Premium pays out to creators by minutes viewed (vs AdSense which pays out by ads viewed)

I've heard some creators say that in total, they make more money from all their Premium viewers than they make from all their AdSense viewers, even though the former are a small fraction of the latter.

This argument is repeated on other comments as well, but I think it's fundamentally a parralel fact.

YouTube giving some of the Premium money to creators doesn't make Premium a good product. If'm not that utilitarian to think any single additional penny going to some creators is good whatever YouTube takes in the process and the general impact on the the whole field.

YouTube seems to be pretty explicit that it is paying 55% of revenue from watching videos to creators:

> If a partner turns on Watch Page Ads by reviewing and accepting the Watch Page Monetization Module, YouTube will pay them 55% of net revenues from ads displayed or streamed on their public videos on their content Watch Page. This revenue share rate also applies when their public videos are streamed within the YouTube Video Player on other websites or applications.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72902?hl=en#zippy=...

As you point out, that revenue split has a set of conditions, which also require a level of contract on Youtube and other requirements (not being DMCA stroke for instance)

So where does your Premium money go when you watch a very small creator ? where does it go for a demonetized video ? etc.

That might sounds like a subtle difference, but consider the gap with channel membership, super chats (which are also roughly 50% split I think?) or patreon for instance.

> where does it go for a demonetized video

A "demonetized" video is technically called a "limited or no ads" video in YouTube Studio - it means YouTube has determined that advertisers do not want their ads seen on the video for reputational reasons. Premium views still pay out for them since they are not paid through showing ads.

A DMCA strike is something else.

Sorry I wasn't referring to videos the creator decides to forgo revenue, as you point there's a better term for that.

I was thinking about the videos that were supposed to make money but got shut off monetization for whatever reason. DMCA strike is one, YouTube flagging it as risque is another common one.

I was referring to your latter example - when YouTube decides a video is inconvenient, it means they're afraid advertisers don't like it. Those videos still get paid from Premium views.

Youtube premium users on average give creators more revenue per view than non-premium users. 55% of the premium revenue is split between the creators you watch.

Monetizing your marketplace monopoly with 45% rents is even more egregious than the App Store which people complain about at 30%.

In fact, it might be the highest monopoly tax in all of tech. Even Spotify only takes 30% from the same musicians who post the same music videos on each platform.

Streaming video requires excruciatingly expensive infrastructure. It's one of reasons why there are no competitors to be seen.

It requires less expensive infrastructure than AI, and AI has tons of competitors.

YouTube simply enjoys a classic network effects monopoly, and that’s why their margins are high compared to any other business in the S&P500.

There will be no competitors if one of the player in the field does it for free for enough time. We'd call that "dumping" if it was a manufacturer.

It would be dumping if they took much less than 55%, but they actually do make profits so its not dumping.

YouTube has been in the red at least until 2010 under most estimations.

For reference that's around the point Vimeo started pivoting to different strategies and blocking long content as they couldn't pay for the infra.

That's also around that time that Dailymotion went down the pipes with the French gov stepping in to save the remains.

YouTube thrived from there as creators and advertisers had nowhere else to go at that point. That's the dumping part.

Video especially with high-bit rates is most expensive medium to deliver and store. Well, I suppose Youtube could move to model where they charge for creators for both of those and drop their cut to 30%...

YouTube pays creators more for each Premium view.

I don't see why it's the issue. Youtube infrastructure is not cheap.

Well, it is not cheap if we look at the massive server racks they have, but in the scale of the world? Watching 1h of a video probably costs them like $0.00001 or something equally minuscule.

How would you see it if your phone company spammed your calls and SMS and offered to remove the annoyances for some random fixed fee that is not tied to your usage of the service ?

If we care about Youtube's infra, the expected business structure should follow that assumption.

> that is not tied to your usage of the service

Could you explain this more ?, i'm sure i only get Youtube Ads when watching videos, which is "usage of the service".

You pay the same fixed Premium fee per month whatever you do with YouTube.

You can quit YouTube for weeks or watch it 22h every day, you still pay the same. Same way you can exclusively watch non monetized streams or only watch top monetized creators, you'll be paying exactly the same.

The only difference will be how much YouTube gets to keep.

> You can quit YouTube for weeks or watch it 22h every day, you still pay the same

This has always been in subscription model, like mobile data plan, or exclusive club membership. I won't argue if it's good or not, just saying it has been a thing for a long time.

> you can exclusively watch non monetized streams or only watch top monetized creators, you'll be paying exactly the same.

Well, the server do not care if the video's creator is paid or not, it still has to store the same data, and you have to pay for it.