When you block ads on YouTube, the ads are deleted. This has the problem of not giving creators money, forcing you to actually spend $10/mo or whatever the average Patreon subscription is. What if there was an option for an ad to play in the background while a black rectangle covers the screen while temporarily muting the browser tab? (Since the ad still plays in the background, the creator still gets money, allowing you to be a freeloader) edit: peertube has no ads
The question becomes, how does someone that does not have any disposable income support creators they like without inundating themselves with ads for products they are unable to afford?
I’m a small-time YouTuber who relies on the ad money to an extent.
My take is that if you like what I do, can’t afford a donation, but don’t want to sit through ads, first of all I’m still happy you’re there and enjoying the content. Even the view itself is valuable in a small way, algorithm-wise.
Secondly though there are plenty of other things you can do that help bring in more viewers who might be able and willing to support monetarily. Sharing videos, commenting and liking on new videos to give them that initial bump, recommending the channel when it’s relevant to a conversation. In my case, taking a free pattern I’ve made available for you to follow along with a tutorial video, and making sure to give credit when you make the project. Etc etc.
It genuinely all helps and although my YT friends are all small-time like me, there’s not a single one of us that doesn’t appreciate our regular viewers regardless of whether they actually earn us money.
Just out of curiosity… if you could charge per view rather than relying on ads, how much would you need to charge per view in order to meet your income goals?
Views vary wildly between videos so I took my last year’s stats to average it out a bit. Looks like the answer is around 10p.
Forgive me, I’m not super familiar with world currencies… is that 10 GBP?
Hah, no, ten pence, as in one hundred pence to a GBP 😉
Ahhh that makes more sense… that’s about 0.13 USD. It’s interesting to me, because I would gladly pay that much per video (or more!) if it meant I didn’t have to watch ads.
Of course that model doesn’t exactly lend itself to mindlessly clicking through videos (which is what Youtube wants). I know there are other video platforms out there… do you know of any that charge users per view?
Thanks for doing the math!
Honestly no idea, I don’t know much about alternative platforms at all. Only just started to look into other options myself!
I’d never framed it in terms of price per view but I do love a good stat so no worries lol, was interesting.
I’d probably just mute the ad and go to a different tab or look away from the screen. I don’t mean that to sound flippant, but it feels like the easiest solution.
The problem with that is lost time. It’s not much, but it can be a bit of a headache especially on things like repair videos.
That’s true, especially when the video itself is only like 90 seconds long.
Which is what my solution would do automatically.
If it’s about monetarily supporting creators, the answer is “they can’t”. To monetarily support someone you either need to give them money or do something that gives them money (which, in this case, is watching ads).
In terms of supporting in other ways, someone with a large enough reach might be able to post links to videos to their communities and those other people may watch the videos (and ads), or by subscribing to/ringing the bell for a content creator’s channel and being very on top of liking and commenting as soon as something goes up so that the Mystical YouTube Algorithm™️ pushes the video to more people.
Respectfully, if you can’t afford something, then you shouldn’t consume it. Ads are a nice way for creators to get paid for the time they put into creating the thing without requiring their customers to actually fork out money. If you don’t want to fork out money AND you don’t want to watch ads, then you need to just not consume that media. Anything else is not fair to the content creator.
I’d say the situation is unfair to all parties involved. No matter what someone loses. If the viewer watches the ad, the ad buyer does not receive a return on investment. If the viewer blocks the ad, the content creator is not compensated. If the viewer choses to not watch videos at all, they miss out on whatever benefits the video would have provided.
I’m not sure I follow what you mean by “If the viewer watches the ad, the ad buyer does not receive a return on investment.” Doesn’t the ad buyer want the viewer to watch the ad?
In any case, my comment was in the context of the OP, which is specifically concerned about the creator making money. If you care about the creator making money (and you should), then you have to either watch ads or pay them directly (via patreon, e.g.).
I have to admit that I have a sore spot for this subject. I believe (at least in America) that people are far too comfortable with the idea that we should be able to consume art for free. Obviously paying less is better than paying more from a personal finance perspective (and paying nothing is best!). However, it’s quite clear that the distribution platforms are more interested in making a profit than they are in compensating creators fairly (some are better than others, of course). If the distribution platforms are stiffing the creators, and the consumers are paying little or nothing, then it’s the creator left with the short end of the stick.
Generally speaking, creators just want their creations to be seen/heard because they care MOST about the art, not the money. Unfortunately, this often leaves them making less than they deserve for the value they create. Who benefits from this price/value disparity? The distribution platforms. I think if most people thought about this arrangement for a little bit, they would probably prefer that the creator gets more money and the distribution platforms get less.
However, I don’t think that’s the whole story. Distribution platforms need to make some money to cover the expenses of running the platform. I think it’s entirely likely that the cost paid (via ad impressions) doesn’t actually cover the TOTAL expense of paying the distribution platform overhead AS WELL AS fairly compensating the creator.
All that is to say, when you think about art in a producer/consumer context, it makes the most economic sense for the consumer to pay the producer. This circles back to my original premise: people are far too comfortable with the idea that we should be able to consume art for free. If we could get ourselves into the mindset that art is valuable and therefore should cost some money, I think we’d have a much more vibrant art culture.
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