Being old enough to remember the days when online streaming video was rare to impossible to achieve due to bandwidth and compatibility issues, I understand why youtube became the leader. At a time when bandwidth was expensive and very limited, YT appears and offers a free way to share videos. I thought it was a scam at first. How could they offer free video hosting? As soon as I was convinced it was legit, I signed up and started using it to share videos with family and friends via email links. You know, back in the good old days of email? This went on for years. I never thought of youtube as anything more than a place to host videos for me to share on other platforms.
Then one day, YT begins to pester me to "Monetize". I did not know what the word meant. I actually thought it was another form of the word "Monogram", and thought that YT wanted me to customize my account with my name and stuff. I was like, "No way!" DELETE. After like the four thousandth email, popup and every other way YT could ask me to monetize, I finally gave and said. "What the heck is this MONETIZE thing?." That is when I found out meant "Revenu Sharing". I was like, "Why the heck can't YT use normal words?" All this time they have been asking me to let them PAY ME for people watching my videos. Mind Blown! First, they offer free video hosting, and now they want to pay me. "This has got to be too good to be true." But I signed up anyway.
Now, I have signed up for a few online money making schemes over the years, and they all ended up to be nothing. I did not expect much after signing up. My first month's check was $27. Min blown again! That is when my whole thinking about youtube changed. It was no longer a place for me to upload my dumb videos that I made for fun so I could share them with my family. It was not a serious place of business that could bring some real cash into my pocket. The world as my oyster; or so I thought.
The really funny thing is, is that the one video that got me on YT's radar, is the only really successful video I have every produced. It has to be the dumbest most crummy video every. Poorly produced with cheap smartphone. Compared to what I produce today, I am embarrassed to even have that video on my channel. But I can't get rid of it because out of 140 videos it accounts for 25% of my channel's revenue, views and watch time all by itself. No matter what I do, cannot reproduce the magic formula that makes that stupid video so darn effective.
After realizing that my initial success was a fluke and that I was not going to rocket to YT success, I braced myself for a long slow step by step climb. Right about the time I was seeing some results for all my hard work, the Adpocolypse hit and like everyone else I realized, that as good as YT was, it was a suer fragile platform that could disappear as fast as it appeared. I almost quit, but I held on. I probably should have quit. At this point I think YT is on it's way out. Their knee-jerk reaction to any little thing after the Adpocolypes has made it clear that we Creators are of no real importance to YT anymore. YT is branching off into other markets and focusing on more Holywood style movie production. The small-time creator still has a place, but we have "No Voice".
One day, another platform will arise that will offer a new home to the small time creator. They will offer better compensation than Youtube. When that day comes, you will see a mass exit from youtube. I think Youtube will welcome it because by then, they will be almost completely hollywoodized and be glad to be rid of the little unprofessional creators that they look at as more of a nuisance now.
I am old enough to remember when Microsoft, Internet Explorer and Yahoo were considered "Undefeatable Monopolies". Then a company called Google came on the scene and now here we are today.
but I know what you mean.
