YouTube is Now "Pay To Play" 

I freakin' hate RU-vid "shorts". The format (shape) is the worst or viewing, you can't use on-screen controls and they're too short to bother with. If I wanted to watch moronic Tik-Tok videos I'd watch Tik-Tok.

Rule #1. Corporations are not our friends.

seems pretty clear that RU-vid decided years ago to go all-in on corporate creators, and the indie creators who built their platform can get effed

The really concerning thing to me is that all of these companies with heavily algorithm-driven products - such as RU-vid, Spotify, Instagram etc. - ALWAYS make these manipulative changes in the dark, and tend to deny them or downplay their impact. It’s much harder to manipulate people when they’re consciously aware that they’re being manipulated. This shady, gaslighting behavior is disgusting and needs to stop. If our relationship with these companies was a domestic one, it would be a classic abuse.

I used to think "everything is under control" was a statement of comfort before I realized it's a statement of alarm.

The manipulation of shorts has become clear to me recently. There's a pull toward our base desires. It's hypnotic, a relentless gravitational well meant to please our lizard brain. It's turned RU-vid into a parade for the most attractive people rather than a platform for the substantive content that I want. I've decided not to watch ANY shorts, if I can manage.

For a company whose motto is, “Don’t be evil,” it is crazy how quickly they forget it.

Many of us noticed that overnight RU-vid flipped a switch and our views were cut in half. Thank you for explaining the situation as most of us were just guessing.

I will always admire individuals who speak up when they see something isn't right. It shows courage, a rare commodity these days. Good for you

This is what happens when genuine competition is gone and a monopoly can then make up the rules to always suit them.

Fairly ironic that the first time I get a recommended video of yours, it’s this one about how RU-vid is deliberately suppressing ‘smaller’ creators. They certainly are, and I really wish there was an alternative. But, subbed to your channel now, so there’s that. Great work! I’m sure I’ll be lost for hours in all the content!

Ironically, this is the first video I’ve EVER been “fed” of yours, @Fran Blanche. And I follow a *LOT* of folks in what I’d consider very similar “genres,” namely art/creation. So while I’m only one sub, I’m glad to have been introduced to your channel, and look forward to watching more!

I absolutely hate those Shorts. At first, you could dismiss them for a month. Now, they're like an infection that won't go away.

I used to make RU-vid videos for fun and education. I started after I watched a helpful video that taught me a skill. I thought, "I can help others too." I never wanted to monetize my videos. I just made them because I wanted to help others. RU-vid forced ads, so I eventually stopped making videos. Making content took me time and money; it wasn't worth it. RU-vid will become one big infomercial. So sad.

It’s fascinating that RU-vid recommended this video to me. I’ve never seen this channel before and i haven’t really been looking at stuff about RU-vid businesses so I wonder why they are pushing this video to random people based on what she says here.

RU-vid is using this video to push “promotions” because some of you will take the bait and purchase it, as she’s doing. They’re rewarding her for purchasing and promoting it!🤷🏾‍♀️

This feels more to me like an early phase of something more sinister. I'm thinking that this will grow more and more of a way to corporatize the Internet space so that all content must have corporate sponsorship to be uploaded or even viewed. This would be an excellent way for corporations to shut down damning information that can mobilize voters, unions, human rights orgs, etc.

RU-vid will never reward consistency, they only reward trends.

I watch RU-vid in order to escape Hollywood (which I HATE). RU-vid offers all sorts of subjects that Hollywood would never touch -- everything from beekeeping to lawyers discussing legal cases in the news to paragliding. There's something for everyone.

A wise man once said to me "Never build your life on something someone else controls". While this is easier said than done today, time and again I have witnessed what starts out as a great service slowly turn into a 'rent seeking' (economist lingo) i.e. exploitative business relationship.

Whilst it's really disappointing that this is happening, can anyone truly say they are surprised? This is corporate greed at work, pure and simple. The people who run RU-vid are under pressure to increase revenue and profit year on year, so cutting the amount they pay to content creators from ad revenue is an absolute no brainer when you are basically the only game in town. In years to come, this may be seen as the beginning of the end for the original RU-vid concept.

