I don’t want to read all this just tell me what happened. Click here.
I just had an unpleasant experience a moment ago on YouTube. I am kind of embarrassed to admit that I am obsessed with YouTube and its politics. I don’t mean that I watch too much YouTube, because that’s not the point. I do watch too much YouTube, but I am referring to the fact that I am completely engrossed in the experiment that is YouTube. YouTube is bizarre landscape full of so much real life drama and struggles for creators putting it succinctly. Naturally, we can all say, “Well if you don’t want to deal with those struggles get a desk job.” Yes-yes. Now let’s set that sentiment aside and get into the meat of problem here.
I have actually been thinking of some articles and what not I want to make about YouTube, but I don’t know that I want to make it a part of this website. I actually think I might spin up a separate site for it since it can get pretty involved.
I love animation
There is a special place in my heart for animation. All animations of all mediums and kinds. I don’t usually care how weird they are, I will watch them at least once. I didn’t have the guts it takes to become an animator and I don’t regret it because it’s a hard road to follow. When I went to college I made the choice that I wanted to stop living an impoverished life which I was accustomed to and peruse engineering in lieu of my passion for art and animation. I used to draw a ton. The depressions of life put a stop to that right quick and I have been trying to get back into it, but until the time is I right I live vicariously through animators.
I have followed animators for as long as I can remember on YouTube. I have been a member of YouTube since before it was YouTube. Before YouTube I would follow animators on Newgrounds. I was obsessed with flash animations. I loved stick fighting and other goofy shorts. It always impressed me how these people put their heart and soul into these things most of the time. To put a number on it, let’s say I have been following a number of animators for about 20-25 years. I have been watching animation since I was a child.
I followed a group of animators who were living together under one roof to make ends meet. I was very invested in watching them succeed because they are all so talented. I won’t get too deep into it, but one of those people is Zach Hadel who I look up to. I remember where he started and where he is now, it’s inspiring. I just want to see all animators succeed if possible, but it’s very hard.
Compensation on YouTube
YouTube’s compensation model is like that episode of South Park making fun of how Family Guy’s episode ideas are made. For those that haven’t seen it, it’s several manatees swimming in a tank who select ideas balls from said tank. The balls are strung together to make a full idea. In other words YouTube’s compensation model is trash. It rewards low effort high volume content over quality. They have changed their compensation model, without notice, several times over the years. This was due in part to Adpocolypse parts one and two, but they have also made contributions to how shitty it is.
Therefore, the final nail in the coffin made it so that YouTubers who were being unfairly compensated by YouTube’s bullshit ad-revenue model needed to turn to other sources of revenue. This is why you see YouTubers who turned to airing their own advertisement that is burned into their videos through sponsorships. YouTube’s compensation model only seems to benefit free-booting YouTubers like SSSniperWolf who steal other people’s content and make money off of it or those who produce mind numbing low effort content for children.
Some YouTubers who constantly have their content age restricted or demonetized have given up 90% on YouTube ads and have turned to not only sponsorships, but also services like Patreon who allow the fans of YouTubers to make direct contributions to those YouTubers.
YouTube is engaging in anti-competitive behavior
I was leaving a comment on a video of an animation YouTuber who was taking a break. It’s exhausting work and it’s hard to pump out creativity constantly. These YouTubers will tell the audience how they are feeling, a lot of them are depressed and feel bad for not outputting content. It’s two fold:
- Guilt of not giving something to your fans.
- The fear that the YouTuber algorithm is going to reject you in favor of low effort content instead. This is a very real thing.
I was trying to give them my perspective on how to deal with it because I have seen this happen to many animators. The same slog over and over. So I gave them some tips and I said to them to combat the unfairness of YouTube’s mediocre compensatory system to consider using Patreon.
Thirty seconds later
Thirty seconds or so later I get this lovely screenshot from YouTube:
This was unprompted mind you. I moved on to watch a MoistCr1TiKaL video as I often do because he is terminally online (and so am I sort of 😓) and the video is interrupted by this obnoxious prompt.
- On one hand you can appreciate that this will happen to full time spammers.
- On the other hand I was immediately very peeved because I did no such thing that they accused me of except mention “Patreon”.
So I hit the mother fuckers back with some feed back that reads:
I did no such thing. Provide proof for these accusations. I advertise nothing. Telling content creators they can use Patreon to supplement their income from YouTube’s crappy compensatory system is not advertisement. I don’t work for Patreon. This is actually YouTube stifling competition and so I will be opening up a case with the Federal Trade Commission as a result. Google as you are aware is already being sued for being a monopoly so this doesn’t help. I am going to find out which comment you deleted and I am going to post it again. I am going to screenshot it and if you threaten to limit my account ability I will include that in my FTC complaint and blog about it. This is very wrong what and it happened too fast to be a human reviewer. Fix this.
Me
Now some jackass that is reading this will say “Hur hur hur – you sure told their robots that won’t read this.” And this is mostly correct, but I would rather say I did something rather than sit on my hands. Also I am a paying customer for YouTube Premium, so they can fuck right off with this bullshit. I am not a content creator.
If you search their community guidelines it doesn’t say anything remotely close to “You cannot use the word Patreon or our direct competetitors.” because that would be ILLEGAL. Go ahead and search for it: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?sjid=1988105955134506374-NA
Doesn’t exist. It’s all purposely vague corpo-legal-bable nonsense so they can cast a wide net.
Proof that I am right about this
I reposted my comment and I removed the word Patreon. My comment is still up after an hour compared to 30 seconds from my first attempt.
I filed a complaint with the FTC because fuck YouTube 🖕
- Here is how you too can file a complaint. It’s easy. Go to this website: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
- Make sure to use YouTube’s publicly available legal name and address.
- YouTube is committing anti-competitive behavior by automatically DELETING comments of users who mention their direct competition
Patreon. - When you submit a complaint to the FTC they will disseminate it to other agencies. You will more than likely not get contacted this is expected.
- Again – I would rather do something than sit on my hands. Take action.
I DOT NOT WORK FOR PATREON.
I am just trying to help an animator get paid so they can continue to live their passion. I have zero monetary incentive from telling anyone about ways to make income. YouTube is a monopoly and stifles competition. Content creators would not be seeking other means of income if YouTube’s rigged compensatory model actually worked and was fair. I expect nothing less from a soulless conglomerate. YouTubers would go to other platforms if they could. YouTube is almost universally hated by all content creators because they get caught in this conundrum, are trapped and feel shackled to the platform.