Unique to the digital age is the video content creation industry...

>Unique to the digital age is the video content creation industry, one where employees are “users” and employers are “platforms.” In it, workers aren’t owed squat. When there are tech issues, they can visit the support page. When there are platform updates, a lot of the time, the press knows first. Full-time YouTubers and Twitch streamers, workers whose livelihoods depend on these platforms, are weed-whacking their way through the nascent industry’s first labor issues. And while it’s a new industry, there’s one old, time-tried solution to users’ grievances: organization.
>It might seem absurd to suggest that full-time YouTubers and Twitch streamers have it all that rough. After all, they make a living playing video games or filming make-up tutorials. But as we’ve seen on several occasions, by hitching their wagons to two giant corporations—YouTube and Twitch, and by extension, Google and Amazon—these video-makers are opening themselves up to all sorts of risk. On top of the 60-hour workweeks common among internet creators, and the myriad of problems we’ve seen stem from that, video platform companies can evade responsibility for their workers’ livelihoods with a simple sleight of hand—they’re providing a service, not a job opportunity.
>But YouTubers’ revenue streams can disappear without warning. This month, YouTubers are facing a crisis after brands pulled their ads from the platform and videos labeled “inappropriate” were demonetized. YouTubers can appeal through a somewhat enigmatic process. The financial mess is affecting YouTubers as big as PewDiePie, who has 55 million subscribers, and many claim they’re making a fraction of what they did just weeks ago. Few have a clear idea of what’s going on. Among YouTubers, there is widespread foreboding and insecurity. It’s not their first flirtation with financial risk; over the last few months, mysteriously disappearing view and subscriber counts caused widespread panic that lasted months.

Should e-celebs unionize?

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>Should e-celebs unionize?

Yes, but Amerifats love sucking corporate cock so expect a bunch of edgy kiddos screaming unions are bad.

sure why not
then jewtube can stop paying ad revenue at all and put them all out of a """"""job"""""

>then jewtube can stop paying ad revenue at all

then youtube has no more new content and dies

And what? Go on strike? People will just watch other shit, and when they come back their fan base will be gone.

so who are they going to get to
1) collect and manage the funds
2) start and maintain the organization
3) represent their interests

Reminder to report this thread for off topic garbage outside of Sup Forums

>article wrote by a woman
>about youtubers
>"they have it rough too!"

ah, fuck you

>People will just watch other shit

like...?

Sounds reasonable.

Like any other union does. Why would they do it differently?

No what the fuck? Youtube should be a hobby not a job.

>Should e-celebs unionize?
Everyone should

>police union
>okay
>vidya union
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I hate this country

WE HAD THIS YOUTUBE THREAD YESTERDAY FUCK OFF REDDIT

sage

Non union e-celebs

It would only give me another reason to hate them.

Why would they make videos if they aren't getting paid?

>content creation industry
>streaming a video game

Playing games is not work

who gives a fuck
reminder to report threads that don't pertain to video games

twitch is doing fine lmao

why should twitch and twitch "content creators" clean up youtube's mess?

I know you retarded kotaku writers lurk on Sup Forums

fuck off

>more marxism in the gaming industry
no thanks

This.

I got $230 of tips on Twitch yesterday while my YouTube videos got me $5 fucking dollars.

YouTube is dead; Twitch is the future.

Heres the big issue, youtubers and twitch streamers are addicted to the charity money that they give out. Youtube doesn't make a dime. Its actually unfair for people to even think to unionize vs google because how do you get rights and shit when you don't make a dime for your parent company. Youtube doesn't give a fuck and shouldn't. If they can't turn a fucking buck, who the fuck can with youtube.

They would be getting paid?
Youtube ads don't have to not pay people.

What world do you live in?

I want to know if twitch has ever made a profit?

>work for company
>have a $50,000 a year salary
>company posts a net loss for the year
>sorry user, we didn't make any money so we won't be paying you

That's how retarded you sound like right now

Every single subscription part of the money goes to twitch.

>unionize 14 year olds
lol

Maybe if they got actual jobs instead of leeching off the intellectual property of others, they wouldn't be screaming about their undeserved income going away all the fucking time.

