Sciencemadness Discussion Board

How YouTube sees content value (no, we are not valued)

Bert - 11-11-2019 at 12:44

Someone figured out an exploit to see just how much YouTube thinks it should be pushing any particular content source.

Also, YouTube sent out a notice saying they now reserve the right to REMOVE content for not being commercially desirable. Not offensive. Not evil, or illegal. Just not commercial enough.

Best find a new home for your science videos, if you have not yet done so.

https://youtu.be/teI68Q4PUEE

Screenshot_20191111-143813_YouTube.jpg - 805kB

[Edited on 11-11-2019 by Bert]

karlos³ - 11-11-2019 at 13:34

Bitchute! chemplayer is doing well on that, as are many other very critical things that get removed on U-Tube.
So I think this is among the best alternative video platforms.

vibbzlab - 11-11-2019 at 16:27

Thank you for providing the this information. I guess I should also start to host my videos in bitchute

j_sum1 - 11-11-2019 at 17:36

I have deliberately not monetised my (tiny) channel. I would really like people to be able to watch educational content without ads. (Really important if this is ever used in a classroom setting. This is something that Youtube continually overlooks despite Alphabet constantly flying the education flag.) I fully recognise that not monetising has the effect of chaining my channel down to the bottom of the ocean. It is a tough choice: ads or few viewers.

As I see it, one of three things will happen following Dec 10


I guess some combination of the above three is possible too. But none of these optiosn are desirable.
The problem with a shft in platform is that it will come at a cost of viewership simply due to the effective YT monopoly.
The problems with diversifying across platforms are that it comes at significant overhead of time effort and bandwitdth, it requires me toi engage in forms of social media that I really have no other interest in, and it still will have no guaranteed increase in viewership. Indeed, if everyone diversifies in this manner it will dilute content and make it even more difficult to find.

I will stay with YT for now and migrate when it seems to be expedient to do so.
Alternatively, if the dust settles on YT and it comes up with a framework for educational content that matches my aims, I will exploit that.

Velzee - 11-11-2019 at 20:58

YT continues to disappoint me. It is up to the other major corporations (hopefully Microsoft) to launch a competitor. Microsoft, Amazon, and even Sony are all financially capable of both building and maintaining such a competitor, and although neither the competitor nor Google themselves would make money off their platforms(Google as we know barely does), at least we would see some changes, and I'd bet they'd be good ones.

[Edited on 11/12/2019 by Velzee]

arkoma - 11-11-2019 at 21:28

Quote: Originally posted by karlos³  
Bitchute! chemplayer is doing well on that, as are many other very critical things that get removed on U-Tube.
So I think this is among the best alternative video platforms.



DUDE, thanks for reminding me where chemplayer went.

vibbzlab - 11-11-2019 at 23:18

But there is another reason for monetisation. It's very expensive and cost us a lot on running a lab and purchasing equipment and other things. That is the reason for people enabling monetisation.we should have a source of income ,only then we can post more interesting videos

TheMrbunGee - 11-11-2019 at 23:18

Reading this, You are forgetting that Youtube is a business, AND Youtube does not owe us anything. Their decisions are based on actual situation, and science channels like ours are casualties they are willing to take, because that is better for their business. That is sad, but it works for them.


I monetise some of my videos, because chemistry is an expensive hobby, and even 80 euros once in 4 months is a nice reward for editing those videos in my only free time. And I can use them to buy some glassware or reagents. And all people have to do is skip adds, or have an add blocker if adds get too annoying.

woelen - 12-11-2019 at 00:05

I also have no need to make money with my chemistry hobby. For this reason I decided to put my entire website on my own domain. I host my website at home (I have a decent uplink speed of appr. 30 mbit/s) at low power hardware (less than 10W, on average 7 W or so). Total cost of owning the website for me is around 4 euros per month (power usage, plus cost of web domain) and as an added bonus, I have 50 GBytes of online storage with the domain, without issues of data ownership or the risk that the data is used for whatever purpose.

Ubya - 12-11-2019 at 00:18

Quote: Originally posted by vibbzlab  
But there is another reason for monetisation. It's very expensive and cost us a lot on running a lab and purchasing equipment and other things. That is the reason for people enabling monetisation.we should have a source of income ,only then we can post more interesting videos

If you want to start a YouTube channel with the idea of making money, you are going to have a bad time.
I also want to post some videos, but right now I'm more inclined in doing so on my website, with YouTube just as a video player.
I like surfing YouTube to find new chemistry channels, most of them have 250 views per video, if you think about it even nurdrage now has 10-30k views per video, and he is the most famous( with Nile red).
Most of the videos I see have the same kind of content, pretty much every channel has those 4 or 5 reactions (nitric acid, benzene, salicylic acid, etc), and even the channels with interesting content are at the bottom of the youTube bucket.
Themrbungee, 80 euros in 4 months is better than nothing, with that budget I could run my lab with no problems(right now).

vibbzlab - 12-11-2019 at 00:30

That is what I said. If you have plenty of paper in your pocket ,then you can definetly do that

andy1988 - 12-11-2019 at 09:24

Quote: Originally posted by TheMrbunGee  
Reading this, You are forgetting that Youtube is a business, AND Youtube does not owe us anything. Their decisions are based on actual situation, and science channels like ours are casualties they are willing to take, because that is better for their business. That is sad, but it works for them.

The recent nuisance updates to the Youtube App and terms of service make me think this is reactionary to all the new Euro 'digital tax' stuff going on (news on France/Italy taxing Google specifically)... I think they're trying to make a point. It would be nicer if they took it out of HR compensation and share buybacks... but far more effective this way, painting themselves as a "public" service being ...short on funding. The amount they spend on share buybacks far exceeds these digital taxes.

EDIT: Victimized wasn't the right word I used earlier. Point is that they're taking it out on less profitable videos and inconveniencing youtube App users as a statement instead of reducing share buybacks, which don't serve the company or public at large.

[Edited on 12-11-2019 by andy1988]

chemplayer... - 14-11-2019 at 04:20

Per-click online advertising revenue has been dropping steadily. Our guess would be that YT will do some math and calculate (storage + bandwidth used) / viewing minutes. They might then factor in the advertising susceptibility potential of the demographic watching that channel, or some other factor. As and when they need to make a tough decision around cost vs. value of keeping content, they know who goes overboard first.

Other platforms will have the same problem in the end, and as content producers switch to being funded in a sponsorship / 'Patreon' type manner, this is where the money will be flowing. Ultimately maybe having content producers pay for the streaming platforms (horror!) could actually help solve both the censorship issue (the customer is right) and the stability issue.