Justifying YouTube
This is one of those blog posts I just have to do while the thought is still fresh in my mind. If not and I wait until later, I will have forgotten what I wanted to say.
I watched a video on YouTube of someone I’m not subscribed to, but is connected to someone I am subscribed to. In that video, they mentioned they had watched a video about advertising on YouTube, the kind of advertising people are now meant to disclose to the viewer.
They tried to justify wanting to do sponsored content in exchange for money by saying that they’re already paid to post videos on YouTube. They didn’t say they wanted to, but you could tell it was implied by the way they were talking.
The thing is though, they’re not paid to post content on YouTube, they’re “paid” with YouTube ad revenue which is of their own choice. There’s a difference between being paid to upload content and uploading paid content and I think that’s where they’re getting confused.
When you’re a full-time YouTuber, your income relies on having a large viewer base (not subscriber base, you’re not paid on how many subscribers you have). Getting thousands of views is what earns you enough ad revenue to call it either your hobby or your job.
This is where they got confused and tried to basically say that because they’re already paid to upload content, then why not accept money from companies who will pay you to create sponsored content. It seems they were blinded by the Pound signs in their eyes too much to see the difference.
Then there was talk about creating a Patreon. Now here’s the thing, people are willing to support others as long as they get something in return which is pretty hard for YouTubers to do. There are mainly two things to offer; a reserved spot on a game server or ad-free videos.
The second one could be considered controversial since that’s where the main flow of income is coming from and you’re not going to get £1 from each of your subscribers/viewers for each video unless you only make one video each week. The only option there would be to set an amount per month.
They obviously want to make as much money as possible doing what they love doing, regardless of how they do it, so the bottom line is this: if you have the option of making extra money and you make it clear the video is sponsored content, it’s up to you to take that risk.
Some people have an issue about sponsored content, I won’t watch it due to knowing that the opinion of the person is bias towards whatever the content is about, I’ve seen it before. You know that person, the way they commentate on typical videos, their YouTube personality, it changes when promoting paid content.
Their tone changes and you can hear them reading off things they have to say as given to them by the sponsor a mile away. They can’t just play and act like they usually do, you cringe at the awkward silence of when they take a look at the notes they’re supposed to read off at certain points.
So, what I’m saying is, don’t try to justify accepting money for sponsored content because you’re “already paid to upload videos to YouTube”, you’re not.
