It has more to do with these recent YT changes causing big issues with monetization and community-building. Less revenue, but also comments are now disabled for example. If you make content which could in any way be aimed for kids, or has kids appearing in the video (with some nuances) then you don't get comments which are huge for building a community. And if you get it wrong, the video or channel could be demonitized altogether based on YT's interpretation.

Essentially YT opted out of actually creating moderation tools and a team and instead just increased their ad revenue cut while placing further burden on independent creators who don't have millions in budgets to cushion this effect.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/13/20963459/youtube-google-...

The only reason you even have ad revenue is because the platform is in a state that allows the general public to use it.

Yes, these things are hassles but on youtube you have access to an audience of billions, youtube eats the entire infrastructure costs and manages virtually everything for you.

What do you get on peer tube, 500 views and laggy 480p videos, and no advertisement revenue at all?

I agree with you, and I have in mind a pretty decent solution worth exploring if I can generate the capital to throw at it. It involves separating the ad experience from the videos being consumed. You can still work out targeted deals, but the gist is that the advertiser generally has no control over which videos are seen before and after their ads and have no incentive to find out.

That's how it used to be, then people on social media such as Twitter started reporting things like "why is this Bounty ad next to a controversial figure like Pewdiepie". That's when companies paying for ads started to care and pulled funding.

Right, so the idea is to separate the two experiences, like I said.

Look, at some level it's kinda irrational, but it also doesn't matter when the demands are made by the people that pay you. "Advertiser friendly content" is a real thing.

Although this has been attempted before and was eventually reversed (as other posters have pointed out), it is probably worth your time to investigate and possibly prototype. It may not be a model that dominates the market, but you might be able to find your niche.

Thank you.

One thing people don't understand is that while Clorox might not want their ads next to a video about guns, they still want their ads to reach me. If 100% of my consumed content involves guns, there is a compromise in some capacity which Clorox is willing to make. The aim of the model is to make it such that this compromise is fair and clearly separates sponsored content and consumed content so that there is no connection between the two. This is accomplished in many ways.

If this is something that interests you, I'm happy to discuss my model in a private setting.

You can't separate the two experiences. What the poster was saying is that it was already tried. They were already separated.

And then advertisers realized that having your ads displayed on video content that is damaging to your company's image is generally Really Really Bad for PR. No company is going to sign on for your platform if they can't control where and how their ads are shown.

Try thinking outside of the box before criticizing an approach you don't even understand. There is no reason why the ad needs to be displayed next to the video content and no reason it can't be displayed in a content-agnostic fashion.

I don't want to go into the details of my revenue model but it's sound and has undergone multiple refinements. I don't need you to explain PR to me. I've done my research. I've read Crystalizing Public Opinion by the man himself, Edward Bernays. I am going to venture out and say that I know more about this subject than you and you should reverse your thrusters.

You can say you know more about this subject than I do, and that might be right. But that doesn't mean you'll find success, especially with that attitude. Plus your idea of 'content-agnostic' ads don't work because by existing on the same page and site, it's viewed as an endorsement. If it's not because of the video itself, then it'll be because of the videos that your site hosts. That's why people have gone after advertisers whom had ads on sites such as Breitbart. The alternative is ads which are purely browser-based and if that's your revenue model, then you were already beaten there by Brave.

But no, I won't 'reverse my thrusters'. You want me to change my opinion, then prove me wrong. Otherwise all you have is your word, and words are meaningless.

> But that doesn't mean you'll find success, especially with that attitude.

Lol. You're the one with the negative attitude. You don't know anything about my model and you're just playing devil's advocate. I never claimed it would be successful, I just said it was pretty decent and was worth exploring.

You're being a serious negative nancy. I don't need to change your opinion, and I don't need to prove you wrong, because your statements are empty and deflective and there is no real substance or argument other than "it won't work because I can't imagine a platform other than the ones I have already seen".

And ironically you say my words are meaningless. I've been conservative with my speech, making no hard claims, and you're throwing out whatever spice you can think of. I'm talking from a position reached by years of research, and you're talking straight from your ass.

