By Nicholas Whitt |Staff Writer|
YouTube has created a subscription service called YouTube Red, and it opens up multiple avenues on how it may provide online video and educational content.
“Google has been breaking even in terms of revenue and cost production with YouTube for the past nine years,” according to Dan Bates, a writer for DailyMail.com.
Charging people money to watch some of their favorite creators make unique content is the same principle as the famous web based video content Hulu followed.
Hulu, back in 2009, used to be free for everyone and gained most of their revenue from ads, just like YouTube.
Now, Hulu is a subscription service with only certain content able to be viewed for free after a certain amount of time, which then becomes blocked for subscribers only.
Paying for content that was free at one point may not be the ideal thing for the viewer, but this extra source of income allowed Hulu to syndicate certain shows like Seinfeld for its viewers to enjoy, giving a reason to be a Hulu subscriber.
This idea may not apply the same with YouTube.
YouTube stated that it will be giving popular creators money to create more advanced content that would be exclusively available for Red subscribers to enjoy.
This may force creators to make more content for Red subscribers and less on their regular channel.
This will lead to less content made by some of your favorite YouTuber’s and more paid content that YouTube is controlling, according to Justin Dennis, writer for makeuseof.com.
This is not the first attempt YouTube has with trying to switch to TV type of production.
In 2012, YouTube paid hundreds of millions of dollars to content producers, an early effort to create television-like channels, according to Rolfe Winkler, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
With YouTube giving money to creators to make larger production videos, this may remove the one-on-one experience from YouTube videos, in which distinguishes YouTube from other entertainment sources and educational videos.
The podcast Dude soup #36 FUNHAUS, a group that works for rooster teeth, and Geoff Ramsey, the Co-creator of Rooster Teeth, talked about PewDiePie and said, he is as popular as he is because he has a one-on-one relationship with his viewers, as if you are actually there at his house playing or watching the game with him.
“Google wants people to turn on YouTube the way they turn on their TV,” according to Bates.
The issue with this is, the type of content on YouTube does not match TV production in terms in how its broadcasted and staged.
“There’s a lot of junk” on YouTube, said Pivotal Research analyst Brian Weiser. “If they want meaningful TV budgets, they need to invest in TV content.”
YouTube is not making any money despite having more than a billion viewers, continued Dan Bates.
Google is struggling with YouTube and is trying to gain revenue any way possible, even willing to take down channels like ESPN in the process.
YouTube is “stripping away the powers from the creators,” by losing connections and freedom to work with their audiences, according to Dennis.
YouTube is even willing to take out the viewers wallet; watch out everyone, the sharks are coming out.
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