They’re beginning to realize that denying access to a failing revenue model isn’t working:
When YouTube wanted to punish political pundit Steven Crowder amid widespread outcry over his homophobic comments, its first move was to disable Crowder’s ability to run ads on his videos. The punishment was meant to revoke a key source of income, presenting a strong incentive for Crowder to change his behavior. But Crowder didn’t care, “This really isn’t that big of a ding for us,” he said.
Crowder sells T-shirts, hats, stickers, and subscriptions for more videos through his website, which is where he’s indicated most of his channel’s money comes from. Selling merchandise and subscriptions through other platforms isn’t just a way for creators to make more money, it’s also a way for creators to insulate themselves from YouTube’s ever-mercurial rules and algorithms. And it means that if a creator’s ads are cut off for whatever reason, they’ll still have a source of revenue.
Creators have realized that “YouTube can do whatever the hell they want to,” Wyatt Jenkins, Patreon’s VP of product, told The Verge. Because of that, they’ve started looking for ways to establish other relationships with their viewers. “They’re like, ‘If I’m going to make a run at this and do this for a living, I should probably have my best fans in my world.’”
Taking away a channel’s ability to run ads is supposed to send a message that YouTube is punishing creators who severely step out of line. The company stated as much in a June 5th blog post, reiterating that channels repeatedly brushing up “against our hate speech policies will be suspended from the YouTube Partner program, meaning they can’t run ads on their channel.” Creators also won’t be able to use alternative monetization techniques like Super Chat or channel memberships, according to YouTube.
For up-and-coming YouTubers reliant on that revenue, it can pose a huge problem. Many people just entering YouTube’s Partner Program, a threshold that signifies a creator can start earning ad revenue, may rely on that advertising money as they start their career. Channels that face day-to-day monetization issues, one of the biggest issues within the community, are struggling to understand what works and what doesn’t. But for larger creators, who still keep their ability to reach a huge number of subscribers, the punishment doesn’t necessarily accomplish YouTube’s goals.
Established creators — like Crowder, who reaches more than 4 million people — often have a large audience ready to buy products, significantly lessening the severity of the punishment. When YouTube cracked down on gun videos last year and removed ads from a number of channels, many of those channels circumvented the impact by signing sponsorship deals or starting Patreon accounts, allowing them to continue exactly what they’d been doing before.
Relying on ad revenue alone is difficult, Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg said in a video about YouTube ads last year. “It’s inefficient, it’s unstable, and an insecure revenue model,” according to YouTube’s biggest creator. Most YouTube creators “don’t sustain themselves on ad revenue,” Kjellberg said.
Translation: SJWs are going to start putting more pressure on the payment processors. This is why we’re already taking action to avoid relying upon the converged major US-based ones.
Build your own platforms….