> They have to make money somehow.

- multiple ads on the video itself

- multiple links to their merchandise in the description

- link promoting a paid YouTube membership in the description (which links to a sponsored video with a referral link to an unrelated financial product)

- 26 referral links in the description

- referral link to a completely unrelated mobile game in the description

- referral link to a completely unrelated mobile game as a pinned comment

- promotion of Patreon in the video itself

It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that without early content access they have no way of monetising their content.

They're also a LOT higher budget than the vast majority of other YouTube channels, necessitating all the additional funding streams. I don't know what the final cost for that Protosaber was, but including all the R&D and Man Hours along with the materials, I'm sure its pretty crazy.

Not quite the same since it's a much larger team but Linus Tech Tips actually just released a video[1] on how they make money and it shows that diversifying your revenue stream as much as possible is key to be successful on YouTube.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zt57TWkTF4

Or you could just sign up for the Patreon and get their videos without all that. I don’t see how giving people the option to pay for stuff is a bad thing?

Oh you want to get a base salary as well?

- already have RSUs

- annual bonus

- health care benefits

- paid vision

- paid time off

- snacks in office

It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that without a base salary software engineers have no way of monetising their skills.

But who cares if they do use early access content as a way to pay the bills?

You seem like you expect people to work for you for free to create content to entertain you?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. They should willingly be making less money?

Give them money to bypass it

It seems I've missed the window to edit my comment, so to address all the negative sibling comments: I am not moralising - I don't care what they do.

Grandparent complained the good content is paywalled. Parent suggested that's because they can't monetise any other way. I provided examples of how they are monetising already.

I liked youtube more when it didn't have google.

I'll bite.

Google bought YouTube in 2006 which was ~1 year after it spawned.

The _idea_ of being social on the internet then -- apart from forums et al -- was very new. I was using YouTube as an 11 year old and all that was really being posted were cat videos, blogs, Fred, and these kind of low-budget home videos. People were still figuring things out. It was an exciting time because it was a new thing; but _precisely_ because it was a new thing that's what was exciting.

The content on YouTube now is orders of magnitude more diverse than then and still includes the stuff of yonder. Let's leave hyperbole out of it.

I always hate when people say stuff like "things were better back when..." specifically for the internet stuff. There are a lot of people that wax nostalgic about how "it was a better era" but in reality, it was god awful video quality, low effort or simple content, creators that made stuff when they felt like it, and much harder to use youtube as a search engine as opposed to just an entertainment machine.

The internet pre-today was just garbage. The issues with being tracked and Facebook...blah blah blah are all minor in comparison to it's convenience it's brought. Remember when you ACTUALLY had to make a forum post and engage with others online to maybe get the answer you were looking for? What about online shopping? Did you really like relying on some sketchy website that someone whipped up and didn't bother to secure your info with they're half-baked payment processing page?

The thing these people often forget is, that garbage content they think is so great is still there. They just don't actively look for it anymore. They just see the top promoted channels and go "oh wheres the good stuff!" but don't bother to search for it. They never sort by new I bet on any website.

no, I'm not being nostalgic. In the early days of youtube it was just content. Sure the content is crisper and more available, but there was no motivation to like & subscribe. There was no drama with demonitization. There were no ads. All of this was brought on by google.

is youtube still a decent product? Sure

You don't have to have ads on your youtube site. This is what happens when people go with the path of least resistance and don't host things themselves or at least utilize someone elses video player while they host the video.

I don't have sympathy here because these people are playing on Googles platform. Google is trying to navigate these waters with as much automation as it can. Unfortunately it can't do a good job of it just because there is an absurd amount of content given to them every second.

If you're livelihood is based around someone who does the corralling, you can't get upset they weren't perfect. You should've been aware of this from the get go seeing as you are not the one in control.

You mean back when content like this wasn't on it?