Opinion: Youtube, Patreon and Independent Funding · 4:41pm May 23rd, 2017
As the Youtube Ad-pocalypse is worsening, more and more Youtubers are getting affected by the lack of revenue, either forcing them to turn Youtube into a side-job or having to find an alternative way to get the money they need to keep the channel. This is where Patreon enters into the stage, allowing the people to, personally, fund the people they like and this is a good thing, many Youtube channels have managed to survive thanks to them but while this solution looks nice on the short run, after all it would look like Youtubers doesn't need Youtube anymore to stay alive, there are a few problems that shouldn't be ignored:
1.- Youtube Is Demonetizing Channels: Either for its politics that would, only fit the world of "A Happy World", by Aldous Huxley, or for fear of not having the money of private groups (like Pepsi and Coca-Cola) that, without them, would only make it more dependent on Google (and whatever Google would like to impose on it), the fact is that Youtube is demonetizing videos left and right. Literally, both "Left Wing" channels (like Anita Sarkesian) and "Right Wing" channels (like Paul Joseph Watson) are being either demonetized or censored under "Youtube Restricted Mode", this is also happening to non-politics channels (like Gaijin Goomba) or non-USA channels (like Mate Hirviendo) which implies that Youtube is self destructing by only monetizing (because the first line of censorship in Youtube is being demonetized by Youtube itself instead of a leech using its "Copyright" Protection System) "happy channels".
2.- Patreon Isn't Enough: As much as many Youtubers would like to believe that being funded by Patreon would suffice, the truth is that Patreon alone isn't what's helping them. Its the amount of people willing to support them and, before anyone starts shouting this as a contradiction, I'll explain that it doesn't matter if you have a Patreon account, what you offer or the kind of content you make or the amount of fans you have, if little to none of them gives you money (or doesn't give you much money) then you're channel won't fly. A good example of this is how Joshscorcher Patreon page have so much revenue (even though he only has 130.000 subscribers) while Rabbidluigi should be having a lot more than that considering that he has over the double of Josh's subs. That's not even taking into account that all the small youtube channels must cross a bigger hill now (before it was just subscribers, now its both subscribers and patreon funding) to turn Youtube into a full-time job or how unreliable Patreon actually is (if you have your patronage mostly from a certain country and something happens there, then said patreons wouldn't be capable of supporting those channels).
3.- There's No Response To This From the Youtube Community: Yes, the youtubers make videos explaining how screwed up they've been by Youtube and their Ad-pocalypse but, for all we know, Youtube doesn't care. They claim over and over of how "we're trying our best to make it better for our Community" but they keep making changes that, not only, nobody likes but that are also damaging to itself. The Youtubers complain and then do nothing about it, the closest we ever got was Pewdiepie saying that he was going to shut down his channel but, guess what?, that's not enough. All the Youtube Community should've joined Pewdiepie on that as a sign of protest so Youtube could feel how important are those youtubers and how much you reject its policies (like in Venezuela, we got enough of Maduro and decided to protest indefinitely on the streets, pacifically mind you, until Maduro is gone. We've been over 50 days protesting and we're not returning until changes are done). Not doing anything only tells Youtube "we don't like it but we'll allow you to do it anyways" because Youtubers do nothing, they don't have a union, they don't protest to their worker (now practically working for free because you must get funded by your viewers to provide actual content to Youtube while it keeps getting revenue from the other videos it DOES Monetize) for unfair practices, only complain and work.
What should be done? That will be the theme of my next Opinion post.
