YouTube has been slowly hurting their small content producers. In this writing, small content producers will count as anyone whom is not a partner or has less than 2,000 subscribers. There are several examples of this, some more obvious than others.
Ratings
YouTube’s rating system was recently changed from a classic star rating system to a “thumbs-up or thumbs-down,” system. It’s subtle. Take a look at the ratios:
The ratios for the above video are: 5,071 : 133,152 (dislikes to likes).
The ratios for the above video are: 0:6 (dislikes to likes)
YouTube is not representing the ratios; they are representing the volume, which is quite unfair to small content producers. Small content producers may have a high percentage of people that like their video, but this person had 100% of voters like his video, and the bar is not at its max. Whereas nigahiga has only about 76% of voters like his video, and the bar is to the max.
This is unfair, YouTube.
Ads
On YouTube’s browse page, the default tab is “Popular”. This matters because there is no judging what makes a video popular. Most of the tabs used to be “most viewed”, “most discussed”, and “top rated”, which all were very self-explanatory as how you could be on the list.
This “Popular,” tab is a problem. It’s problematic because filtering between corporate junk. I was browsing this section today, and I found that there were several Harry Potter videos on the front page. Basically every three videos was a Harry Potter video from a partner.
In order to be on the popular tab, you must be a partner. It’s not a coincidence; everyone on the popular tab is a partner, always. The people who get the most views are on the popular tab. They’re excluding standard accounts.
Impossible to be Seen
On YouTube it is almost impossible to be seen when one is just starting out their channel. A family member of mine cannot get past the 20 subscribers they have, and they are making quality videos.
Run a search on YouTube for “iPhone 4″, and it’ll become clear; the videos that are number one through ten are all in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views threshold.
This is an unfair comparison, some may say. Therefore, I will narrow the topic: I searched for iPhone 4 My Thoughts. The videos that appear in the top are still in the thousands of views threshold, while the videos below the fold are in the hundreds.
This is because of the YouTube search rankings. While YouTube has not released any official rankings in search, I have found that they tend to favor videos with at least 100,000 views. This means that it is very difficult to be noticed originally, but once you start being viewed, your growth is exponential.
I agree. YouTube is becoming more of a cooperate video section for companies and so called ‘partners’ with a small section for smaller video makers such as yourself. Very informative post, you should try and tackle YouTube with this post and see what they say!
While I can see your point and concern, I do think you’re looking into a bit too much, especially in regards to searching. Obviously, YouTube relies on the same algorithms that Google employs and develops, and, thus, your results are filtered in the same manner. I don’t think the returned videos are out of some money lust or worship by YouTube to their more popular content creators. Rather, it’s by what YouTube, and, indirectly, Google, deems relevant enough to you. In the eyes of Google’s search algorithms, what has the most views or is most ‘popular’ are the videos that should be the most relevant to you. It’s a flawed system, of course, but there certainly isn’t anything beyond that or any sort of hidden agenda by YouTube to restrict the growth of its newer members. That just sounds silly. Instead, it’s an effort to push viewers from one video to the next in the quickest way possible, with little downtime. Therein lies both the problem and the ingenuity of the “Related Videos” bar; it sends viewers on an almost predetermined path of content by assuming their interests.
One must understand that YouTube, at its core, is a business, and therefore, as a moneymaking entity, their primary goal is to make a profit. Obviously, advertisements are their primary source of revenue. Partners are the pet of YouTube, and, while the has its problems, YouTube is able to gain a win-win deal from the relationship with these users. Yes, these simple and easily-ignorable ads make money, and, in some cases, a lot of money, and YouTube shouldn’t be blamed for merely exercising the fundamentals of capitalism. Out of respect for their business partners, YouTube willingly promotes their videos, and, resultantly, shares the revenue from the ads. Issues do arise, but, for the most part, there’s nothing scheming or wrong about those practices. In the process, however, smaller producers do become neglected, but it is not YouTube’s intention to push these content-makers aside. Indeed, some of the more popular channels came from simplistic beginnings, rising the ranks and until they began to command the “most subscribed” and “most popular/viewed” lists. Sometimes, all that is needed is luck.
Yes, ads and corporate marketing has began to spread throughout the site, but simply because YouTube, by example of its own success, stands as an opportunity to “get the word out,” if you will. Again, both the companies involved and YouTube reap benefits from such a deal, and, well, life goes on.
Really, I see nothing horribly wrong with YouTube’s ways; their indicative of a capitalistic business, and one that is using common methods in order to meet their bottom line. While not all are successful on YouTube, each has an equal opportunity to work hard and move up the ladder. The past itself has proven that notion to be true.
I agree with you 100% there. Youtube is not trying to do anything to get the less popular people out there noticed. However they are just trying to get the Famous more Famous by inviting them to the youtube awards. Not one person there was not popular on youtube.