No More ‘Sellout’ YouTubers
Humanity’s first step away from broken content monetization policies is in the blockchain.
Imagine if you made a viral video with 300,000 views and 10,000 likes, and never got a dime from ad revenue. Now, imagine if you consistently made videos with those numbers for a whole year, and you never made any money. This is the unfortunate reality of many YouTubers today, and in particular, the fate of my personal favorite: Synapse. YouTube claims to have demonetized his whole channel because he makes compilations of clips from “copyrighted content”, that is, content from other Twitch personalities’ streams. However, not only do his humorous editing, witty zoom-ins, and the quality stream of content merit the status of ‘original work’, but he also received permission from the streamers to use their clips in his videos. It is in no way fair that the streamers and YouTube, who are both benefitting off of his humorous content, are the only ones getting the money.
To comb through all of the clips, put them all together on an editing platform, make an intro and outro, add zoom-ins and memes, and make it a piece of work that I would be happy with, it would perhaps take me days, if not weeks worth of work before I came even close to what he uploads daily. Yet, he is getting $0 from ADs for all his hard work.
When I was younger, I told my parents that I wanted to be a YouTuber when I grew up. They immediately brought up the problem of how I’m ever going to earn money by making videos for entertainment. I refused to believe them then: Pewdiepie is well off, so why wouldn’t I be? Now, though, I realized the YouTube community’s daily struggle with being able to balance making a living for themselves and dedicating their lives full-time to the thing they love most.
In order to get money from his videos, Synapse relies on viewers’ contributions in his Patreon and sponsorships. Every time he would include sponsored ads on the video, the dislikes would go much higher than it usually would be.
This not only takes away his independence to create content that is fully his but makes him look like a ‘sell-out’ to the audience. Often times, creators would include paid promotions for things that they don’t even personally care about just to get money for their videos. In light of the fact that Synapse receives no money for any of his videos, he is forced to include sponsorships to sustain his platform on YouTube.
YouTube’s monetization problems, stretching back to 2012, have caused huge cuts in revenue for the content creators who pour their hearts out to make material for their audience. The problem started when YouTube adjusted their algorithm to censor content relating to terrorism on its platform. Many content producers, whose videos were not at all supposed to be categorized as ‘demonetized’, were stripped of all of the ad revenue they would earn from the video without warning.
The confusion only continued with YouTube’s very loosely defined terms around what makes content demonetized, and their email in 2015 notifying people of videos from years ago that had been demonetized by the algorithm. The situation only got better when YouTube implemented a review system for content that had been erroneously tagged ‘demonetized’ to restore its status as monetized. Still, there were no reparations for the damage done, and creators still struggle with getting their content demonetized.
So the question is: how can we reward content creators based on the quality of their content alone?
Cryptocurrencies put the power to reward in the hands of content consumers
STEEM is a precedent-setting blogging platform that uses cryptocurrency to reward content creators and curators based on community engagement. Creators would get STEEM coins as a reward for their content, and community members would also be rewarded for curating good content. Depending on the value and popularity of the creator’s content, it will result in profit for both those who have upvoted the content and the creator who made it.
The cryptocurrency is purchasable using other cryptocurrencies or using cash, which helps to sustain the monetary value of the coin. Once purchased, one can convert their STEEM tokens to STEEM power, which enables them to get rewards by upvoting content. Content creators can then exchange the upvotes they get for coins in 24 hours. In addition, curators get rewarded as the content gets more likes over the 24 hours of its initial posting. Curators can also enhance their voting strength by acquiring more STEEM power. STEEM power functions like a stake in a corporation — your vote allocates resources and renown to what the community should care about most. This allows dedicated curators and writers alike to become even more involved with the community, sustaining its flow of quality content and attraction to new users.
The blockchain uses its delegated proof-of-stake algorithm to maintain a fast flow of verified, licit transactions. People with the most upvotes from the community are chosen to verify transactions taking place on the blockchain. This allows the community to collectively vest power into a few to maintain the functionality of the content monetization system.
What if this existed in the video-content world?
A similar platform that is tailored toward video content can solve the problem of monetization that YouTubers would have faced for almost a decade. Some would still be able to get money from ads if their videos are appropriate, but no longer will everyone be completely deprived of income. Rather, those others would be able to earn money off of the popularity of their videos, thereby not compromising creator independence. This also allows YouTube to easily reward those who follow their demonetization policy with AD revenue. The most popular, fresh content would be rewarded with coins based on their quality, while curators will automatically be incentivized to upvote the video that is most likely to be popular.
Users would ideally be given free coins upon their first signup, and more coins would be available for purchase. The blockchain would track the individual’s private key to ensure that they do not abuse the free trial system while keeping the individual’s information secure. The decentralized nature of the blockchain also adds another layer of security to the individual’s information. Considering that hacking the blockchain would be through the 51% attack or internal corruption of the delegates who are chosen to process information ideally by the community, the platform is very secure relative to centralized systems like YouTube. Delegated proof of stake can be used to process all of the upvotes in a timely manner. Features like timestamping and hashing can prevent double-spending of the token. In the case of pay-to-watch video content (e.g. movies), smart contracts can be used to protect such assets. On another note, all ad revenue from all views would be used to finance the coin to maintain its monetary value and for the maintenance of the site itself. All of this is to ensure that the content creators directly get a source of income through viewers’ upvotes while providing viewers with economic incentive to interact with the community.
TL;DR
- The way people make money off of videos on YouTube is broken.
- Cryptocurrency can fix it by providing direct, secure, and incentivized ways for creators and viewers to earn money.
- Thus, cryptocurrency provides credit to producers by rewarding them based on the value of their work.