That 2018 change was when all the small creators making cool things stopped being front and center and then it became more about well groomed pretty influencers making shiny simple overview videos.

as a company youtube is a dumpster fire. the only thing worthwile about it is the videomakers.

Hi Fran! This Video showed up in my feed….never had heard of you before. Thank you for describing what creators are going through with RU-vid. I’ve heard rumblings from creators I follow, some, with huge numbers of followers, questioning whether they will be able to continue because of the ongoing issues…..they just never said what those issues are. It’s wrong. It’s sheer corporate greed. Creators create the content…..and You Tube sucks up the gravy. I’m one new follower-I hope things get better.

This is sadly so true. I make content professionally and wanted to just do little side stuff and help and started putting videos on youtube. They were pushing ads already even though I didn't hit the sub/watch mark so when I did I monetized. It takes a lot of time to make content and the rules keep changing. The shorts are OK, but they don't fit all types of content. RU-vid sent me a $500 card to try the "promotions beta" if i spend $500 on ads on my own videos. It is really absurd. It takes a lot of time to plan, film, edit even "low quality" content. At this rate I make maybe $20/hr of uploaded content, not factoring in all the time it takes to actually make the content. It might be $1-$5/hr at best. The policies are really pushing away people that want to create educational longer format content in favor of the "quick fix" videos.

You showed up out of nowhere for me today. I don't know if you did something different that made the algorithm show me your channel. All of this information about how youtube treats its creators is interesting and depressing. I had no idea they were THAT money-grubby. And now I know why I am barely ever offered new choices.

I have several friends who are creators. Everything from movie to cooking channels. They say they have never worked so hard for the little money they make. Practically all the money they make is coming from Patreon. A person driving a Uber or door dash will make way more money for there time.

there's a reason this video got more views than the rest. algorithms on all platforms have made a shift toward videos and content that grab your attention immediately, and your title is what has achieved that here. at the end of the day we all have to take a critical look at ourselves and consider whether we're making content that fits that mold or not. you can't just do things you think people will like anymore, you have to create content that people won't have a choice to tune out of, attention spans are dropping massively, and people are used to giving every video five seconds of attention or less, if you don't grab them within that timeframe they're gone, i'm guessing the watch time on this video even reflects that

This is disheartening news for someone like me, a new content creator just starting out 😢 Thanks for the heads up Fran.

Music? Electronics? Science? Now Art. Wow, a renaissance woman!

Thank you Fran!! That explains it!!!! My channel has dramatically dropped by 75% - 90% back in January. I thought making more and newer videos would fix the problem but, all of my heroic efforts have been for naught. What's worse, is that my RU-vid videos drive my personal business, so it's rough for the home team. What's more, I've been watching my channel and saw new subscribers "drop off" in real time but the graph doesn't show them being ghosted. This explains why many awesome RU-vidrs have gone to selling merch to make up for lost subscribers and lost revenue.

This explains why search results are predominantly shorts and there is no way to exclude them.

Everything is a conspiracy. I stopped with any and all content creation. Instagram was doing something similar. They shadow banned me, meaning my posts wouldn't show up in hashtag searches, and then offered me a "promotion" like, pay to be found option. Crooks. Also, this video showed up on my front page of the algorithm. Also, Gordon Lightfoot is great.

This reminds me of the Etsy controversy. You either have free shipping on anything over $30 or you didn't get seen. You didn't have to do it but they would suppress your views of you didn't. So sorry you're going through this now.

Every time I think to myself that I should maybe perhaps some day make content about my hobbies, there a video around the corner explaining how YT is becoming worse and worse and I realize that I should not even attempt to do this in any serious capacity. Platform enshitification is definitely a thing here and YT looks to be is in the final exploitation stages before it finally dies.

