YouTube Cares About Creators, Damn It! - CPG Rant
The most common myth I hear repeated in the YouTube community is “YouTube doesn’t care about creators.” While there are many complaints you can make about YouTube -- and I’ll agree with you on many of them! -- the idea that they don’t care about creators or that they’re “pretty shitty” to creators in general is one that I can not wrap my head around.
YouTube is not TV, and will never be TV. While YouTube now has a presence from major entertainment industry folks, YouTube has always been and will always be driven in large part by personality-driven creators who have helped grow the platform.
If you look at Google’s “Google Preferred” advertising program, which hand-crafts content programming line-ups to sell space to premium advertisers on, 90% of every category is independent creators. In short, the folks who create the content that Google sells their most expensive YouTube advertising on are almost all home-grown, personality driven creators who have grown up with the platform.
These creators are crucial to the success of the YouTube ecosystem. Whether it’s Linus Tech Tips, Annoying Orange, or DevinSuperTramp, YouTube’s most dedicated fanbase will always be personality driven.
YouTube has to care about creators, or it falls apart. Creators are the lifeblood that keeps the site moving; they are the only reason that YouTube even exists. No matter how much you may disagree with what YouTube does, this fact shines through in every conversation we have. Every time we say something in public -- from VidCon to industry interviews, from press releases to videos we put out -- we fully acknowledge that we only exist because of our creators.
While all these things have flaws -- flaws around who has access; flaws around how they’re communicated; flaws around how policies and practices are implemented; flaws around priorities and more -- the idea that YouTube just doesn’t care about creators, no matter what the size the claim is made about -- is just ludicrous on its face. Creators are the life-blood of YouTube. Without creators they are nothing. And they know it. I am an employee of YouTube. All statements, opinions, etc. from this stream are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.