eevBLAB 98 - The Pressure Youtubers Are Under

[EEVblog]

he constant pressure Youtubers are under to produce content that out-views their previous videos.
The Algorithm will recommend your latest video more only if it does better than your previous videos.

Twitter discussion, check out Marcus House's response:
https://twitter.com/eevblog/status/1531085643383971840

[Whales]

What sort of relationship does Youtube want with its content creators?

If you view content creators as employees of Google: this looks no different to the stick and carrot used by management of large organisations in their quest of numeric growth.

If you view the services Google provides to content creators as a product: this is "shipping the org chart".  The product mirrors the organisational chart of the company.

The difference between the two scenarios is really blurred.  Is Dave a "user", a "contractor" or something else?  Is this a product trying to control the user, a company advising its employees how to get bonuses, or something different again?  Is there a difference any more in this system?

[chickenHeadKnob]

If you view content creators as employees of Google: this looks no different to the stick and carrot used by management of large organisations in their quest of numeric growth.

If you view the services Google provides to content creators as a product: this is "shipping the org chart".  The product mirrors the organisational chart of the company.

I don't follow the machinations of youtube very closely but seem to recall a little while back  that they tried (in an exploratory way) to do an "Amazon". By Amazon I mean the tactic of Amazon where they look at leading high volume  and high profit suppliers and supplant them with their own product. In the youtube case with fully captured employee content creators replacing independent content producers in select niches.

The difference between the two scenarios is really blurred.  Is Dave a "user", a "contractor" or something else?  Is this a product trying to control the user, a company advising its employees how to get bonuses, or something different again?  Is there a difference any more in this system?

There are other categories of employment to your user and contractor, like indentured servant, sharecropper and slave.
I would say there is a sharecropper aspect to youtube, namely Dave and other content creators have to purchase GMO seed and fertilizer from the provider. In effect by investing his time and capital on content creation in exchange for bandwidth and promotion- search ranking from youtube. If there is a bad crop then the farmer/content creator sustains the  loss. In addition youtube can put its thumb on the scale any time it wants. As Darth Vader would say: "I have changed the agreement, pray I do not change it again"

[golden_labels]

I kept myself from commenting a few times earlier, but duty calls.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like, what Alphabet does and I do understand consequences that has. Same for Meta and a bunch of others. I hope such businesses to disappear one day and I wish the situation was different. But I have a feeling that many content creators, who post there, have a very weird perception of their role and position in the system. As if they were customers or even business partners. And that mental image seems to lead to weird expectations.

Why would YouTube be designed with creators in mind? Beyond the bare minimum needed to keep them posting, of course?

The company is one of world’s leading personal data sellers. Their goal is to keep as many people on the platform as possible, for as long as they can, squeezing out reasonably good data. That’s the business model, that’s where their $$$ come from. The role of a creator is to produce content that will bring and maintain the flow of items to sell. It’s a necessary work to do, sure, but it’s just that: working for them in exchange for receiving a portion of profits.

And then I hear many creators complain in a manner suitable for a customer. Customers pay money, not receive it. It is up to the employer to decide, what they need to meet their goals, not up to the employed. If YouTube’s management believes more clickbaity videos lead to more or better data points to sell, it’s reasonable to push creators in that direction. Just like in a furniture factory the workers will be ordered to make black cupboards, if those sell better, and no one cares if they preferred producing white desks.

Of course, the management may be wrong on that! Maybe their decisions are bad for shareholders. But that isn’t the message I am getting.

[EEVblog]

The difference between the two scenarios is really blurred.  Is Dave a "user", a "contractor" or something else? 

I view Youtube as a platform that I use, so I'm a user. A higher level user to be sure because I create content, so that puts me in the content creator catory of user if you will, but still a user in my mind.

[coppice]

What sort of relationship does Youtube want with its content creators?

I think in most cases its fear and mutual loathing.

[YurkshireLad]

In my view, creators are the product and Google's AI defines your requirements. That made sense when I thought it in my head. Hmmm.

[YurkshireLad]

What sort of relationship does Youtube want with its content creators?

I think in most cases its fear and mutual loathing.

Use and abuse?

[Whales]

We're at a point where sites such as Youtube and eBay are run as private self-contained monopolies, but we all really wish they were different.  Eg multiple sites similar to ebay or Youtube that you can search across all at once and navigate between seamlessly, not get locked into one as soon as you click something.  That would be an interesting world that would require some interesting social, legal and technical solutions (eg avoiding each site gaming the others by sharing inaccurate prices to lure visitors).

[EEVblog]

Why would YouTube be designed with creators in mind? Beyond the bare minimum needed to keep them posting, of course?

In that case they shouldn't have any of that text above the graph, nothing, and allow the creator full control over the stats.
They shouldn't have removed the Dislike feature to "protect creators", and they shouldn't have entire departments devoted to creator liasion and wellbeing etc.
The shouldn't have rules about "creator on creator" attacks etc.

But they so have all these things, and it usually panders to a ridiculously small percentage of creators, usually on the extreme left of the political spectrum.
So certaily Youtube is "designed with creators in mind", it's just that how they go about it is often detrimental.

I'd prefer it if Youtueb was a completely neutral platform, and creators had more flexibility in the back end, and viewers had more flexibility in how it works for them. e.g. being able to tweak The Algorithm to how you like it.

[coppice]

In my view, creators are the product and Google's AI defines your requirements. That made sense when I thought it in my head. Hmmm.

Nope. The product is the adverts. That's what earn them money. Everything else is largely irrelevant to them. They know they can do almost anything, and as long as a little revenue flows to some of the creators there will be masses of content fed to their platform, which will keep people watching the adverts.

[Fungus]

In my view, creators are the product

Nope. The product is the adverts. That's what earn them money. Everything else is largely irrelevant to them. They know they can do almost anything, and as long as a little revenue flows to some of the creators there will be masses of content fed to their platform, which will keep people watching the adverts.

Yep. Youtube doesn't care if the videos you're watching are new or old or who created them. They only care that you're staying on youtube and seeing adverts.

[madsbarnkob]

Here are my 3 latest videos on https://www.youtube.com/c/kaizerpowerelectronicsdk60

Something strange is happening. SOME videos receive a boost RIGHT ON the spot of 24 hours after release. Most dont.

Kind of normal video about some progress electronics project


Finished a project, which had a really bad thumbnail, but oh well, couldn't really do better


Lightning! Everyone loves Tesla coils, except those that would make it go viral on youtube...

[armandine2]

aesthetic awards for online content don't get given out, I guess - no Oscar for a grand handheld dmm video.