This whole video speaks volumes to me personally as I feel I’m about in the same boat. I’ve tried with RU-vid promoting via payment and I’m not giving them another dime just to be potentially seen by more people on the platform I also run an art themed channel and love what I do and I’m always looking around for fellow artists alike with a similar theme. It sucks how RU-vid seems to jerk us around 😢

Making a platform where only the biggest players can succeed is what every other media has done. The whole thing with RU-vid is that it used to be a public video sharing platform. Once money became involved, someone had to decide that too many of the wrong people were making too much money so they had to 'fix' that. Sad but this is how things go just about everywhere.

RU-vid used to be a cool place. Hope there's a better alternative coming down the pike.

This explains why my favorite RU-vid channel creators are posting fewer videos lately and virtually every one of them is has Patreon subscribers. Google's motto has gone from the original "Do no evil" to "Do evil if possible".

Personally, I really like and appreciate variety channels. I know It isn't easy when it comes to the algorithm. But I think it's typical an untouched area of content creation. It gives to a piece of something for everyone to enjoy, or just more interesting topics for dorks like me. It would be awesome to see more of your cartoon art in future videos.

"Never put your income in the hands of someone who can halt it." Our parents taught us that. It was a religion growing up. And they lived it. The only money they earned (and they earned a lot) came from activities they fully controlled. This is combined with "The hard way IS the easy way" meaning that it might seem hard to embrace trial and error to find something that YOU CONTROL that WORKS and provides income but that 'hard stuff' turns out to be a lot easier than having your income halted by someone else. .

Yeah, I've always thought youtube was cheating their creators and I'm not a creator, so I'm speaking as a viewer acknlowledging all the work y'all do to create content for us to watch.

There's a pattern here. Like Google, RU-vid started out thrillingly as a "wild West" situation -- total freedom, a dream come true of mass information sharing. Then one burden or restriction after another gets put on as the years progress. No surprise alas that YT is now reaching this stage. Hope your extremely welcome honesty doesn't get punished.

I noticed that an ad ran on a video of mine. At around 6 min of your video our said that all videos would be monetized and that we as content creators can choose to take a cut or not. How do we do this? I stumbled on to your channel via home page and the "Pay to Play" fascinated me. I don't know what that is but I love this video because you're explaining the rules and changes to us and saving us a lot of reading and deciphering time. So I am grateful. If this isn't your niche already, I think you should consider making videos on how this corporate company is continually changing its approach. Thanks again!

You popped up on my feed for the first time ever today. I have an Ad Blocker, so I never see ads. But corporate greed in this country is out of control. Glad I found you.

Thank you for keeping your eye on what is happening, and telling us. Creating video content is a tough game, and youtube is certainly not on the side of creators. I hope that you will continue to find strategies that will make it viable for you.

You're very right Fran. YT is also nearly unwatchable. As a viewer, I get multiple, non-skippable ad insertion in every 4 minutes of video.

eBay did a similar thing, even using the minimum promotion can increase the impressions on your items by up to 10* showing just how much they are throttling your accounts if you don't pay them..

RU-vid used to be vastly different in the late 2000s I could remember. The golden times have passed for years now. There hasn't been a worst time to be a content creator, in fact it's kinda of dead end career now compared to the last decades. It's not even a career anymore because how the web is structured now.

Ever since Google bought YT everything they done with it is wrecking it.

RU-vid is sinking it's own ship. Never ending GREED.

Post the “cartoons” under the RU-vid community tab on your channel. That way the videos tab doesn’t get cluttered with them, and it gives you the opportunity to post a still image and text explaining / describing the image.

I'm not the slighest surprised youtube is heading this way. Eventually it will be pay to upload videos of any significant size, quality, length and how often you can do so.

You speak truth. YT only seems to want corporate videos these days. Known celebs, etc. The days of giving them content from those of us in the real world doesn't seem to provide enough greed for them. And the saddest part is they know they have us. We have no other options ... yet.

I think RU-vid would say that they aren't throttling anyone down but, the flood of channels paying for promotion just takes all the practical bandwidth at the top. In doing this they're essentially telling the market that this is how things work without saying outright that you "must" do this. "Pay to play" is exactly what it is. I think the healthiest view to take (if you want to be monetized and grow) is that it's all a business. These aren't your friends. They've decided on their business model and you've decided to take part. That's the deal. At no point are they discussing things with the users or creators on the platform. You also know, that's the deal. Move forward understanding the deal. There is no warm fuzzy center at the heart of RU-vid.

