense advertisements they will know if your trip through the search engine ended up paying one of their advertisers or not. Rather than "nothing" that is actually quite a bit of useful information that Google then resells in a variety of ways to their advertisers. But you are absolutely correct that the person clicking the link doesn't pay any money to google.
    - soared 9y ago
      So data from patreon is even more valuable - what content is a user willing to spend money on? John Doe pays $5/mo on Patreon for a youtube channel that shows how to remodel a home? He is obivously in-market for real estate, remodeling, home decor, tools, furniture, etc. That data could be worth more than $1 (a 20% cut) per month.
    - gowld 9y ago
      Google gets all the same data from a YT watch.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    What normal links are most people clicking on anymore? I guarantee you that 90% of people clicking stuff they googled are clicking on an ad (I spent $20 million on Google ads last year). This is even more true as Google provides more and more structured data on the results page without requiring a click.
    - prklmn 9y ago
      That's quite a bit of money - just out of curiosity, what do you sell if you don't mind me asking? I personally click normal links and haven't seen an ad on google in years, as I have been a long time user of ublock origin and a different content blocker on mobile since ios9. I think I'm in a decent-sized and growing population in that regard. And as for your guarantee, I'd bet that at least 10% of people who use google don't see ads at all because they use adblock of some form, so maybe 90% of the people who see the ads click those links, but not 90% of all searchers. Does google report the searches that went without an ad displayed?
      - busterarm 9y ago
        Legal services.
- flukus 9y ago
  That would be impossible to enforce well and be very manual, which google hates. I'd expect them to simply integrate patreon like functionality into youtube itself. They have most of the infrastructure for such a system in place already and could add things like patreon exclusive content.
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    I agree completely. Back when Adsense for Content was a thing they would ban your account if you had advertisers from other providers on your page (in addition to Google ads) as it was against the terms of service. Given Google is trying harder and harder to make money on something other than search advertising this is what I expect to happen. I expect the Youtubers will find that Google will stop them from pitching products in their video or putting affiliate links in their description. They may also start cracking down on ads that roll in the video that aren't Google placed. Then I expect them to make it a violation of their ToS to receive third party compensation for your videos, and instead to use some Google supplied version (which they will 'tax' at some rate (probably 30% given the Apple precedent)). There was already rumblings of this in September of last year : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiWNSlHG-9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiWNSlHG-9Y
- nitwit005 9y ago
  Everyone would just change the description of their Patreon page to be "Support me so I can bake delicious cupcakes" or something else unrelated to the videos.
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    At the end of the day though Google/Youtube has the ultimate hammer, "sorry you can't use our service any more." which, in a similar way, has already killed a bunch of AdSense supported web sites (Dr. Dobbs being perhaps the most memorable to me). This is the world we live in today, company A has some good or service that company B uses in a structural way (ie without it company B wouldn't exist). Company A decides they want/need more revenue they squeeze Company B for it, generally it eventually kills Company B. This scenario has played out again and again, and whether it was Company B using Company A's free API, or Company A's copyrighted material, or Company A's community web site, the squeeze happens and company B usually dies.
    - nitwit005 9y ago
      They'd need a mechanism to squeeze them though. That doesn't seem to exist in this case, at least not in a reliable way. The Dr Dobbs shutdown doesn't seem to be related to Google blocking them, just that their ad income was too low to keep it going.
- adrianN 9y ago
  As someone who works for a Youtube competitor, I would welcome that change.
- GuiA 9y ago
  I think they’ll just roll out their own pledge/rewards/etc features at some point if there’s really that much money on the table and just eat Patreon’s lunch in one fell swoop.
- voltagex_ 9y ago
  There's some Youtube-based chat donation thing that Google takes a cut of, but I would bet that Patreon will shoot themselves in both feet instead - they've already tried with the changes negatively impacting $1 pledges. Based on the amount of VC funding Patreon took, they'll need to make more money somehow, and it'll probably hurt creators.
derblitzmann 9y ago
From what I recall regarding ad revenue. A single person giving a single dollar is worth around a (few) thousand ad viewers. Due to the way CPM work.

by bkraz 9y ago

ChuckMcM 9y ago

I expect at some point that Alphabet will require that 30% of your Patreon pledges be sent to Google in exchange for them providing you a platform. My reasoning is that Google has always gone after all revenue that was facilitated by something they did or provided.

