Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 7: The 'Creators' as the Enemies of YouTube

Series parts:

  1. New Series: Why People Everywhere Should Quit YouTube
  2. YouTube's New Management: Time's Up, Start Paying and Watch Ads, Don't Use Free Software
  3. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 3: Google Exploits Creators, It'll Get Even Worse
  4. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 4: Financial Crunch Time
  5. Why You Should Quit YouTube - Part 5: The Real Enemy Has Become Sanity of Users
  6. in the last part
  7. YOU ARE HERE ☞ The 'Creators' as the Enemies of YouTube


Summary: 'Creators' in YouTube are basically serfs and even so-called 'influencers' gradually find out that revenue prospects were at best temporary; on top of this there's a lot of censorship without due process

MOST people who use YouTube are only ever watching material, not contributing any material of their own (except perhaps comments on videos). The reasons for these people to leave YouTube were covered in the last part. Today we focus on people who upload videos, i.e. "creators" and sometimes self-styled 'influencers' (fancier term for marketers).

"Today we focus on people who upload videos, i.e. "creators" and sometimes self-styled 'influencers' (fancier term for marketers)."The main issues are free speech and 'monetisation' or distribution of rewards/awards. Alphabet claims to have over 5 billion dollars a year in YouTube revenue (not the same as actual profit), so where does all this money go?

YouTube has, over the years, promoted various kinds of paid subscriptions to YouTube. These didn't seem to succeed in the business sense, so YouTube keeps trying again and again. Twitter had the same perils (e.g. "Blue") as debt piled up and the company struggled to make actual profits.

It should be noted upfront that users who pay for YouTube will not see any of that money funnelled to actual creators. It all goes to YouTube, the company, i.e. to rich Google/Alphabet shareholders.

"It should be noted upfront that users who pay for YouTube will not see any of that money funnelled to actual creators."We'll come back to monetary issues in just a moment.

One major issue in YouTube is censorship. The rules change all the time (range of "permissible" speech) and sanctions may vary from shadowbanning to demonetisation. In some cases, videos can be forcibly removed (blackmail/coercion is common; remove this, or else!) and entire channels can be suspended if not permanently removed. There's no lack of examples of that. We previously mentioned how 'underfunded' Google does not handle actual appeals and seldom overturns decisions even when mistakes are made (unless there's significant backlash in another platform, such as Twitter). Google or YouTube moreover retroactively applies new speech restrictions to old videos, then issues a strike against them. This means that videos published today may get you banned in the future, even if they were in compliance with the rules at the time they were initially published.

According to what people told us, GNU/Linux content is being demonetised almost immediately. There's also strong evidence and material, based on channels that focus on the theme. Since there's no transparency in moderation (faceless censors who call "misinformation" anything not deemed "advertiser-friendly"), they can always deny that this is happening, in effect gaslighting people whom they're muzzling with impunity.

"According to what people told us, GNU/Linux content is being demonetised almost immediately.""I think I remember a case," one person said in IRC this week, "where a 12 year old kid hated a channel so much [that] he registered a fake company with YouTube's content ID to take down every video; how easy it is to take down videos [sic] than to appeal it because appealing it would do nothing but dox you to the person who took down your video..."

And "what I hate about the content ID system," he added, is that "anyone can make up a fucking company and not prove the legal existence of it... and take down videos. I mean, all it took is a 12 year old kid, who wanted to do mass censorship on YouTube, to do it [...] the lesson here is that counter-claims in YouTube are shit [...] you might as well just hire a lawyer to sue YouTube and the kid [...] and then they'll back down."

Quite a few popular channels were completely destroyed this way. In some cases, the people who ran the channels gave up and stopped producing new material. It just wasn't worth the trouble anymore.

"There are a lot of fake DCMA take-downs and YouTube toes the line," another person told us. "If you are a "creator" on the other hand, tough."

Here are some examples:



"Then there are the complaints that "creators" get basically no money for their YouTube videos regardless of how many viewers the video brings in," the person added. Louis "Rossmann has gone over the numbers several times but never has any text that stands on its own. [Bryan] Lunduke and DT [Derek Taylor/DistroTube] have both complained repeatedly as well. There are nonetheless a lot of economic reasons not to promote YouTube. The people who make videos tend to get nothing or almost nothing. Then, as Lunduke and some others have pointed out, the string "Linux" in the title ensures demonetization at least during the peak where at least a little money might have come in."

"The person points out that advertising does not require JavaScript and malware-laden scripts are so common in advertisements that they are known as malvertisements.""The guys who ran the Swedish site GnuHeter would have been interesting to interview if they still remember anything. They tried to make the site ad-based and it was loaded with ads but the ad company always refused to pay them claiming they were false clicks. Similar to how DT and Lunduke and other have reported demonitizaton of YouTube videos containing the string "Linux". LF [Linux Foundation] should have gotten in and pressured Google about that, that's another thing you can fault LF for."

The person points out that advertising does not require JavaScript and malware-laden scripts are so common in advertisements that they are known as malvertisements. It has afflicted even big name companies, not just dodgy sites. That is because the ads are served by a third party which gets its ads from yet another entity. No part of the chain has accountability.

For more information see:



In short, prospects of being paid for the work become grimmer (more and more over time) and even the ability to keep one's videos (or channel) online rather than offline -- as there are arbitrary reasons to take down whole channels -- should be considered a priori. Google is not a charity and choosing YouTube as a video host is very risky. Over time it puts off users, i.e. channel audiences, and things have further deteriorated this year. As ZedHedTed put it last night, "the fact that the official YouTube app is the worst YouTube experience, the censorship of crypto channels pushing those channels to Odysee, and I heard they recently started putting ads on videos that uploader didn't monetize & then took all the money for themselves."

"It's a trap; you must accept everything that comes later (changes to YouTube policy) or lose all your work."Yes, YouTube started putting ads in videos I uploaded over a decade ago. I didn't allow ads in those. They're howtos for Free software.

As ZedHedTed put it last night, YouTube says something along the lines of, "don't wanna monetize your video? we'll monetize it for you and give you 0% of the cut!"...

Whatever you're consenting to with YouTube today isn't the same agreement that applies to you years down the line. You're forced to accept whatever change they make later (or lose the whole channel). It's a trap; you must accept everything that comes later (changes to YouTube policy) or lose all your work.

What sane person who put up with it, in retrospect?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025