Saving YouTube Part II
Please read Stephen Speicher’s article posted at http://www.engadget.com. Here’s an excerpt that mirrors my opinion posted previously:
“it was when eBay started charging for its auctions that the site became useful. Until that point in eBay’s existence, “good” auctions were often hard to find amidst the sea of “bad” auctions.”
I don’t understand why he would make this point and then not suggest (as I had) that YouTube charge per upload. He goes on to suggest advertising as the final word in making the site money. And while the prospect of producers making money from content they upload to YouTube is attractive, how does this mingle with copyrighted content users upload?
Why is YouTube allowed to traffic copyrighted material, and would significant revenue intake draw negative attention to that fact? Would YouTube be in trouble for profiting from copyrighted material it doesn’t own?
Giving producers a cash reward would only encourage more people to upload videos, good, bad, or copyrighted. Why not upload as many videos as possible and increase your chances of making a few cents? This would only encourage more uploads, not make them “stop growing and start making money”. There are also many examples of multiple uploads of the same copyrighted video. These people could easily leech off an initial upload’s popularity and prevent original uploaders from making the money they deserve.
Besides, eBay charges the seller. This example only reinforces my idea of charging per upload. Speicher helps make my point, then misses the point.
“a system whereby quality content owners are eager to submit their work and websites have an incentive to find the best quality clips to feature on their sites.”
It’s clear that people are eager to sumit their work, hence YouTube’s popularity. And I’m sorry, but are there sites devoted to featuring the dumbest, most adolescent of clips? The good will always rise, regardless of monetary possibilities, and this weblog stands for that cause! And you’re never going to attain a “best quality” with the degree of compression YouTube uses.
But therein lies another flawed but possible monetary scheme for YouTube. Low quality streaming and pristine dowload-for-money. iTunes sells music videos for $1.99, and a similar model could carry over to YouTube. Users can watch low-quality versions for free, but can purchase cleaner copies to keep. The question is, will people pay for independently made videos if they’re entertaining enough? I would, and I think others would as well. It’s also dependent on iPod video’s popularity. The small screen and memory capabilities of personal video players make brief viral clips the perfect bubble gum to fill up players.
It’s probably inevitable that ads will eventually permeate YouTube. Producers do deserve to make money off their original content, but they should pay a very nomial fee for that chance. The flash player and imbedding culture of the site will make it interesting to see how successful it is against other sites like iFilm who depend on ad insertion and premium subscription offers.
May 24th, 2006 at 12:52 am
I’ve been on eBay since ‘97, and I don’t remember a time when auctions were free to post.
As far as YouTube goes, I really have no idea.
May 24th, 2006 at 11:17 am
First, let me say, “Thank you.” It’s refreshing to read a disagreement that doesn’t rely on ad hominem attacks. Now on to the meat…
The reason I’m not sold on the pay-for-upload concept is that it doesn’t relieve the fundamental cost problem. That is to say that it still has the potential to kill YouTube with its success.
For instance (and some of these numbers will be in a brief update to the piece):
Consider the “Evolution of Dance” clip to which I referred. The clip has now been viewed nearly 14 million times. The clip is on the order of 13 Megs. This means that approximately 182 Terabytes of data have resulted from this clip. Using the same 20 cents per gigabyte cost used to estimate YouTube’s total cost this results in a $37,000 bandwidth bill for that clip alone.
If, on the other hand, you use advertising, you could make the case that a “viewership” of 14 million would lead to an ad buy of about 200-250k for a 30 second spot(using broadcast TV numbers). Split that among the three parties and it’s a win-win-win. The point is that you want to tie the monetary success with the cost to deliver not to upload and store (that cost is WELL under 1 cent).
You do have a point re: the copycats. However, I think that with the proper feedback system this could be ameliorated. After all, people would have a reason to police other clips and report copycatters in a way that doesn’t happen now (i.e. currently they have no monetary reason to do so).
In any case, thanks for reading.
Cheers,
Steve