Is it immoral for top YouTubers to have kick starters?

Is it immoral for top YouTubers to have kick starters?

  • Total voters
    26
Status
Not open for further replies.
Franklin

Franklin

Yugituber
I have noticed a trend with YouTubers starting kick starters. Kick starters are crowdfunding projects. The person is asking for donations to help a project, medical funds, and any expense. Many top YouTubers are starting crowdfunding projects.

This is a bit distributing. I see YouTubers who average thousands of dollars based on Social Blade's projections. I can understand a small YouTuber who is just starting his or her channel making a kick starter program. I surely do not understand any moral basis for a top YouTuber to ask for donations for his or her channel. You should be able to fund your channel with the thousands you are making on YouTube.

I also feel like this double dipping. They already earn money from viewers clicking and watching ads. Now they want viewers to give money to them.
 
It depends, Like for Tyler Oakley he did a fundraiser and raised half a million for the trevor project. Some youtubers don't monetize and maybe even those who do might not get a lot of money, unless you have millions of subs and views.
 
If a channel is not providing content of value to their viewers, then it will crash and burn if they are asking for money on top of ad revenue.
 
Depends what for. You have to remember kickstarter is for projects. YouTubers can use it to do things bigger then just making YouTube videos. For example Hannah Hart did one for her tour, (although she used indiegogo, not kickstarter.) By doing this, she was able to get it all by her and not some company, she did volunteer meet ups at a food bank and filmed my drunk kitchen in fans houses. She was asking for $50,000 for the tour, and she wouldn't charge money for the meetups or anything. Plus, at that point she probably wasn't making much more then $50,000 a year herself, it made sense to crowdfund for a tour. Joey Graceffa used it to fund his storytellers series, which was higher quality content that he might not otherwise been able to make. But then there was Smosh who had a campaign for a game two years ago and still haven't released. ShayCarl did one for a documentary two years ago as well, and we still haven't seen it.
I think you are getting kickstarter confused with patreon or something else because like I said kickstarter is for creative projects not to make a living off of or even medical bills or charities. Kickstarter is for creative projects only, nothing else.
 
Last edited:
Even if it's just asking for money and not giving anything in return, there's nothing immoral about it unless they're taking money from people. If you ask someone for something and you aren't tricking them to get it, there's nothing immoral with it, doesn't matter if you're talking about money or anything else.
 
CoolMoo5 said:
Depends what for. You have to remember kickstarter is for projects. YouTubers can use it to do things bigger then just making YouTube videos. For example Hannah Hart did one for her tour. By doing this, she was able to get it all by her and not some company, she did volunteer meet ups at a food bank and filmed my drunk kitchen in fans houses. But then there was Smosh who had a campaign for a game two years ago and still haven't released. ShayCarl did one for a documentary two years ago as well, and we still haven't seen it.
I think you are getting kickstarter confused with patreon or something else because like I said kickstarter is for creative projects not to make a living off of.
Click to expand...

I'm not getting Kickstarer confused with patreon or anything else. Kickstarter's intended purpose is for creative projects, but a lot of people use it to make a living off. YouTubers such as Venus4666 and MegaCaptialG make thousands of dollars each year and are asking people to donate money to improve their channels. This sounds shady because they earned the money on YouTube to support their channels.

Smosh had no business with a campaign for a game. The channel is projected to make 666K to 5.5M per year. That is more than enough money to make a quality game if you spend your money right.
 
I'd say it depends... the YouTube model can be extremely profitable for a one or two man operation with very little expenses, but if there's a production team with lots of overhead it's not a sound model. That's why you don't see much success when big production companies try and make a profitable channel, or even YouTube giving big money to channels to create new series. They usually flop. The YouTube business model requires a lean operation. If you have one guy bringing in $500,000/year who works out of his house, bam, it's life changing income. If that same income has a production team of 5+ guys and a business/studio location and hires actors and rents Red Epic cameras and creates high budget videos, trying to make money with Adsense is not viable. Example Freddie Wong had a hugely successful kickstarter campaign for Video Game High School's next season. But his costs are very high to make those. If I started a kickstater campaign because I wanted a new high-end camera for my current videos, I'd be a scoundrel. If I wanted to a make a 'real' movie with real costs, not so much. Just my opinion on the subject.
 
Ryan CG said:
Even if was just asking for money, there's nothing immoral about it unless they're taking money from people. If you ask someone for something and you aren't tricking them to get it, there's nothing immoral with it, doesn't matter if you're talking about money or anything else.
Click to expand...

There actually is a moral issue. Let's say you buy a Big Mac at McDonald's. The cashier proceeds to ask you to make a donation to support their new and improved Big Mac recipe. This company has millions of dollars and is asking you to donate money to a project that they are able to fund without any problems. There is something wrong with this picture.
 
Franklin said:
There actually is a moral issue. Let's say you buy a Big Mac at McDonald's. The cashier proceeds to ask you to make a donation to support their new and improved Big Mac recipe. This company has millions of dollars and is asking you to donate money to a project that they are able to fund without any problems. There is something wrong with this picture.
Click to expand...

... and then you choose to not give them money for it and move on. You weren't harmed by their asking, and someone who is choosing to give this successful person or company money is doing so because they feel like it's worth it to some sense.

You could also argue that it's immoral to sell Legos because they're tiny pieces of cheap plastic that are being way overpriced for $.12 per piece. Except, people buy them, because they get value out of it. It doesn't matter that the company's successful; it's successful because it's selling a product that people are benefiting from enough to continue purchasing.

A YouTuber asks for money? If you don't want to donate, don't donate. You're not hurt by the asking. If you do want to support them, then you do so and you feel good about it. You donated because you're getting value from it; you feel better knowing that you helped a cause you care about.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top