When is there ever too much Fran Lab? Never!! Thanks for all your time, effort and great Vids on such eclectic & interesting topics! And, if YT gets too difficult, greedy and intransigent there are alternatives where we can go as I'm sure you know! 👍 👏 🙂

I am so grateful for this video. I was playing with the idea of starting my own lil' old school YT channel where I can basically rant and rave to my liking. This has now convinced me not to bother. It also explaines why other, similar platforms begin to pop up. Even bigger content creators have begun to move away. Again, thank you for this insightful warning.

We definitely need some underdogs presenting alternatives. I remember when search results were random and interesting instead of the popularity contest that most platforms turn into. *sigh*

Fran, thank you for explaining all this so clearly. Of course as a viewer I've noticed trend of decline in quality of videos featured by youtube. From here it just looks like clickbait is becoming the whole story. All these tech companies have become bottom-line operations ... of course ... because over time, that's what our system creates.

in the last several months I’ve noticed people whom I follow don’t show up in my feed anymore, now I know why.

Thanks for all your efforts, Fran. Hang in there.

Just found your channel as it popped up on suggestions. Somehow I feel YT wanted me to know about the "pay to play." I grew rapidly from the start, almost overnight then came to a screeching halt and now it has been a very slow grind. The only videos that get "pushed out" to new viewers are my dancing videos (I am pushing 70 so maybe older women dancing is the thing now) but if I do any other kind of video they don't get pushed out and it must be a short to get seen by new viewers and even at that it is now a slow grind of getting new viewers and finding they disappeared the next day. I remember when my FB fan page grew overnight and I had so many comments I could not keep up then suddenly the comments stopped. I found out my posts were no longer going out into the newsfeed for like/fan pages unless you "paid" to have your page promoted. Even today I can put up a post and no ones sees it on the fan page unlike in the past. It feels the same thing is happening with YT. Thank you for your information. Truly appreciate it.

This is really disheartening to new creators, like me. It’s really hard to grow and everyone is selling YT like it’s easy! Thanks for sharing this update - you appeared in my feed today and I hope it was organic reach and you didn’t have to pay

For years my 'friends' urged me to start a RU-vid channel and throw my hat into the competitive mega-channel ring. I've always resisted this; I'd post the occasional thing, including a three hour documentary on a WWII combat veteran whom I befriended and later interviewed 'for posterity' before RU-vid was really a thing. After one of the very first vids that I produced got a lot of views, RU-vid reached out and offered me the monetize choice, which I ignored. Funny thing, that same video was removed a couple years later for violating various BS-YT restrictions. It had got around a half million or so views, and I hadn't seen a dime. But all this that Fran talks about here takes me back to decades ago when I was making my living playing music, mostly in clubs, with various bands in NYC, and over the course of a few years the whole scene kinda fell apart... Clubs that had been mainstays for us, in which we would play at least twice a month and were in high exposure locations (Greenwich Village, SOHO, etc) started booking these mostly younger 'Pay To Play' bands, who were either NYU student bands that had large followings of their school pals, or new 'Pop' bands who had fledgling record label deals who's management treated these gigs as 'Showcases" and didn't mind paying, as every dime ultimately got charged back to the bands revenues. They likely filled those seats with paid or invited audiences who were amply supplied with free drink tickets and swag (all on the band's tab) as well. And so, our 'old faithful' watering holes began to dry up; some would still have us in once a month, or quarterly, just to assume some kind of legitimacy/consistency with their old status of having the hotter, more creative bands on roster, with the hope of spreading said legitimacy upon the new usurpers, but it didn't work, and many of those clubs eventually closed down and became Starbucks or Gap stores... Anyway, I'm saddened to see this similar sort of corporate greed and acquisition spread into this venue, and it does seem as though my YT feed has become unpredictable and kind of boring lately. I guess in retrospect I'm glad that I didn't go all-in like my friends were urging me to 10-12 years ago or whenever it was. I've been struggling with chronic health issues for decades anyway, and I don't think those 'friends' had a clue as to how much effort and grueling work is involved in churning out consistent content for this meat grinder, let alone trying to nurture a BRAND, and all the BS and grunt-work that that entails. I wish you well Fran; I'm not at all familiar with your channel or work, but your plight resonated with me and I thought i'd give a wee blab about it... Cheers, -Paul D

