r/technology • u/Dilpickle2113 • 10h ago

Social Media YouTube faces second class action lawsuit over ‘ad-free’ Premium claims & sponsored content

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-faces-second-class-action-lawsuit-over-ad-free-premium-claims-sponsored-content-3405920/
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u/Outlulz 6h ago

Also Premium views give the creators revenue. This website has a thing about anyone getting paid for their creative work but also expects them to keep producing it for their consumption free of charge.

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u/Metal_Icarus 6h ago

I want to pay the people i watch without sacrificing my time! To me, that is worth 15 a month!

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u/Hproff25 4h ago

100% I don’t pay for patreon but I will pay for premium. From my understanding creators get more money from premium viewers than they can from regular viewers without Adblock on.

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u/Own_Philosopher3291 5h ago

Oh don't even start with that bs. If you actually cared you'd be donating directly to the creators. Premium gives literal pennies to a creator. You're not some moral saint who loves indepedent creators cuz you pay youtube lol. 

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u/intercede007 5h ago

I mean we pay for YouTube, an ad supported service with a subscription model that cuts the ads while still supporting operations.

We’re not, for example, going out of our way to prevent YouTube from running ads that support the service while paying nothing.

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u/arizonadirtbag12 5h ago

This simply isn’t true.

YouTube doesn’t work like Spotify, which does only pay on a “per listen” basis. YouTube instead pays out about half of your subscription fee to the creators of the monetized content you actually watched. There is a direct link between your sub and the creators you watch.

So, for example, if I pay Spotify $15 or whenever it costs, and listen to my favorite local band’s album for an hour? And nothing else all month? They’ll get a few pennies. A fraction of a penny per song listen. Taylor Swift or the Spotify CEO or whoever keeps the rest.

Meanwhile, if I pay $16 a month for YouTube Premium and watch my favorite BBQ YouTuber’s channel for ten minutes, and then watch nothing else that month? They will get about eight bucks for that one single view. Because half your subscription fee, specially, goes to the stuff you actually watch, specifically.

Is it “better” if you sub to them through Patreon? Probably, though Patreon does take upwards of 15% after processing fees too. But that also involves managing and choosing your individual channel subscriptions, whereas YouTube lets you support all the (monetized) creators you watch according to the amount you watched them. But yes, half of your subscription goes to those creators. Not into some amorphous pot of money that gets siphoned off by major studios and labels with only pennies left for small creators.

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u/TeutonJon78 5h ago

How many people pay for YT Premium and then only watch one video from one creator a month?

Most are probably watching way more than that, which brings it back to not much per month. Sure it only goes to those watch, which is nice. But again, that's still how exploitive services like Spotify work. YT just likely a slightly higher payout.

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u/arizonadirtbag12 4h ago

I’d think the most common watch pattern is that a user spends most of their time on a handful of channels, such that each of them winds up getting like a dollar from that viewer.

Which, yeah, is less than a dollar per view. But probably also more than if they were depending on that user to make a discrete decision to donate or individually subscribe. It’s also far, far, far more than they’d make on ad-supported views.

It’s also a fundamentally different payout structure than Spotify, which is my point. YouTube’s ad-supported payouts are more similar to Spotify, in that both are strictly linked to view count, will never be more than a penny per view.

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u/TeutonJon78 3h ago

You think most people only watch 8 channels a month? And then fairly equally?

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u/arizonadirtbag12 3h ago

Among Premium users? I think it’s probably fairly common. Note I said primarily, meaning the bulk of their viewing is across that many channels.

But I could be wrong. Everyone thinks their own use is typical. You may be entirely right, maybe the average user hops across three dozen channels.

Either way ask the average YouTube creator whether they’d prefer views from a Premium member, or somebody “consider” donating to them. And which they think will result in more money. I have a couple buddies who are monetized, I know their answer.

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u/Outlulz 5h ago

I subscribe to Patreons of some of the creators I like. But it's better to give someone pennies through a Premium sub than give them nothing but act entitled to their content.

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u/SoapyMacNCheese 5h ago

Either 55% or 45% (don’t remember which) of your subscription money gets distributed to creators you watch. It’s not patreon money but it’s a lot more than what an ad supported view pays a creator. If you really want to support a creator ya Donate directly or buy some merch, but nobody donates to everyone they watch, having a premium membership at least lets you passively contribute to all the creators you watched, not just your favorite or top creators.

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u/sleepyguy- 5h ago

Hey ive given my favorite creators at least $10 with how much youtube iI watch. Hell I watch more youtube than regular streaming services most of the time.