Google's YouTube divides community: Advertising rules, not users
UPDATE: How YouTube lost its video soul, big time
There goes Chad’s pet “community”?
While Google YouTube will undoubtedly be lauded for “finally recognizing” the hard work of dedicated YouTuber (legitimate) uploaders, the video sharing picture is not as pretty as it is painted.
YouTube on its egalitarian video pitch:
Over the past year and a half we've been excited and amazed by all of the original content that’s been created by members of the YouTube community. Many of you have gone from creating videos in bedrooms and living rooms on webcams to becoming YouTube celebrities with fans and audiences all over the world.
Up until now there’s been a distinction between the content you create and the content created by YouTube's professional content partners. We want to start changing some of the perception here. Which is why we’re adding several of the most popular and prolific original content creators from the YouTube community to our partnership program.
BUT, there is now actually even MORE of a distinction among YouTubers:
Initial user participants have been selected from the content creators that you have helped popularize by watching their videos and subscribing to their channels. Because they have built and sustained large, persistent audiences through the creation of engaging videos, their content has become attractive for advertisers, which has helped them earn the opportunity to participate on YouTube as a partner.
So, the YouTuber creator “community” is now stratified: The “popular” crowd, and the not so popular crowd.
What kind of community spirit will that breed? How will the unpopulars feel when YouTube disses their User Generated Content video labors of love and favors the work of others?
What’s more, advertising appeal is the ultimate arbiter of who/what is deemed “popular,” or not, as in product pitch cum User Generated Content “Diet Coke & Mentos” perhaps!
YouTube on how the chosen few “popular” YouTubers will make out:
Participating user-partners will be treated as other content partners and will have the ability to control the monetization of the videos they create. Once they’ve selected a video to be monetized, we’ll place advertising adjacent to their content so participating user-partners can reap the rewards from their work.
Sounds enticing? Chances of being chosen as a “participating user-partner" may be better than winning the lottery, but not by much!:
So now that you’ve read this, you’re probably wondering, “How can I get in on the action?” This is only available to the initial participants. But if you create original content, have built and maintained an audience on YouTube, and think you might qualify for this program based on what’s above, you can express interest on our partnership lead form.
“hmmmm, they're kinda vague about how exactly these people were chosen,” in the words of YouTuber 01qwq
UPDATE: How YouTube lost its video soul, big time
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