They're visibly suppressing smaller content creators. I often dont get the notifications I request from my favorite channels, and yet my inbox gets "recommendations" everyday that I am sometimes bewildered as to why *I* got the particular suggestion. I never watch X kind of content, why suggest it to me?? Sometimes the suggestions the algorithm presents to me are, honestly, uncomfortable.

Fran, I appreciate you putting this out there in an understandable way. I am sure if this is happening to you, it's affecting all Tubers as well. Another problem this "money process" creates is that it makes "New Virgin" content harder to be created by new users. Thru attrition, YT may be cutting off its feet.

I like the diversity of your channel. Keep up doing what you do and if it requires sponsorship so be it.

On the other hand, Tucker Carlson, who's kicked off Fox and YT, will have 300 MILLION VIEWS on his latest video by tomorrow. No t-shirts. No cable. No fees to viewers.

To me, that is just Google goping just plain evil, serving their super rich already share-holders. And so the Corporation dance continues

If they thought they could get away with it, RU-vid would take all the ad revenue. Their avarice is showing.

I watch a lot of RU-vid videos and have learned a lot over the years. It is too bad creators are being so poorly.

It looks like the algo liked this title for sure

This was the first time I have watched your channel. Dont give in to RU-vid. See I if you can get your subscribers (I am one now) to link to you on other social media sites. Dont pay these jerks if you can avoid it because it encourages them to be even worse than they already are.

Thanks, Fran. I'm so sad to see this happening. My young adult sons are artists and they are always studying the various platforms. They know much more than I do and so are much more cynical about the possibilities of YT. It feels like YT is shooting itself in the foot but I'm sure their business people have made all the calculations and coldly decide which direction makes the most money, which is obviously, sadly, their only concern now. Alex

Shorts are the worst thing to happen to us creators, IMO. I'm not in this to make a ton of money or anything, but I'd at least like people to be able to FIND our regular videos. We're just over 2,000 subs but RU-vid just doesn't push any of our regular videos to our subscribers.

What’s ironic is this video showed up in my recommendations from RU-vid and was my first Fran video that introduced me to the channel.

About a year and half ago my little channel got a bunch of growth in a month, going from 100 subscribers to around 300. It was neat to see that when people saw some of my videos, many liked them enough to subscribe. And then, just like that, there was a precipitous drop-off in views and subscribers. Right after this, in my channel's dashboard home, I found a bright and shiny ad from youtube that hadn't been there before saying something like "Want more people to see your channel, boost its visibility with ads." My immediate thought was, "oh great, RU-vid is becoming pay to play." My sense is that they've been working on how to nudge us all this direction for quite a while. It was actually this steep drop-off that scared me away from committing to YT full time. It's too precarious.

I remember when Facebook did this in the late 2010s. Absolutely DESTROYED my ability to communicate with my audience. I subsequently fell off because of it. You should be very afraid. It took EVERYTHING from me.

As we all know there's no other video hosting site with the reach of RU-vid, thus they have all the leverage, so rather than nickel and diming the creators, why not charge the advertisers more to place ads?

this is scandalous that RU-vid has turned into this, over the people that actually made the website what it is.. best of luck Fran

Dear Fran, you have a fantastic and diverse old school Utube channel. I really hope you can keep it going, but if you feel you have to move on to a different system, Rumble etc, I'm sure most of us would still follow you. Wishing you the very best with your channel. ✌♥️🇬🇧

Hearing that the amount of revenue given to creators, absolutely boils my blood. Mostly because it's already criminal how little our attention is valued already and in turn how much the work of creators is valued. Ads are also more prevalent now than ever, sometimes 4 or 5 ads in 5 mins.!

