YouTube is great but I would suggest that YT and TikTok serve mostly different use cases vs premium SVOD providers. For example, as YouTube and TikTok have been growing impressively in the past few years, we have not seen a decline in non-YouTube video consumption. So YouTube is competing with something, but I am not sure it is HBO (maybe it's reading? Or hanging out with friends?). The real genius of YT's contingent compensation system is that it pays contributors almost nothing (~$5 per 1,000 views). So the answer to "what happens once those same filmmakers can make just as much money or more on YouTube?" is that that will almost certainly never happen. For a top filmmaker to make an episode for $6MM and put it on YT expecting $8MM per episode, it would have to be such a certain hit, a priori, that they would have been able to sell it to a network for guaranteed comp with zero risk. I don't see how that transition to YT ever happens unless YT substantially changes its strategy. So YT vs HBO is like ice cream stands vs fine dining restaurants. Both are good businesses that co-exist, and they're quite different.
I guess one question is -- should YT figure out a way to compensate creators of premium, first run content better, or should it stay in its lane?
But your assumption is that their only method for monetization will be through YouTube's partnership program, which I don't agree with. There are already a lot of YouTubers making a hell of a lot more than $5 CPM, and I only think the monetization will continue to improve going forward.
Great--so where on YouTube are the adult-oriented 2-hour rom-coms? Where is the YouTube John Hughes, or "When Harry Met Sally"? Where are the Jason Bourne movies? If all these feature-film genres I love are being produced on YouTube, they have yet to prove their "discoverability" to me. I have no idea if they exist. Anyone?
I think the only real risk to YouTube is YouTube. If they pivot too wildly in a misguided attempt to 'do TikTok' (or whatever the next thing is) it could cause destabilising problems for creators and viewers.
I've heard from a lot of friends who are from other countries than the US that they rely on YT for news from their home countries, particularly in those places where the media is controlled in large part by the governnment. YT is trully becoming one stop shopping.
YouTube is great but I would suggest that YT and TikTok serve mostly different use cases vs premium SVOD providers. For example, as YouTube and TikTok have been growing impressively in the past few years, we have not seen a decline in non-YouTube video consumption. So YouTube is competing with something, but I am not sure it is HBO (maybe it's reading? Or hanging out with friends?). The real genius of YT's contingent compensation system is that it pays contributors almost nothing (~$5 per 1,000 views). So the answer to "what happens once those same filmmakers can make just as much money or more on YouTube?" is that that will almost certainly never happen. For a top filmmaker to make an episode for $6MM and put it on YT expecting $8MM per episode, it would have to be such a certain hit, a priori, that they would have been able to sell it to a network for guaranteed comp with zero risk. I don't see how that transition to YT ever happens unless YT substantially changes its strategy. So YT vs HBO is like ice cream stands vs fine dining restaurants. Both are good businesses that co-exist, and they're quite different.
I guess one question is -- should YT figure out a way to compensate creators of premium, first run content better, or should it stay in its lane?
But your assumption is that their only method for monetization will be through YouTube's partnership program, which I don't agree with. There are already a lot of YouTubers making a hell of a lot more than $5 CPM, and I only think the monetization will continue to improve going forward.
Great--so where on YouTube are the adult-oriented 2-hour rom-coms? Where is the YouTube John Hughes, or "When Harry Met Sally"? Where are the Jason Bourne movies? If all these feature-film genres I love are being produced on YouTube, they have yet to prove their "discoverability" to me. I have no idea if they exist. Anyone?
I think the only real risk to YouTube is YouTube. If they pivot too wildly in a misguided attempt to 'do TikTok' (or whatever the next thing is) it could cause destabilising problems for creators and viewers.
I've heard from a lot of friends who are from other countries than the US that they rely on YT for news from their home countries, particularly in those places where the media is controlled in large part by the governnment. YT is trully becoming one stop shopping.