You can continue to be this way, it's not in my interest to convert you or explain my model any further. Now I suggest you end this over-critical tirade before you cross the line of civility and I have to report you. Good bye.

Meanwhile, PeerTube doesn’t have monitization of any kind. And if they ever do, it will have to somehow contend with the same sort of advertising pressure that got Google, the world’s largest company, to forgo a good slice of revenue.

One of the keys to the revenue model, a version of which I am test-driving with a sister product I'm actively developing, is that the venture must be non-profit and have a strong charter.

There's a weird mix of regulation and Youtube action that mean no-one (parents, youtubers, regulators) are happy with the current result.

We want to protect children from predatory data harvesting, so we have laws like COPPA (in the US). YouTube's answer to COPPA was to just forbid children under 13 having their own account and launching Youtube Kids.

Children under 13 want to watch youtube, and the content they want isn't always on YTKids, so they watch using a parent's account. They do this because they also want the like and subscribe buttons. But because YT doesn't know if it's a child or adult watching they serve ads for horror films or gambling or alcohol. But they also try to guess if it's a child watching the video and they'll serve ads for toys.

Regulators were unhappy.

Youtube tried to say to the regulators "we comply with coppa and we definitely do not target children for ads", but they were going to the potential advertisers and saying "we have the largest child audience and we know how you can reach them".

Faced with further regulation Youtube bunted this onto the creators, and (weirdly, IMO) the regulators agreed and said that the creators (not Youtube) were responsible for ads placed against their content.

Now you have content that is clearly, unambiguously, aimed at children where the Youtuber has to say the word "fuck" three times a video so they can tick the "not for kids" box to get decent ad revenue. There's a bunch of content that was fine for kids that now has to include tediously edgy shit just to avoid that "aimed at kids" classification. Youtube has no idea who is watching videos so the ad serving is awful. The regulators don't talk to each other but are clearly unhappy that unsuitable ads are pushed at kids.

And parents are left not knowing if this content aimed at children actually is aimed at children or if it's going to include jokes about anal rape[1].

[1] On the off-chance that anyone from YouTube is reading this this is a real fucking example, but there's no way to tell you.

> And parents are left not knowing if this content aimed at children actually is aimed at children or if it's going to include jokes about anal rape[1].

> [1] On the off-chance that anyone from YouTube is reading this this is a real fucking example, but there's no way to tell you.

Well, in the 90s they sometimes put adult jokes/puns in cartoons so adults would get something out of it and watch alongside their kids. Your example reminded me of this from Animaniacs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xmAC9Qu908

The "appropriate for kids" thing has caused a lot of concern for youtubers due to how relatively heavy-handed it is.

Yeah, this. Tagging a video as for kids doesn't just stop certain types of ads running on it, it also disables many core YouTube features there too. For instance, you can't use the miniplayer, add it to a playlist, etc.

This puts creators of videos that might potentially appeal to kids in a bad situation, since either they tag it as such and watch their video get buried, or avoid doing so and hope YouTube or the FTC doesn't disagree with them.

YouTubers are beholden to YouTube, YouTube is beholden to advertisers.

When advertisers realized that a stupid percentage of their ad spend was going to four-year-olds watching six hours of unlicensed Disney characters in kinky scenarios it was the perfect storm for change.

Keeping perceived ad value up to advertisers is why creators even have the opp to monetize at the rate they do, so it’s really give and take.

Trouble with the FTC is much more responsible for this than advertisers.

Advertisers love to advertise to kids. This is in no way what the advertisers want.

I wish there were a checkbox in account settings somewhere by ticking which you would essentially say, "I do not record videos for kids, just stop asking me already".

There is. In Studio, go to Settings > Channel > Advanced settings and make a selection.

Fantastic! Thanks a lot for the tip.

Right, it's essentially ragging on a complete product. No one would say, come to peertube, where you have no idea what is meant for your child!

That actually sounds like good advertising to me. Allowing children to join ruins everything. Not because of the children but because parents cannot think rationally about their "safety" (as if you can be hurt over the 'net). They're neurologically hardwired to be biased and prioritize perceived safety over all other issues. This leads to crazy commercial policies re: children that effect everyone (and even worse laws).