Well, yeah... that's my point. Most people that view YT as a job aren't smart, and are getting their worlds shifted, and are freaking out over it. For every Demo Ranch out there, there are 10,000 morons who think they're going to be huge YT stars that don't have a fucking clue what's going on. Never mind Twitch streamers, etc. It'll be interesting to see how things mature and evolve with that niche... I don't think it's going to last for long, and there will be a few, really good channels that survive, and most of them will die off or drastically scale back to "hobby" level.
“SaltStrong” is another great example of how to monetize it into an actual brand. I’ll link to them later when I’m not on my phone, but their videos are awesome and have lead me to purchasing a ton from their actual website. People like that, their YT channels are more like a “bonus features” on the dvd, where you’re gonna get the movie anyway (their website), so the bonus stuff on YT is just a bonus income stream. The days of the YT celebrity like that Logan dude are VERY near their end.
I'm sure BCWoods can relate: "BCWoods (real name Brandon Woods) was one of posters who wasn't an asshole, and is the only person ever on the RMMB who I would buy a bottle of beer for without having the intent of smashing it over their head. BCWoods' stories were unabashed tales of a bizarre dysfunctional childhood. Tucker managed to spin BCWoods popularity into glory and money for himself, as he gave BCWoods a blogger spot in the Rudius network, DaddyDontHitMe.com - which quickly became the second most popular site in the Rudius network. For 6 months of blogging Brandon Woods received the grand total of $82. When he politely questioned Tucker about this he received this elegant response: Excuse me? Did you write the email below, or am I seeing things? Is this a joke? Have you let the very small amount of fame—that I am almost entirely responsible for—really go that much to your fucking head that you think you can talk to me that way? If you don't like our arrangement, if you don't like that fact that I found you as a complete nobody doing nothing and have given you the opportunity to reach the world, then you can go back to where you were when I found you. In fact, thats a good idea. You go ahead and go your own way. Let's see how you do when you don't have anyone to blame but yourself. Don't read any further. Go back and read that shit again. How fucking pathetic is Tucker Max? BCWoods chose to leave quietly. Any messages questioning his absence and the sudden death of DaddyDontHitMe.com were quickly deleted." An admittedly biased take from here: http://tuckermaxlies.blogspot.com/2008/08/a-z-of-rudius-part-1.html
Meh, he was a dick, but he kind of had a point. Odds are any remuneration was based on ad-share, and that's probably what the cash broke down to based on some percentage of revenue. Plus he provided the hosting, branding, initial demographic, etc. I'd be interested to know just how much BC was expecting to get paid... because for what he did, and what I saw, and the apparent traffic he was getting, that seems about right. It sounds a lot like the Ray Oldhaufer and Adam Carolla beef... Ray wanted to get paid up front, and Adam said, "do it for free while we build the brand and grow it enough to get sponsorship and we'll share in the proceeds, or get paid a flat fee up front... but not both". Ray took the cash and never got the percentage once things started to make money.
Carolla could have offered Ray a guaranteed payment now against the future percentage. In essence advancing some money against the future earnings when things did start to generate ad income. Ray had a very good point, he is still a licensed contractor with a business to run. Any time spent in the studio was taking away from time he could be generating cash flow that he needed to live on. Unlike Carolla, Ray had no other source of income other than his business.
Yeah, I get that... and it's easy to say when you don't have to worry about rent/mortgage or food... but I think the point stands that in order to share in the rewards, you have to put some sort of risk in up front. To Carolla, that meant sweat equity, because he'd already ponied up a shit-ton of cash for the studio, gear, staff, etc, to do the production. In his mind, Ray was at that point a staff member, not an investor in the company. More than anything, I think that Carolla gave Ray a big opportunity that Ray never took advantage of... he was asked time and again to help provide input into the show's direction, not just show up and spew info that any contractor could really do, and he never did. The only real hook that he had was the history and stories with Adam. I can totally understand how Adam would get pissed at being treated as a meal ticket... he just wanted some effort from Ray to show that he wasn't just riding on Adam's coat-tails. I think Adam riding Ray so hard on that was because he was pissed at Ray for not doing fuck all other than show up for the show.
Ehh Adam wasnt entirely accurate about the whole Ray thing. I still look at the subreddit associated with the show sometimes even though I dont listen anymore. It sounds like Ray's show became really popular on the episodes Adam wasnt on it and Adam pulling the plug may have been associated with that factor. Whether or not because the cost outweighed the benefit is anybody's guess, but Carolla has become so bitter and insufferable I wouldnt put it past him.
I think the issue in that case is less that a naïve kid probably got paid what was actually a realistic value for what he produced than the douchey response he got when asked about it. Aghdam wasn't naïve, just batshit crazy. Why is there any expectation on the part of ANY Youtubers (a douche title in and of itself), be it her or the gun-centered Youtubers that some here are lamenting the loss of, that a private company has any obligation to air their videos? So you create and post a video and YouTube MUST leave it up? And we call millennials entitled.
