No doubt YouTube has become one of the most popular videos sharing platforms. It has a huge amount of content which covers almost everything. People are sharing quality content every day. It’s a great place to learn and entertainment and most importantly advertisement.
The popularity of YouTube has turned it into a great place for advertisement. And due to the easy pricing policy of Google, different companies love to promote their product through YouTube. And that advertisement is the main source of the earning of a YouTube content creator.
But the content creators were not very happy with the monetizing policy of YouTube. And rechecking the policy had been a long demand. Well, YouTube has listened to the YouTubers and they have changed the policy a bit which a good gesture towards the content creators.
The recent announcement
YouTube chief product officer, Neal Mohan has recently announced some good news for the YouTubers at Vidcon. The new monetization feature now contains, expansive merchandise opportunities, paid stickers for live stream chats, and various channel membership tiers. He also added that these new products aren’t little experiments and the paid features are helping the content creators to bring handsome revenue.
But he didn’t give any hint towards solving the problems which are holding back the content creators from making money on YouTube. The most contradictory issue is copyright. A lot of content creators have faced such copyright problems that were not handled correctly by YouTube.
Practical problems of the content creators
Lindsay Ellis is a successful YouTuber and according to her, “Patreon makes up the biggest slice of our pie”. She also added that Patreon helps her team to make more than 50 % of their revenue whereas the advertisement makes only 30 % of it and that is unfair and people aren’t aware of it. So, yeah, that’s a practical problem it seems.
Now the content creator’s community of YouTube, aka YouTubers are also confessing that, they can’t keep their carer floating on such uncertainty at all. YouTube’s advertising model is completely unreliable for them. There are more such problems like video can be removed or demonetized for a questionable copyright claim, they can also be punished for breaking YouTube’s selectively enforced rules. So in such a way, the advertisers get what they want but the YouTubers get hurt. Certainly, it’s not an unbiased system.
On the other hand, if the YouTubers get the money directly from the fans and the viewers, then they wouldn’t need to rely upon such an uncertain model that YouTube has. Besides, that direct earning will also be positive for the growth of the career.
Established companies vs Content creators
Some other problems are also there. Some of the well-established companies are also using YouTube to show their content, for example, we can say the TV networks and the record labels. But it isn’t a good sign for an average individual content creator at all. Because these professional content draws the attraction of the viewers and also decrease the views of the other YouTubers. It’s very true that the record labels and the TV networks are successful to make a huge revenue alone from YouTube.
There is a lack of transparency around the advertisement model and the revenue from the ad. Most of the content creators have felt that. Most of the successful YouTubers like h3h3Productions’ Ethan Klein, Nerd City, and even Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg have faced few common problems. They had relied upon the revenue from the ads. Sometimes the copyright claims are so much annoying and irrelevant which leads to the huge loss of revenue, according to the YouTubers. Popular YouTuber, Jimmy Donaldson who has the channel called “Mr Beast” had tweeted about losing more than “five figures” on a video because of a copyright claim and he was completely unaware of the reason. Klein led a campaign against YouTube to boycott “UMG” which was a frequent target of the creators on the copyright claim.
Alternate ways for revenue
D’Angelo is a YouTuber & director of the Internet Creators Guild. According to him, Record labels take about 70% of each dollar spent by YouTube Premium subscribers. And the rest of the 30 % is divided among the YouTube and the content creators. He also added that the YouTube Premium which was formerly known as YouTube Red. It was a streaming service at the starting but now it has pitched to content creators. As this very ‘pro-creator’ service and itis quite a big problem. Being a paid service, YouTube Premium views bring more revenue rather than a normal view but the harsh truth is most of that revenue goes to the music industry. According to him, most people aren’t aware of it.
Now The content creators who are a newbie to this industry can’t just rebel against YouTube’s advertisement model, they will have to rely upon it. Once the viewers or fan base is created, then they can move on to the Patreon. Patreon has become a popular platform for the YouTubers who don’t rely upon the revenue from the ads.
Most of the content creators who are following the copyright rules are also facing problems with the clams. The reason is simple, YouTube doesn’t care.
Teespring & YouTube
Now according to the announcement, expansive merchandise opportunities will help the creators up to some extent. It has become quite necessary for revenue. Teespring is the very first company to partner with YouTube for its “merch shelf”. They have also expanded and partner with Facebook, which may roll up to Instagram and twitch. According to Teespring CEO Chris Lamontagne, Advertising revenue isn’t always enough reliable. That’s why content creators need to create a brand that is beyond platforms like YouTube.
Take away
The content creators are now fully aware of the problems with YouTube and YouTube itself know the issues. The creators have certainly understood that, as the ad revenue isn’t a reliable option. That’s why they need to move on and experiment with new things. Teespring, Patreon is helping them to make the revenue. Though the recent steps were taken by YouTube. YouTube is appreciable and a good gesture, YouTube has to think about the practical problems and start solving those.