I watch a lot of True Crime channels and whenever I see a big budget channel in my feed I immediately cringe and think about how television the way we used to know it might be creeping into RU-vid. I refuse to watch them

Do you remember when You Tube first started? You Tube didn’t pay any “content creator” for any video that was made and posted. When You Tube first started, people made videos purely out of the passion they had for the subject matter. Only once advertisements came on You Tube AND they started paying “content creators” to make videos, did there become a problem. As long as the Infrastructure (hardware & software of the hosting platform) is owned by someone other than the so called “content creators” (a term not used in the beginning), they’re going to be at the mercy of those that actually own the infrastructure. I always considered it problematic how much or for how long a “content creator” could expect to make money off their You Tube efforts.

Knowledge is power; thanks for sharing. I am genuinely sorry to hear about both your plight and the near reprehensible shady shift in policy. Pleased to be a brand spanking new subscriber. Best wishes.

You are SPOT ON! I’m a newly monetized channel and I feel like all the work is for nothing 😔

This is actually unbelievable. It is literally biting the hand that feeds you. Some weird mercenary capitalism going on there. Looking forward to the follow-up and what your stats show.

You keep doing you! I never look at the crap they stuff in my feed I do very targeted searches on things that I want to see. What really amazes me is when I have a booked marked video and then I do a search on the EXACT title and nothing shows up, but then clicking the link there's the video... is youtube intentionally "hiding" videos? I don't know, then sometimes the hidden video's later re emerge. WTF who knows...

Im soo sorry fran. You deserve much more. A video every single day is a huge feat. I will try to spread your channel around.

Typically Corporates offer a great deal for early take up, but once enough traffic is established, the ‘conditions’ are gradually constricted, until the benefits that once existed, end up becoming costs, in order to continue. Unfortunately money begets money, and everyone else has to fight over the scraps, through side hustles. I’m so sorry that this is happening to you, you deserve so much better. I hope you can continue to do what you do.

Just fyi- your concern over so many types of content is what got me to check out your stuff. You have a new subscriber!

You are absolutely right. I made a video recently about all the RU-vid rules. My channel isn’t seen at all. And I can’t afford to pay to play. I’m not monetized, yet there are ads on my videos. Thank you for sharing this. It takes courage to speak out. 🌸

Hi Fran, this must be so frustrating. What I will strive to do to help when I visit RU-vid is I'll make a habit of going to my subscription list first. RU-vid might try to present some alluring, over-financed content on the landing page, but quite frequently I am clicking "not interested" for a lot of it, because it's either clickbait or shorts. I'm not really interested in 60 second short videos, I'm much more interested in thoughtful, consistently well-produced content like yours. Any idiot can grab a smartphone and shoot a 30 second or 60 second video. Many might get attention, much fewer produce consistent QUALITY.

Interesting, just the other day RU-vid recommended to me an excellent electronics channel with only 282 subs. The Algorithm still seems to be working ok in some aspects at least.

When RU-vid say it's not required to pay them for people to see your videos and that they will share your videos just the same as always. That can't possibly be true when you have the ability to pay for more views because that means that people who are paying are taking away views from someone else. Everyone can't be first in the serch results and in the related list. If you buy that spot everytying else will be pushed down and away from the viewer. I'm not surprised this is happing. This is exactly the same as with Google the search engine. You used to get the most relevant pages when you searched. Now you get mostly results from the big platforms that are able to pay for SEO or an actual ad.

Thanks for pointing this all out, i didn't realize how fast downhill things are going.

Just keep going Fran, don’t let them get you down. All the best wishes from the UK.

Stuff like this is probably why more and more creators are moving to Rumble.

I've been posting videos weekly for almost ten years, this year I experienced a HUGE drop, now for almost 4 months, I'm getting around 40% of what my channel had been getting for literally years....

Success on RU-vid is now like WWE, its a fixed race