General > General Technical Chat
level of Advertising is getting Ridiculous
EEVblog:
--- Quote from: engrguy42 on June 27, 2020, 11:42:21 am ---Is there some belief that, for some insane reason, computer software and youtube videos are somehow different? They aren't. Advertisements are the way that you pay for the service. Ideally, you click on them so the poor youtube creator can make $0.00002 of revenue for his hard work.
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Payment doesn't have to be in money either, it can be in making a name for yourself, or just getting the warm fuzzy from the feedback etc.
engrguy42:
--- Quote from: jogri on June 27, 2020, 12:15:43 pm ---
--- Quote from: engrguy42 on June 27, 2020, 11:42:21 am ---Are you people unaware that the way the universe works is that people receive services, and pay money in return? That's how it works. That's how you have a job. That's how you have money. That's why there are businesses like department stores and supermarkets. That's how it works. You RECEIVE a service, and in turn you PAY for the service.
Is there some belief that, for some insane reason, computer software and youtube videos are somehow different? They aren't. Advertisements are the way that you pay for the service. Ideally, you click on them so the poor youtube creator can make $0.00002 of revenue for his hard work.
Yeah, great, block the ads. And as is happening now, tech and other useful stuff on youtube will dwindle to nothing, and all we'll be left with is videos of cats playing piano that get 25 trillion views. :palm:
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Exactly, we are talking about products. If i don't like them, i don't buy them. Same goes for websites/videos: If i don't like the obscene amounts of ads, i won't view the ads. If a Youtuber or a website only has a modest amounts of ads and i like their content i'll disable my adblocker for them.
It's their choice to plaster everything with annoying video ads if they want to maximize the profit per page visit, but that comes at the cost of annoying people-> not sustainable as almost all visitors will use adblockers or go somewhere else. Sure, switching to nonintrusive ads will lower the profit at first, but it is sustainable when frequent visitors don't mind having a few ads->they will switch off their adblockers, giving you a constant viewerbase that gets you money via ad views.
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jogri, you're absolutely right. If you don't like them, don't buy them. And at the end of the day, the vast majority of youtube watchers ONLY are interested in mindless entertainment, and that's all they really like. And that's what they (somewhat unknowingly) support by clicking and liking them.
But just don't come back here in 5 years or whatever complaining "Hey, where are all the serious tech videos?". Personally, I'm convinced that in the not-to-distant future there will be zero sustainable business model for tech youtubers who don't cave to the mindless entertainment crowd. I give it less than 3 years. And all people can do now is delay that a bit by supporting the tech youtubers with what I suggested. But at the end of the day, get ready for nothing but more ads and more mindless music videos and cat videos and cute stuff videos and goofy prank videos. Because that's what people REALLY want.
NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on June 27, 2020, 06:39:14 am ---I don't see any ads on Youtube because I have premium. A good way to avoid ads and give revenue to creators BTW (minus Youtube's cut of course).
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How much do the creators actually get? Last time I checked, it's something like 50%, which only looks good compared to record companies. If it's still low like that and the creators accept some better way for donations, you'll do better using an adblocker and sharing what you would have spent with them.
What I would like to see is a way for individuals to add value to donations made by others. For example, if viewer A makes a donation to creator B, he/she would also be able to get benefits from "online service donor" C. C doesn't get a cut of the donation (so B is not losing out on anything), but A gets enhanced value from the donation and would get more motivation to donate. The kinds of services C could offer would likely be of the kind that need very little ongoing cost, for example offering time on a SDR receiver. If C is in a good place to install a good antenna and a bank of RTL-SDRs while A isn't, then A gets a good value from a service that costs little to run.
jogri:
Let's be honest: Most tech-YTers just won't survive on ad revenue alone, their videos are just too expensive to ever recoup their money via ads. According to Socialblade, medium-sized tech channels like Applied Science or Tech Ingredients have a monthly income of probably 300-800 USD while producing only 1-2 videos per month. They can't just spam out daily videos as the amount of work they have to put into every video is extremely high.
They don't need 0.1ct per viewer and video, they probably need over ten times as much to break even. Ads aren't a viable solution for them, they need sponsors and Patreon to stay alive. So yes, viewing ads on their channels helps them a bit (and most of them only have a moderate amount of ads), but the entire ad revenue system just works against their style of content as it was designed for quantity, not quality content.
engrguy42:
--- Quote from: jogri on June 27, 2020, 01:18:33 pm ---Let's be honest: Most tech-YTers just won't survive on ad revenue alone, their videos are just too expensive to ever recoup their money via ads. According to Socialblade, medium-sized tech channels like Applied Science or Tech Ingredients have a monthly income of probably 300-800 USD while producing only 1-2 videos per month. They can't just spam out daily videos as the amount of work they have to put into every video is extremely high.
They don't need 0.1ct per viewer and video, they probably need over ten times as much to break even. Ads aren't a viable solution for them, they need sponsors and Patreon to stay alive. So yes, viewing ads on their channels helps them a bit (and most of them only have a moderate amount of ads), but the entire ad revenue system just works against their style of content as it was designed for quantity, not quality content.
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I think you're looking at this bass-ackwards.
The REASON why they can't survive on ads alone is because VIEWERS aren't interested in tech videos, and therefore don't watch, and the numbers that can be applied to ad revenue are tiny. But that doesn't mean ad revenue is useless. For some creators ad revenue is thru the roof. The problem is, in the serious tech world there are incredibly few people on this planet who are interested.
It's up to viewers to value these things and support them by watching and liking and subscribing. It's the viewers fault, nobody else's. But viewers aren't interested. If they were, they'd be giving tech videos 12 million views like the latest cat video. (BTW, for reference, I think that at recent ad revenue return rates, 12 million views would amount to at least $12,000. For one video).
Now as a side note, I hesitate to mention the elephant in the room, but this economic depression that's going on is just going to get worse, IMO. Much worse. Especially with the incredible spike in cases in recent weeks as economies open back up and a world full of morons has convinced themselves that the pandemic is over.
I fully expect advertisers to pull back their percentages, as well as Patreons and anyone else you want to mention. So it will get even tougher for creators. Which means we viewers need to support them more, if we can. Or sit back and complain about ads and watch them dwindle to nothing.
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