Feature request: YouTube Shopping, Patreon-killer, Paypal-killer

[Charbax]

I have tried to push these feature requests over the past decade on the YouTube forum/blog but it seems YouTube is either lazy or somehow my ideas are stupid? I hope somehow there is a way to convince YouTube to implement these ideas soon, do you have contacts to YouTube product managers so they can wake up and do it?

YouTube needs to monetize better.

- Manually adding amazon affiliate links, using pateron, crowdfunding creations on indiegogo, asking people to donate with paypal, all those are very inefficient!

I with YouTube would integrate basic features directly in the YouTube UI to create:

1. YouTube Shopping.
- automatically generate affiliate links overlayed fully integrated with YouTube's UI with 1-click to purchase any relevant product to any monetized YouTube video.
- buyers can have preferences, if you are an Amazon Prime member, you can set your YouTube Shopping to default to 1-click purchasing on Amazon in priority unless items are not available or detected to be cheaper elsewhere. Same "chose your favorite price comparison engine, or favorite store (ex Amazon) or use Google's default price comparison engine" should be a part of Google Shopping (which the EU is complaining about right now).
- YouTube creator should get paid about 4% commission on each sale. That would 10x increase the YouTube monetization, right?

2. Directly support/donate to your favorite YouTube creator.
- all the functionalities to get support on sites like Patreon and Indiegogo, YouTube should have that available to every monetized YouTube channel right now.

Then when you click that dollar sign, there should be a range of ways to donate or to invest in the future creation projects of that creator. Supporting a YouTube creator could give early access to Unlisted videos (and help title/describe them evt), access to "behind the scenes" like Google Hangouts, footage or other, buy merchandise, etc etc. The list of top donators per video, per channel could expand right there below the video and look something like:

So there, I don't want to make too long a post here. I really hope some day perhaps here someone else would agree that those monetization feature requests seem like no brainers and that somehow YouTube product managers should make sure to implement stuff like this that just makes sense to I think dramatically increase monetization on YouTube.

 

[evoloz]

I believe youtube does have long term plans to introduce in house donation support. Although personally it wouldn't be something I would use unless forced.

 

[BrettMikaluk]

I think that this is a good theory in concept, but it really is going to take a few more years since crowd funding is a relatively new concept for YouTube creators. YouTube has done a decent job with end cards and the little "i" in the top right corner allowing external links and such.

 

[UKHypnotist]

Actually for creators who have more than 1000 subscribers and access to the Livestream feature, the donation option already exists on the livestreaming platform.

It's called Super Chat. Of course to use Super Chat you must be a monetized YouTube Partner, and some partners and MCNs won't have access to Super Chat if they are based in a non-eligible country.

 

[nad]

As far as I know donations had been implemented but only for YouTuber from a few countries. It was called "Fan Funding". They took it out again because it wasn't really used. In my opinion it's really a shame. A lot of people are willing to donate a bit of money if the get some kind of reward for it. YouTube just failed to implement it properly. I really hope that they will bring it back.

Yes, it would be awesome to get a better affiliate system. Manually creating the links and implementing them into the video description just as a plain link is not ideal at all.

 

[videoeditgr]

I am not sure if this is right but I believe that for Youtube is more important
to earn money from disembodied products as advertisement from companies
and subsriptions to RED from individuals. But again I might get it wrong.