In case you haven't been keeping up, YouTube is in a rough spot. The uber-popular video delivery platform has come underfire of late due to the discovery of adverts being served on some racist videos, which has had the knock-on effect of brands pulling support from the platform. Many high-profile content creators have revealed a sudden, sharp decrease in advertising revenue – even we're seeing a similar trend on a much smaller scale on our Push Square channel, though this could just as easily be a consequence of the new fiscal year.
Either way, amid what he's deemed the 'Adpocalypse', the site's most subscribed member Felix 'PewDiePie' Kjellberg has launched a weekly Twitch show. While he admits that this is something he's been planning to do for a while, the timing is interesting to say the least – though he was recently dropped by network Maker Studios, so probably has a bit more freedom than he had before.
While the decline in revenue is unlikely to affect the millionaire, it could kill off fledgling channels if the situation persists. "I pray for everyone that's a smaller channel that they can hang in there for now," Kjellberg said in a brand new video. "This month, most likely, a lot of creators are not going to get paid."
In all, it's shaping up to be a very tough year for YouTube, as it attracts more and more controversy from the mainstream media. Whether the old guard is simply trying to stall the increasingly important platform out of spite or raising legitimate points, it's looking like the company's going to have to put out some important fires in 2017. And exactly how it does that while keeping everyone happy remains to be seen.
[source youtube.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 54
Already lost nearly all views and any ad revenue so....welp. You guys at PS should be safer being larger. Someone my size had no hope.
Same here, zero views or comments this month, down from 380 views and 32 comments last month...
lol it used to print money
The article isn't really referring to a drop in views, but rather a drop in ad revenue aligned with consistent view numbers.
Content discovery is just another issue that YouTube needs to deal with. Rough times.
There's more to life that YouTube. The guy is an absolute tool.
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi Yeah, just like the Wii lol! Speaking of Nintendo, a recent study found that the Wii U has a 5.2% hardware failure rate over a 4 year period while the Nintendo Switch has well over a 50% hardware failure rate, with over an 80% failure rate in, hot, humid, or dusty environments...
If true I won't be touching a Switch anytime soon lol! xP
@Rukiafan7 Yeah, right. Where'd you hear this, exactly?
@get2sammyb No it's actually dropping views because alot of people are actually boycotting Youtube because of them supposedly supporting racist views. It's kind of silly to think that as they are a huge website and as such some questionable videos will manage to fall under the moderation staff's radar...
@Ralizah Kotaku which is why I don't necessarily believe it, but if true that's pretty abysmal.
@Rukiafan7 your stats must be really accurate since the switch has been out for just over a month and of the 2 million+ sales a handful of users have had problems. Just sayin
@Sakhasm I agree it seems bogus on the Switch side of things, but the Wii U stats seem pretty accurate as none of my 20 something friends irl who own a Wii U have had any issues with the hardware, though one of them did have to replace their gamepad after 3 years.
@daveofduncan The PewDiePie character is a bit of a tool, but the actual man is incredibly intelligent.
@Rukiafan7 This is why you don't believe user comments.
Anyway, there are so many trolls blowing things out of proportion about the system right now (the new one, and my current fav, is "the tablet LITERALLY MELTS in the dock!") that everyone would have heard that figure if it had any connection to anything in reality whatsoever.
I watch a few people occasionally on YouTube, i've been to Twitch twice i think. Seems like there's a lot of people on both platforms trying to make a living, which seems ridiculous to me. There are plenty of jobs out there that don't require more than 2 years of college....how about spending 12 hours a day educating yourself instead of playing games and editing video?
Well regardless let's get back on-topic. @Tasuki and @get2sammyb, my apologies for derailing the topic. Feel free to clean up the comments section.
People can shoot off about PDP all they like. The man became a millionaire by filming himself sitting in a room playing video games. If that's not a form of genius, then I don't know what is.
@Ralizah People are actually claiming that?! Are they sure they didn't microwave their Switch?! LMAO!
@RedMageLanakyn They're entertainers. By that logic, variety shows, reviewers, journalists, musicians, artists, and comedians should stop what they're doing and get "real" jobs.
@Ralizah Before hearing about that, one of my friends bought a USB fan that he plugs into the dock and puts behind it to move air. He said it got extremely hot when playing zelda for a couple hours. He has it in an open space, ventilated and everything. He said the fan makes a huge difference.
@Rukiafan7 The Switch tablet seems to have the slightest curvature to it. Some guy noticed this and posted on Reddit that the dock was warping his tablet. It all took off from there.
Fake news is everywhere right now.
@RedMageLanakyn I've never noticed any issues with the dock getting hot, and I don't have a fan anywhere near mine. All in all, I'm actually really impressed how cool and silent my Switch stays compared to other electronics I own (particularly my phone, which practically burns my hand if I try to play a taxing game on it).