That doesn't mean it's getting profits. YT is barely self-sustained

>calling videos "content" to make the premise seem more professional than it is

and they still haven't posted a profit yet.

Sometimes companies do stiff people for wages when the books are looking grim. But youtube is a charity.

>buy set of tools
>use tools to make something
>REEEEEEEE YOU'RE A LEACH USING SOMEONE ELSE'S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

kill yourself

Stop paying them for ads. Social media doesn't pay their users for getting a thousand likes.

What kind of retard makes YouTube their full time job? Like doing it because you like it and making some money along the way, that's fine and dandy. But there's literally zero job security and no skills learned that you can apply to another job, you'd legitimately be better off flipping burgers at McDonald's.

i have a medium sized youtube channel with 10,000 subs and 4 million views
i get paid jack shit. maybe 1 dollar a day
the problem with youtube is all about how they divy out the adds
it doesn't matter how good your content is, if you're getting text based adds for local morticians instead of coca cola videos
and frankly, the kind of people that watch my videos use addblock so i'm fucked by default
really, youtube should just alter the background images of their pages to display subtle adds, so that everyone will see it, and no one will have to waste their time watching or blocking an add,
and just pay the creators based on how long people watched the video

>comment written by a sexist
>involves jealousy
>"i'm a sad cunt still living at home!"

ah, fuck you

Try again kid.

they pay for minute watched now I think

youtube rakes in BILLIONS
it just doesn't make any on paper because google cooks the books to avoid paying taxes
just like every other corp

How could an unstable platform collapse like this?
Its not fair, Why can't I just stream someones work while I make fart noises over it for 30 hours and make more than 90% of the people who worked on it?

Ya most of the shit they make is on the backs of other people's or company's IP and products. Most of the shit on youtube and twitch is people reacting to shit. There's very few people actually creating content, most are just reposting or reacting.

We all should unionize by an instrumentality project

Great idea, Google hire this guy instead of that Moot dude

>comparing hardware/construction/crafts to filming yourself acting like a moron for 10 minutes
lol

Should e-celebs unionize?
I hope so, it would be much easier to get rid of them that way.

Youtube sells advertising to demographics and not really content. So your videos are not hitting those demographics that have the high end ads.

but the rate of the pay per minute watched is based on what adds they show
if i generate 100,000 minutes viewed per day
and i get adds for cat litter, I'll make a dollar
if I got adds for taco bell and adult swim, I'd make 100 dollars for the same amount of work
but the good adds are reserved for only the biggest channels

>video content creation industry

>ITT: butthurt losers on autism bucks who are mad people can make a living playing vidya

lamo, drink bleach

why?

Unions are just another layer of bureaucracy.

And its an obstacle between employer -> employee direct negotiation.

Unions almost always make things worse.

Yeah fuck those guys putting in time and effort to put out a product good enough that they can get paid for it. They should instead go work a shitty job every day and then come home and make the exact same content with the time and energy they dont have and not expect anything for it.

*citation needed*

>Unions almost always make things worse.

t. CEO Goldstein

They make sense for dangerous and dirty jobs. Since you need protection and collective bargaining is the best way to get these things. Like if a lineman dies on the job, his family still gets his paycheck.

but if you can make money from your hobby, enough money for it to replace your full-time job, why wouldn't you?

I think unions are sort of antiquated these days. Obviously there are workers who are still mistreated but I can't think of a recent situation where, if not for a union, people would have been harmed or lost their livelihoods. I've actually been a union member and my parents both work in the heavy construction/energy industry so they deal with them a lot. In my experience they're more like a medieval guild than anything else. You have to pay them money in order to work, but the call-up system is often rigged. And it's not cheap either, several hundred dollars a month in dues at a minimum. They provide an excuse for people to be lazy on the job, "oh we can't do [activity X]" "you owe us a break or I'm going to get the steward" etc. One time my dad got a grievance filed against him for taking a shovel out of someone's hand and instructing him in the proper way to plant a tree (they were remediating wetlands after a project).

On the one hand I wouldn't mind seeing e-celebs scammed out of money by a bunch of lawyers and other phonies. On the other I don't like unions.

