Should publishers be offering multiple subscription tiers?
PLUS: YouTube still wants to prioritize longform video.
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YouTube still wants to prioritize longform video
Yesterday I wrote about YouTube’s announcement that it was doubling the viewership requirements for creators trying to enter its Partner Program. My theory was that the platform wants to create stronger incentives for higher-quality content and deeper engagement.
There’s already been plenty of creator backlash, much of it focused on the new requirement that Shorts creators generate at least 20 million views over 90 days to qualify for revenue sharing. As many have pointed out, that works out to more than 220,000 Shorts views every single day — an incredibly high bar.
My read is that YouTube wants most creators to think of Shorts primarily as a marketing channel for their long-form videos rather than as a standalone business.
YouTube increasingly wants viewing to happen on TVs, where audiences are watching the kind of programming blue-chip advertisers want to buy against. Shorts views, by comparison, are cheap and ephemeral, and the algorithm is relatively easy to game. The ads are also incredibly easy to skip. YouTube needs Shorts to compete with Instagram and TikTok, but its North Star is still long-form video.
Many YouTubers will continue posting Shorts because they’re useful for growing subscriber counts, which can then translate into more views for long-form videos. There’s also anecdotal evidence that a viral Short can give a creator’s long-form content an algorithmic boost.
My final observation is that many Shorts creators already cross-post their vertical videos to Instagram and TikTok, both of which pay creators very little. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people at YouTube looked at that behavior and thought, “Why are we footing the bill when creators don’t seem to care whether the other platforms pay them?”
In fact, I think creators directing their anger at YouTube should aim at least some of it toward TikTok and Instagram. I’m constantly amazed there isn’t more public pressure from the creator community over Instagram’s pathetic revenue-sharing policies, especially when hardly a week goes by without creators loudly complaining about Spotify’s payouts.
Spotify, by the way, pays more to content creators in a single year than Meta has paid out over its entire existence.
What do you think?
(You can automatically see the results when you vote.)
ICYMI: How a former Cosmo editor built Australia’s largest women-focused media company
Mia Freedman started Mamamia as a one-person blog and bootstrapped it into a multi-media outlet that reaches 7 million people.
The corruption happening in plain sight
From WSJ:
President Trump’s media company Monday said more than 10 customers have signed up to a real-time feed of top Truth Social accounts, a product that has drawn criticism that the first family is mixing its business interests and White House affairs.
Trump Media & Technology Group has marketed Truth API as faster access to posts from top accounts on Truth Social, where the president routinely shares updates about trade deals, the Iran war and more.
In Trump Media’s first-ever earnings call on Monday, Interim Chief Executive Kevin McGurn said the early sign-ups comprised primarily high-frequency trading firms paying between $60,000 and $100,000 a month.
I don’t think there’s any way to spin this as anything other than Trump selling access to insider trading opportunities tied to his market-moving Truth Social posts. It’s such blatant corruption happening right out in the open.
(I used a gift link so you can access that article for free.)
Bluesky is losing relevance
A social network that caters to liberals is losing users at a time when Trump’s historically unpopular, all because the people who run the social network are really bad at their jobs. They’ve basically designed an app that has a sucky user experience. [Techcrunch] For those who missed it, I published a detailed critique of Bluesky’s many design flaws last week.
Behind the paywall
Here’s what I have on deck for paid subscribers:
Should publishers be offering multiple subscription tiers?
Social media influencers are bringing tax dodging to the masses
Why Roku sold to Fox
Let’s jump into it…