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http://www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12746450/youtube-monetization-phil-defranco-leaving-site
Prominent YouTube star Philip DeFranco is known for his candid, often satirical delivery and his willingness to cover everything from celebrity gossip to memes. As his audience has grown, he's won awards for his informal news series and formed partnerships with major platforms like TMZ and SourceFed.
But on August 31, YouTube disabled monetization for at least 12 of DeFranco's videos. The official reason provided to DeFranco was that his content was either not "advertiser-friendly" or contained "graphic content," or "excessive strong language." DeFranco frequently swears in his videos, and regularly refers to his followers as "Beautiful Bastards." The demonetization means DeFranco will not be able to run ads (read: make money from ads) on any of those videos, and also means his channel is considered to be in violation of YouTube's community guidelines.
"I've seen channels dinged now for talking about depression and anti-bullying. And I've also seen channels like CNN include footage of a Syrian boy covered in blood, after his house was reportedly bombed, and right next to the video is a nice little ad for sneakers. So you get the question, 'Why me and not them?'" he said.
DeFranco pointed out that internet fame doesn't lead to a sustainable full-time income for the vast majority of "celebrities." If YouTube starts cracking down on content for not being "ad-friendly" enough, it could hurt these middle-tier vloggers far worse than a more major figure like DeFranco.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ledow on Sunday September 04 2016, @06:47PM
When people are giving you free money for putting up your videos, they get to make the rules on what they pay for and what they won't.
Nobody's stopping you putting up your own videostream. A site to handle a single stream for every 10,000 visitors isn't that hard to knock up. It'll cost you, though. That's the price that YouTube are paying for you and not telling you about. That's why they get to make the rules. And even if it did it, your views would PLUMMET overnight and you'd be lucky to pay for your server hosting.
These kinds of "vloggers" (yurk, really?) would be described by my grandfather as "not doing a real job". And yet they are expecting not only payment, but control of how that payment is sourced, and payment even from people who might be being bad-mouthed in their videos, or not want that kind of publicity at all (why would Disney, say, pay to be on an expletive-ridden video? It limits the audience of your ads, which limits the advertisers willing to touch you, which limits your monetisation of said advertisers).
Honestly, wish I could get thousands of pounds for making junk like this:
TASTE TESTING THE 6 NEW STARBUCKS FRAPS!
(Hilariously, one of his videos is called "The World Doesn't Owe You Anything")
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday September 04 2016, @07:17PM
This is a related problem to the Internet Advertising problem. People thinking the Internet changes everything, including the requirement to actually conduct business. These guys are bloggers, text, audio or video it is the same thing. You are in the publishing content business. Unless you are subscription only you are principally in the advertising business. Yes you are. Outsourcing the whole business end to Google doesn't change that, it only makes you a bad businessman.
The purpose of advertising supported publishing is selling eyeballs to advertisers. Content is simply the bait to attract salable eyeballs. If you don't have a plan to convert those eyeballs into advertising revenue you are wasting your time and Google's money. If you aren't at least politically agreeable enough for them to not care about the money (yet) they are going to boot you off now. If you do not like that reality then tough, get out of the business and into another like directly paid content. This means publications on the Internet, exactly like print and broadcast, need to be expending at least as much effort on attracting advertisers and maintaining long term relationships with them and the middlemen who exist to broker the connection between advertisers and publishers as they put into their content. It means you need to get your ass off YouTube, stop using Doubleclick and the rest of Google's ad network. Yes that means a one man show is going to be very hard. It is going to be a JOB.
The other thing this development means is that the SJW Convergence at Google is happening at Internet speed instead of something that would normally take a generation, after the Founders are gone. The Impossibility of SJW Convergence means Google is going to get into cash flow trouble a lot faster than analysts think possible.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 04 2016, @07:35PM
Ah yes, good ol' J'Lo weighs in with a complicated analysis of ad supported business. Everything is done for money, what the fuck is wrong with artists and creative types eh?? /SARCASM
Obligatory SJW tie in at the end, very nice. Tool.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday September 04 2016, @11:30PM
what the fuck is wrong with artists and creative types eh??
Stereotypes are usually based in fact. The stereotype of the 'starving artist' is one of those. You either get really lucky and score a rich patron or two, you discover a way to monetize your art by finding an audience for it that is willing to pay or you live in a shitthole loft in a crappy part of town 'known for a vibrant indie art scene.' I.e. you are a starving artist. Or you do it a year or two, realize nobody cares about your 'art' and you will have to get a real job because ramen noodles every night gets old. Maybe do the art as a hobby.