>Like if a lineman dies on the job, his family still gets his paycheck.

fuck that lineman and fuck his family.

I don't like watching these little shits make videos to cater to the lowest common denominator.
I fucking hate trying to find info on something, and am bombarded with 30 fucking videos that are 10 minutes long, filled with 9 minutes of "Yo bro smash that like and subscribe button!"
I hate how every video starts with something like, "WASSUP GUYS IT'S X-BOY HERE" screamed at the top of their lungs to blow out the mic and my speakers.

I want it to go back to people just uploading videos of things they liked, with no incentive other than it was their passion. I'd rather the service be curated in such a way that I'm not constantly screwed with a bunch of bullshit.

I'd rather watch content on their from people who are monetizing some other way, like Digital Foundry or Giant Bomb, or Nintendo, etc., because that content is actually watchable, and not slammed with bullshit.

I just fucking hate YouTube as it is now, and would love to see the fucking bottom drop out.

>implying

Vidya streamers make up for less than 1% of youtube's ad revenue.

Plus when faced with losing their livelyhood for a 'cause' vs sucking the jewtube cock, the choice is clear for most of them.

Because then you ruin your hobby by adding stress and financial incentive to it.

I like the way you think, user.

why?

>the car industry is ruined because of stress and financial incentive

kill yourself

What exactly would a union accomplish on a platform that's completely open for anybody in the world to post content on? And even if for some reason youtube stopped being open one day, what's to prevent everyone moving to some new platform that's even more open? Unions are inherently incompatible with the open nature of the internet and how global economies have been transformed because of it.

Unions are also a way to protect yourself from layoffs. Collective bargaining isn't a bad thing.

If they Unionize publishers will lobby against Fair use.

Look at the VA strike that is STILL happening. Triple A could give two shits less about them when before they had an amicable realtionship, as soon as the VA's threw the union in their face they burned every bridge imaginable.

E-celebs would be doing the same thing. Fair use is a fimsy shield for those who do game related content like LPs. Video games as a medium were not even on the radar when the laws were first introduced.

>10 minutes long, filled with 9 minutes of "Yo bro smash that like and subscribe button!"
Show me one video, just one (1), that is actually a 10 minute video with 9 minutes of it being "Yo bro smash that like and subscribe button!"

where else would one be living except at home? On the streets?

English is not my first language

the ability to negotiate as a group is pretty important

youtube doesn't that privilege anymore. channels like game grumps etc will start up a patreon and get a decent chunk of change

maybe making money from something ruins it for you, for some reason, but obviously millions of other people would disagree.

I'm assuming you're under aged, neet or not American, because you have no idea what a union is.

They want something like the SWGA or SAG but for people that make videos on youtube and stream. The issue is that pay between streamers and youtubers can range a lot. I know a lot of the blog streamers can make a killing while others actually work normal day jobs because they refuse to do ad sponsored videos.

>still living at home!"
Where the fuck else are you supposed to live? The dumpster? Not everyone is your mother.

youtube.com/watch?v=Txb6rUNhXzU&t

I want it to go back to people just uploading videos of things they liked, with no incentive other than it was their passion. I'd rather the service be curated in such a way that I'm not constantly screwed with a bunch of bullshit.

That would be pretty nice.

Home as in living with parents. In America if you don't leave home the second you turn 18 you're branded a deadbeat loser regardless of circumstances.

>taking hyperbole literally

I don't know how to tell you this user, but I think you might have autism. You might want to get yourself checked.

He's few and far between. Most of the popular channels are people reacting to shit or top 10 this or that.

Hit a nerve there huh? Relax

There's still stuff like that. Also youtube and other online media outlets will never curate. Since people hate snobs. Also they are not willing to hire anyone to be a tastemaker.

>27 minute video
Way to go, champ.

>Survive off of an increasingly lucrative market that is streaming/"content" creation
>Get out of legal ramifications due to fair use laws not accounting for interactive media
>Tie yourself to two forms of entertainment websites that allow you to have this career
>Said websites that basically own the monopoly of this platform are now raking you over the coals on a subject that you have zero alternatives for, or the legal high-ground for
Serves every single one of them right.

A union of self-employed people?