prklmn 9y ago
No they haven’t. When someone clicks on a normal link (not an ad) they found through google search that ultimately facilitates business, google gets nothing.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  If you are speaking strictly of cash from the person clicking you are correct. If you consider the advertisers however, you would be incorrect. When a person clicks on an "normal link", Google notes the search terms used, the link that was clicked, the time it took you to click that link (which goes to hesitation or not), the IP address from which you clicked that link (which tells where you live), any google cookies (which if you're "logged into chrome" or your web browser can be substantial) and if you land on a web page with Google Analytics and AdSense advertisements they will know if your trip through the search engine ended up paying one of their advertisers or not. Rather than "nothing" that is actually quite a bit of useful information that Google then resells in a variety of ways to their advertisers. But you are absolutely correct that the person clicking the link doesn't pay any money to google.
  - soared 9y ago
    So data from patreon is even more valuable - what content is a user willing to spend money on? John Doe pays $5/mo on Patreon for a youtube channel that shows how to remodel a home? He is obivously in-market for real estate, remodeling, home decor, tools, furniture, etc. That data could be worth more than $1 (a 20% cut) per month.
  - gowld 9y ago
    Google gets all the same data from a YT watch.
- busterarm 9y ago
  What normal links are most people clicking on anymore? I guarantee you that 90% of people clicking stuff they googled are clicking on an ad (I spent $20 million on Google ads last year). This is even more true as Google provides more and more structured data on the results page without requiring a click.
  - prklmn 9y ago
    That's quite a bit of money - just out of curiosity, what do you sell if you don't mind me asking? I personally click normal links and haven't seen an ad on google in years, as I have been a long time user of ublock origin and a different content blocker on mobile since ios9. I think I'm in a decent-sized and growing population in that regard. And as for your guarantee, I'd bet that at least 10% of people who use google don't see ads at all because they use adblock of some form, so maybe 90% of the people who see the ads click those links, but not 90% of all searchers. Does google report the searches that went without an ad displayed?
    - busterarm 9y ago
      Legal services.
flukus 9y ago
That would be impossible to enforce well and be very manual, which google hates. I'd expect them to simply integrate patreon like functionality into youtube itself. They have most of the infrastructure for such a system in place already and could add things like patreon exclusive content.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  I agree completely. Back when Adsense for Content was a thing they would ban your account if you had advertisers from other providers on your page (in addition to Google ads) as it was against the terms of service. Given Google is trying harder and harder to make money on something other than search advertising this is what I expect to happen. I expect the Youtubers will find that Google will stop them from pitching products in their video or putting affiliate links in their description. They may also start cracking down on ads that roll in the video that aren't Google placed. Then I expect them to make it a violation of their ToS to receive third party compensation for your videos, and instead to use some Google supplied version (which they will 'tax' at some rate (probably 30% given the Apple precedent)). There was already rumblings of this in September of last year : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiWNSlHG-9Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiWNSlHG-9Y
nitwit005 9y ago
Everyone would just change the description of their Patreon page to be "Support me so I can bake delicious cupcakes" or something else unrelated to the videos.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  At the end of the day though Google/Youtube has the ultimate hammer, "sorry you can't use our service any more." which, in a similar way, has already killed a bunch of AdSense supported web sites (Dr. Dobbs being perhaps the most memorable to me). This is the world we live in today, company A has some good or service that company B uses in a structural way (ie without it company B wouldn't exist). Company A decides they want/need more revenue they squeeze Company B for it, generally it eventually kills Company B. This scenario has played out again and again, and whether it was Company B using Company A's free API, or Company A's copyrighted material, or Company A's community web site, the squeeze happens and company B usually dies.
  - nitwit005 9y ago
    They'd need a mechanism to squeeze them though. That doesn't seem to exist in this case, at least not in a reliable way. The Dr Dobbs shutdown doesn't seem to be related to Google blocking them, just that their ad income was too low to keep it going.
adrianN 9y ago
As someone who works for a Youtube competitor, I would welcome that change.
GuiA 9y ago
I think they’ll just roll out their own pledge/rewards/etc features at some point if there’s really that much money on the table and just eat Patreon’s lunch in one fell swoop.
voltagex_ 9y ago
There's some Youtube-based chat donation thing that Google takes a cut of, but I would bet that Patreon will shoot themselves in both feet instead - they've already tried with the changes negatively impacting $1 pledges. Based on the amount of VC funding Patreon took, they'll need to make more money somehow, and it'll probably hurt creators.

derblitzmann 9y ago

From what I recall regarding ad revenue. A single person giving a single dollar is worth around a (few) thousand ad viewers. Due to the way CPM work.