Youtube Partnership Program

Next in my continuing series of things no one that reads this stupid blog cares about....TA DA! The Youtube partnership program. Those unfamiliar with the program, it works like this. Since Google bought Youtube awhile back, Google has been trying very hard to make money from the site (which at the moment is failing miserably. Youtube is a huge cash suck and they lose money every day due to the fact it costs over 1 million dollars PER DAY to keep the site online) and in doing so, have given incentives to the most watched content creators to keep making videos for their site. That incentive being, a percentage of the advertising money they make on their particular channels and videos. Any idiots out there that don't use Firefox's fantastic addon "AdBlockPlus" are constantly assaulted with ads on Youtube. Be it in the sidebar next to the video, little annoying pop ups during the videos, or even full video ads before the viewing of a particularly highly viewed video. (As I said before. Use Firefox and get "AdBlockPlus" I've never seen one single ad or had a single video interrupted on pretty much any site on the internet.)

The way these content creators make money is by the number of views they get in their videos and how many "clicks" they get from the viewers. Clicks, being people actually clicking on the ads to be taken from Youtube to whatever they might be selling. The more clicks they get, the bigger the content creator's paycheck from Youtube will be. Additionally the higher the view count, the more money they make as well. Simply for the fact that even if people don't click on the ads, more people are actually seeing the ads all over the video.

You also might have noticed many creators on Youtube have a "question of the day" or ask you to rate the videos 5 stars every time you watch. The reason this is done is because of a fairly recent addition Youtube made to the viewing of random videos. There is now a "Popular" section you can see on Youtube and has a list of videos. How they determine what is popular is complicated and I've yet to hear a coherent explanation of how it works. Basically, the more times a video gets rated 5 stars, the more comments that each video gets, the more "Popular" it becomes. Hence, getting their videos featured on that particular page. Hence making it easier for people to find their videos and then getting more viewers and more clickers and more money.

This partnership program has pretty drastically changed Youtube since it began. Before, regularly posted content from popular channels were not usually very high in quality (best example of this being the most subscribed person on Youtube, nigahiga. His older videos looked like total bullshit. His videos were hilarious and hence he still got truck loads of views) due to the fact that people were just doing it for fun. Now that Youtube has become a business, you can see a massive rise in quality of the content being created.

A good sized portion of the Youtube community has become upset at this new business model for the content creators. For the fact that the major players on Youtube, this is now their job. This is what they do to make money and support themselves and their family. And the most subscribed creators on Youtube are making very very comfortable lives for themselves as well. The popular gossip Michael Buckley (WHATTHEBUCK) went on an old media campaign awhile back (old media being television. That's the new buzz phrase for big internet players these days) and was asked several times how much he makes for his videos on Youtube. And his slightly vague response was that he makes six figures a year from his videos. Another famous Youtuber by the name of Philip DeFranco gave an interview last year. The interviewer commented about something on his Myspace page where it said how much money he makes per year. Phil's page said it was $250,000+. The interviewer asked him if that was accurate or if it was just a joke. Phil replied when he did that, it initially was a joke. But as of 2009, that had become pretty much accurate.

A much less popular channel whose show is called "Is it Okay to Microwave This?" is exactly what it sounds like. They put random and awesome things in a microwave and just watches what happens. About a year or so back, they made a video that discussed their participation in the program (when they were much less popular. They had a recent spike and are now almost at 300k subscribers) and he said that they make a couple thousand dollars a month. Which is enough for them to get by with bills and keep funding the show. So, 2k a month for 12 months in a year, 24k for putting flash bulbs, dynamite, RC cars and a car airbag in a microwave is a pretty damn nice gig.

Youtube purists are getting mad at these partners because they feel the community should all be about just making the videos and they should not be making money off loyal viewers. My response to this is...

That is fucking retarded. Internet video is skyrocketing at a pace that few things in this world do. Youtube has stated that there is 20 hours of videos that get uploaded to their site every minute. Let me say that again. Twenty HOURS of video that gets uploaded EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. Top Youtubers like Ryan Higa, Shane Dawson and Philip DeFranco are being watched by more people than the top television shows on cable. Sorry to break it to you internet. But video is a business now. And I applaud the ones that can make a living doing what they do.

Would all these people still be making videos if the partnership program was never invented? Most of them probably still would. Much less often, but when they got some free time, sure, they'd still throw stuff up. Now that this is their job. That they are getting paid handsomely for, so much more content is available to see. Personally, that is fantastic. The more time I get to waste, watching people that I like, the better.

To all you haters out there (I love how I delude myself to the fact that people will ever read this) I have one thing to say. Shut the fuck up. Don't be pissed at these people because they didn't respond to your comment. Don't be pissed because they didn't write back to you from that email you sent. Quit bitching that they don't care about their viewers anymore and it's all about money. Yes, about 90% of it is about money. That is their job. If you go around flaming every person because they can make a living doing this, then you must also go into a restaurant, yell at the cooks, the waitresses and the bus boys for being there doing their jobs and taking home a pay check. "YOUR JUS DOIN IT FER DA MONEYZZZZ!!!" Exactly. That is their job.

Don't be pissed off because they have a better job than you.

(To my two readers out there, I am sorry about the punctuation in all of my posts. I am the furthest possible thing from a professional writer and I know I punctuate sooooo badly. It drives me crazy too because I never learned how to do it correctly.)

Keep it gangsta internets.