Youtube gave the “Dream Big” idiots the first at-home job application for fame. Before YT and social media you had to move out to L.A. to get a shot at fame. Now you can show off whatever talent you have in your house and have it judged INSTANTLY by the world. All of a sudden validation became the new money. Except people also want to paid real money for being validated. And this egotistical nutbar did NOT deserve to make any money. Her videos absolutely, positively sucked horsecock and she was obviously off her fucking meds if she honestly thought that Patreon and YT should be funding her lifestyle. People are so clueless when it comes to self-talent. Go to any karaoke bar right now and find out.
I’m actually starting to wane on the show and it’s still in my daily rotation. They split the episodes in two, to boost downloads and shoe horn in more of the worst geico commercials this side of hitler. They’ve started front loading guest up in shorter segments the “great” interviews that made his podcast really stand out at the start are fewer and far between. Rogan, for me, is the king of the long form interview and his guest are much more diverse than the entertainers carolla gets who are mostly just on press junkets. But but you’ve received countless hours of free entertainment for free! I mean he’s the one who chose to recreate a basically dead form of mass media. Most of my friends moved on to newer podcast, pardon my take and such.
Why not? There's no contract specifying anything like dollar values... and if you read the monetization policies, they clearly state "there are no guarantees" because it's totally at the whim of the market and those big businesses that are spending the money. Or aren't spending the money. Never mind their total right to unilaterally and arbitrarily change their "allowed content" policies and how that impacts monetization. Again, people getting into something without any situational awareness. Do I feel some empathy for them? Sure. But I don't blame YouTube for any of it.
That sums it up. There are plenty of talented people on YouTube who deserve to make money from what they do, some deserve a decent shot at fame, or perhaps even teaching jobs. There is some truly great shit out there that’s both fun and/or educational and it’s free for practically everybody. But before anything else, you still posted your shit on an open social media site for free. And on the second biggest website on the entire planet, you were very, very, very lucky that you achieved e-fame on it even without making a dime. Youtube paid their half of the cheque by giving you domain, a.k.a every other Youtube user on Earth. And that’s all you wanted from them in the first place.
Sounds bleh. I stopped listening about 3 years ago or so. I can only listen to someone repeat the same rants over and over so many times before I just burn out on it. In the beginning it was really good, but I think Adam got tired and started treating the podcast as a means for his side projects. He used to make fun of the traditional radio format and how dumb it was, and its essentially what his podcast has become. Rogan is probably my favorite podcast aside from Hardcore History. I dont listen to every episode, particularly on guests I dont give a shit about, but generally its pretty funny. The most recent one with Fitzsimmons was great. I recently got a SiriusXM subscription for a year with a new car, so I've been listening to a lot of Howard Stern, which is something I havent done much of since high school.
I do feel a little bit of schadenfraude at these young youtubers thinking they're gonna "disrupt" a century of entertainment contract law.
This. As an artist of any type the best thing you can wish for is exposure. If you are truly good, money will possibly follow if you are "People like you" good. If you're good, but no one gets what you're doing, money will not follow. To be given a platform that can expose you quite literally to almost the entire world is damn near priceless as an unknown artist. I don't know about now, but back in the 80's if you were an unknown band and wanted to play on the Sunset Strip, it was going to cost you. It wasn't like where I played....our management company told us to go somewhere and the job was all lined up. If you wanted the exposure that came with playing on Sunset, you had to sell out your show. You were booked at a club, bought all the tickets for that show, and it was up to you to go out and hustle the sales. If you didn't sell all the tickets, oh well....at least you got exposure.
I always thought if you played the Roxy or Whiskey you “made it”. Also, Youtube uploads 400 hours of content every single minute. So yes, if you do gain a good following it’s practically like winning a lottery.
I've had a few friends play both and other then me posting some of their stuff on here, you've never heard of them. I also don't know if the Roxy or Whiskey ever operated on the pay to play principal, but most others on Sunset did.
But honestly that shit needs to be disrupted. The labels/publishers/studios has shit deals with artists and eventually screwed the consumer too much. YouTube was/is supposed to be the meritocracy form that connected your average content creator more directly to revenue streams. If they are going to just follow political winds to help protect their bottom line and virtue signal to the public they have to quit the facade and admit they in all honesty don’t really give a fuck about Don’t Be Evil concept or that they’re in it for anybody but themselves. Rogan has a writer on recently that broke down how bad publishing deals are, particularly with all the new media forms. Digital downloads you get 18 percent on them, which is the best books is 5-9 percent based on sales numbers. These days publishers require you do the leg work of cultivating and maintaining your following on social media in terms marketing your book. Still clinging to antiquated models. I know podcast ads are still a fraction of what radio ads pay.
My friend Darren’s band gets paid to play the Sunset strip, but he also has the small added benefit of having Jake E Lee as his guitar player. Actually, he is Lee’s vocalist. That’s how it works.