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I'm in favour of people making money from their work. Maybe I'm old fashioned that way. IMDB, Duolingo and Wikipedia have encouraged the model of using unpaid l

I'm in favour of people making money from their work. Maybe I'm old fashioned that way. IMDB, Duolingo and Wikipedia have encouraged the model of using unpaid labour. YouTube isn't paying people properly, despite its vast revenues. At least with sponsorship the people themselves make some money.

choo-t 11d ago
Wikipedia predates Youtube by five years. Unpaid cooperation of human to generate knowledge or entertainment predates YouTube by tens of thousands years.
- nephihaha 11d ago
  YouTube is part of Alphabet, one of the biggest corporations in the world. It can easily afford to pay people. It isn't co-operation, it's a corporation which takes the work of other people and makes lots of money off them, without paying them properly (or at all in many cases). Wikipedia's content is used by LLMs and other such outlets who also profit off unpaid labour. It is a basic right of people to be able to afford to live. It's easy to work for free when you have family money but you cannot support yourself when you don't.
Gareth321 11d ago
> I'm in favour of people making money from their work. That's completely fair. YouTube offers content creators many ways to do this. For example, they can put content behind a paywall. They can ask for donations. They can ask for memberships. Members get all kinds of fun perks. The part I have an issue with is YouTube advertising an ad free experience with Premium and then allowing content creators to fill their videos with ads. > YouTube isn't paying people properly I hope we can both agree that the solution to this is YouTube paying people properly, and not allowing content creators to shit all over viewers. That's pitting the little guys against each other while Google laughs all the way to the bank.
- johnnyanmac 11d ago
  >I hope we can both agree that the solution to this is YouTube paying people properly The solution is proper competition to google. Because Youtube is pretty much the one true monopoly out there. But as we all know, video hosting alone is very,very, very expensive. It really is something you need to be a billion dollar company to do, and Youtube wasn't profitable until like... 2 years ago? So I tolerate the user ad reads as the best compromise because nothing else would work. I don't think Youtube is a model where Google is being greedy so much as practical. At least not in how it monetizes creators (there's plenty of hostile means they do to creators as is, but the monetary structure seems fine).
  - nephihaha 11d ago
    There are alternative streaming platforms, but many of them have become associated with certain political viewpoints. There is also a very limited range of content on Odyssee, Bitchute and all the rest. If you want to find music tutorials for example, you're unlikely to.
- nephihaha 11d ago
  You have to put in a disproportionate amount of work to get anything back. Almost no one makes money off a single video, but instead you make a string of videos and get a following. (The cases of a single video making money are few and far between.) You don't get hourly pay for it, it's vaguely commission based and you do all your own promotion. They can demonetise you at a whim and refuse to pay you (I've seen this happen to craft channels and other content that wasn't remotely controversial.)
godshatter 11d ago
I'm not saying this is the way to go, but damn do I miss the old internet where passionate people presented information for free, at worst showing an affiliate link for an information-related book.
- nephihaha 11d ago
  People need to be able to make a living and when this is taken away, the living expenses don't disappear. Most people can't pay for their electricity or food with voluntary work.

choo-t 11d ago

Wikipedia predates Youtube by five years. Unpaid cooperation of human to generate knowledge or entertainment predates YouTube by tens of thousands years.

nephihaha 11d ago
YouTube is part of Alphabet, one of the biggest corporations in the world. It can easily afford to pay people. It isn't co-operation, it's a corporation which takes the work of other people and makes lots of money off them, without paying them properly (or at all in many cases). Wikipedia's content is used by LLMs and other such outlets who also profit off unpaid labour. It is a basic right of people to be able to afford to live. It's easy to work for free when you have family money but you cannot support yourself when you don't.

Gareth321 11d ago

> I'm in favour of people making money from their work. That's completely fair. YouTube offers content creators many ways to do this. For example, they can put content behind a paywall. They can ask for donations. They can ask for memberships. Members get all kinds of fun perks. The part I have an issue with is YouTube advertising an ad free experience with Premium and then allowing content creators to fill their videos with ads. > YouTube isn't paying people properly I hope we can both agree that the solution to this is YouTube paying people properly, and not allowing content creators to shit all over viewers. That's pitting the little guys against each other while Google laughs all the way to the bank.

johnnyanmac 11d ago
>I hope we can both agree that the solution to this is YouTube paying people properly The solution is proper competition to google. Because Youtube is pretty much the one true monopoly out there. But as we all know, video hosting alone is very,very, very expensive. It really is something you need to be a billion dollar company to do, and Youtube wasn't profitable until like... 2 years ago? So I tolerate the user ad reads as the best compromise because nothing else would work. I don't think Youtube is a model where Google is being greedy so much as practical. At least not in how it monetizes creators (there's plenty of hostile means they do to creators as is, but the monetary structure seems fine).
- nephihaha 11d ago
  There are alternative streaming platforms, but many of them have become associated with certain political viewpoints. There is also a very limited range of content on Odyssee, Bitchute and all the rest. If you want to find music tutorials for example, you're unlikely to.
nephihaha 11d ago
You have to put in a disproportionate amount of work to get anything back. Almost no one makes money off a single video, but instead you make a string of videos and get a following. (The cases of a single video making money are few and far between.) You don't get hourly pay for it, it's vaguely commission based and you do all your own promotion. They can demonetise you at a whim and refuse to pay you (I've seen this happen to craft channels and other content that wasn't remotely controversial.)

godshatter 11d ago

I'm not saying this is the way to go, but damn do I miss the old internet where passionate people presented information for free, at worst showing an affiliate link for an information-related book.

nephihaha 11d ago
People need to be able to make a living and when this is taken away, the living expenses don't disappear. Most people can't pay for their electricity or food with voluntary work.