this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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good. hopefully this will improve the quality for the first time in 14 years or so. Monetization is essentially synonymous with enshittification. Less monetization -> less enshittification. Less need to put stupid red arrows and bug eyes on your thumbnails. etc. I don't even care if youtube is just straight taking all the difference. Anything to decrease the number of people who are in it for the money is good.
I remember what people made videos for fun. Good times.
We still do.
I agree with you on quality, but I’d point out that YT is also requiring a lot of people to work for free.
Imagine if a mechanic’s boss told her they wouldn’t pay her until she changed the oil in 800 cars for free.
It's really not. No more than a casino is requiring you to roll dice and flip cards.
People can just... not host their shit on the site. Or not be in the influencer/content creator business entirely.
People are being baited into doing this work. People are being scammed and lied to about their prospects. But nobody is actually making you do this shit, much less do it for free.
She'd be crazy not to pick up and work somewhere else. Or hang her own shingle.
But that's the hitch with YouTube. It's not just not-paying-you. It's also hosting your media for free. What you're really trading on isn't revenue from YouTube, it's free hosting services. And then you need to monetize the content yourself, if you want to generate an income.
Case in point - Ms Rachel isn't getting rich off her (wildly popular) YouTube channel nearly so much as her toy line and her celebrity appearance fees. Similarly, guys like Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones do commercial line reads right in the middle of their shows, fully independent of what YouTube injects. Adam Friedland and Justin Rozniak do paywalled episodes through Patreon. Mr. Beast sells shitty snack food.
Everyone who has made a living on YouTube has ultimately collected the bulk of that money from outside YouTube.
It's honestly insane and kinda selfish and self-defeating to say that the response to a bad situation is to just take your business elsewhere.
Like...we can't just write off everyone else's misery and suffering because you personally found a way to avoid it.
That is literally 99% of the world's problems and thank you for providing a brilliant example at the lowest moral stakes possible.
The degree of privilege required to even entertain making a living as a YouTube starlet is astronomical.
And, again, free video hosting and distribution! That's why 99% of people put videos in YouTube. You can host something and pass it around without needing a self-hosted solution to manage it.
That's the business model. It's not Netflix
In the beginning, YT was more like what you describe. It’s not anymore.
Where you are wrong is that it is Netflix now.
YT sees themselves as a competitor to Netflix. They have said this publicly. And Netflix is trying to compete with YT. They are actively managing it like Netflix without paying anyone for the “shows” that gets added to their streaming service.
Easy to say if you're not a creator.
I write, edit, record, and publish everything I create, all by myself.
Devaluing smaller creators is going to mean more AI slop, because more people will be motivated to take shortcuts.
And those who don't will probably quit. Creating authentic content and growing a channel takes time, and a lot more of it now.
Yes, that was my whole point. I want you to quit if you are trying to make money on youtube.
Patreon, Nebula, even Audible will give you a better cut of the proceeds.
Video slop is even less commercially viable than the audio, pictures, and literature.
Sora got yanked off the market inside a few months due to how badly it burned tokens for video nobody wanted to look at.
At a fraction of the audience
I see a lot of quality. And none of these people, even though a lot of them are pretty damn popular, will be making money anymore.
good