Advertising is certainly one way to square that. Honestly I don't see what the big deal is here.
Also don't forget that YouTube gave them the option to not advertise on those videos. It's so arbitrarily capricious I was convinced it was a technical mishap when the news first broke.
The Blender Foundation isn't "Blender", though. It's a financial entity with income (there's literally a giant "donate" link on their home page) and expenses. They pay for all sorts of stuff that they need (obviously I have no clue what their balance sheet looks like).
And no one whines that they don't get free conference admission or airline tickets or printer paper or whatever. Why is their video hosting any different?
Those are terrible analogies. YouTube offers free hosting with the ability to opt out of monetizing your videos -- features that they will apparently punish you for using. That is absurdly user-hostile.
It's very likely that Blender is going to have the same problem with Dailymotion and Vimeo too. No one wants to (or has the means) to be a dumping ground for hosting other people's content. We all have to share in this world. As it happens advertising is the mechanism YouTube offers for sharing revenue.
But it's not for people and organizations who are being funded to put up those videos. If you are deriving revenue from that video stream, whether or not it's a "profit" legally, then it's not unreasonable for you to be expected to pay for it. Advertising with shared revenue is the standard mechanism for paying for youtube videos.
By opting out of ads you're also opting out of your share of the revenue so by definition you're avoiding a potential profit stream. I think you'd have a fair point if it was a publicly-listed company complaining about ads hosted for free on YouTube but come on -- these are free, educational videos hosted for the explicit purpose of democratizing knowledge.
Again, you're not wrong. YouTube is within their rights to do this. I just think it's an incredibly disappointing move from Google.
That's outrageously spun. They're Blender evangelism. Having those videos out there helps Blender get users and visibility and (here's the important part) donations, that they can then use to make Blender better by paying for stuff that Blender needs to get better.
Except for video hosting. You think they shouldn't be required to pay for video hosting the same way they are for member reimbursements. Because... I dunno, Google is evil or something.
No more outrageous than you trying to spin Blender as some corporate behemoth looking for a free pass.
If people picking that option is causing problems for your business, you take that option away.
YT is free to block whatever content they want for whatever reason. However, creators will follow the path of least resistance and viewers will follow creators.
Push the creators away and there will be no viewers to show ads to.
I'd venture to say most people learning blender will spend a significant time on YouTube, blender isn't the easiest thing to learn by a long shot.
That's ridiculous, and it's totally shooting yourself in the foot.
People using power over the private YouTube platform to push political agendas through censorship crossed the "ridiculous, and it's totally shooting yourself in the foot" threshold awhile back. It's just that it's leaking into the monetization realm.
This is what happens when you let authoritarian mindsets take over your company's culture. You wind up with a company that can't keep its hands off the ecosystem it's supposedly fostering.
This is a speculation of mine from what I observed on some tech channels I am not familiar with YT Terms and Conditions.
If you get third party sponsors and not allow monetization is YT getting nothing? If yes then we can see what they are trying to make here.
Google wants creators funded, but they want the system to push their ad-focused approach. The last thing Google wants is a future where the (unethical, horrible, destructive) surveillance-capitalism-ad-tech economy goes away…
What would be really nice, from a viewer standpoint, would be if it was done on a flat subscription rate, like Sirius XM and the BBC do it. Basically make a premium version of YouTube, but I'm sure their marketing department will try to give it a cooler, but less useful, name than YouTube Premium.
And they shouldn't freaking block videos because the creators flipped a switch. That's just stupid. If they're not willing to offer the videos without ads, then offer the videos with ads.
Google's strategy as they offer patronage options will be to make it a ransom that removes ads. That way, the ads are still there for non-patrons and Google gets to keep their primary business model.
What I'm saying is that patronage should go to those who treat the public better by not showing ads to anyone. We shouldn't reward bad behavior through ransoms that make the bad stuff go away just for those who pay up.
http://mimiandeunice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ME_486_P...
Because the corporate culture of Google/YouTube has changed into one of authoritarian adherence. This is the natural result.
Really? Is that what you've taken away from the Maven debate?
There's a couple simpler, far more plausible explanations.
It's a number of observations. It's only natural that a company like YouTube would seek to monetize and shift towards the mainstream. It's what they are doing with the long tail and the creative margins which is suspect.
Publish something YT doesn't like, and we'll demonetize you!
Publish something YT likes, and... we'll force you to monetize?
Shocking.
That's ridiculous, and it's totally shooting yourself in the foot. The vast majority of creators with many views do want to monetize, YouTube is losing almost nothing by allowing people not to if they choose. They must be really be desparate for revenue over there.