@Ralizah Agreed, he's literally the person who invented Let's Play's. Plus I really feel like he was cornered into saying what he said, yes what he said was bad, but I don't think he would have said it under normal circumstances.
@Spyke Most of those professions you listed are usually complimented by real jobs until they hit it big. Those are the ones that will succeed regardless because they're willing to do more than bank on streaming all day.
@Ralizah It wasn't the dock, it was the switch itself that got hot. I wasn't there to feel how hot it got, he said it was enough to worry him and buy extra cooling for it.
@RedMageLanakyn I was actually referring to YouTubers and Twitch streamers who are of those professions.
@Spyke If you read my first comment, I was referring to people who stream themselves just playing games all day, not reviewers, journalists, musicians, etc.
@RedMageLanakyn How hot does his Switch get outside of the dock? I've never felt mine get more than mildly warm after 2+ hour gaming sessions.
@RedMageLanakyn I know, I was saying that it's not much different. It's not just people streaming/playing games, they also interact with the community, and share their experiences with other people. It's really just a new form of entertainment for viewers.
I watch YouTube, especially over the last few months as it fits in well with my lifestyle and I enjoy a lot of the smaller gaming channels. I have actually signed up on Patreon to support a few content creators.
@Ralizah I'd have to ask, but i don't think he plays it much mobile. I played it for about an hour and didn't notice it getting very hot at all in my hands.
I don't care for PDP, but I watch a lot of smaller channels, including animations. Some of the smaller channels could stop uploading videos if this continues to be a problem.
A lot of content creators are moving into the patron side of things now. Seems to be the alternative these days then relying on ADs.
"In all, it's shaping up to be a very tough year for YouTube"
Yeah, all those old ladies and soccer moms watching cat and how to crochet vids are going to all switch over to Twitch any minute now. And Hulu is going to kill Netflix.
I thought the bigger issue was YT saying nobody w/ less than 10,000 views are eligible to get paid for ad revenue. I think that's important enough to get a mention here. PRobably a bigger deal than the Pews.
http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/6/15209220/youtube-partner-program-rule-change-monetize-ads-10000-views
Also, Google just started $35 per month Youtube TV (yeah, I think the name sucks too, but I did't name it). I think YT will be just fine, it's too big too fail at this point.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/04/07/youtube-tv-hands-on/
My children watch YouTube all of the time and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
@rjejr YouTube will be absolutely fine agreed, but if advertisers keep pulling out then it's going to be harder to justify smaller channels (and some larger channels) creating content which will have an impact on view numbers and so on and so on.
I don't see a problem with the 10k restriction because, frankly, if you can't get 10k views then you're not making more than $1 — if that.
@get2sammyb the problem with YouTube is its less YouTube and more themtube these days.
@get2sammyb Advertisers have money to spend, they have to spend it somewhere. Do you guys get all the Fox News stuff over there? Orielly Factor is being boycotted by companies, they are pulling all of their ads off of ORielly and putting in on all the other shows. Same thing will happen w/ YT, Pews will loose money, so will Jontron, more money for the cosplay girls or somebody.
publicity stunt. I don't know half of him as well as I should like; and I like less than half of him half as well as he deserves
@rjejr Unfortunately that's not how YouTube works, though, I don't think. This will affect all videos on YouTube, not just those uploaded to particular channels.
Hey, another PushSquare article, let's talk about the Nintendo Switch!
OT: Advertisers pulling from YouTube is just stupid, at least their reason is. It took them how many years to realise that their ads can be displayed on any video? And anybody with half a brain also understands that the ads are randomly generated (to a degree) and therefore have nothing to do with the content of the video itself.
YouTube could be in trouble if more boycott and it goes on for a long period of time, i can see why the UK and others boycott advocating terrorist videos, promoting anti-semitism, self-harm etc. It's going to be hard for YouTube to bring in new rules and enforce them, its also no surprise this all stems from investigations from the UK press.
@Ralizah And that Kardashian woman and her family became multimillionaires and hopefully we can all agree they're far from geniuses.
Felix got lucky and his looks surely helped.
Not sure why this is news.
@naruball Becoming successful by playing a character that millions of people enjoy is "luck?" Whatever helps you get to sleep at night.
@Ralizah Like a I said, millions of fans enjoy the Kardashians act stupid. The number of fans (or the amount of success) has nothing to do with the talent one has. Plenty of talentless people are incredibly famous and adored by millions. But if you want to believe that there is something special about them, by all means. Not gonna stop you. If that helps you sleep at night
@naruball You seem awfully obsessed with the Kardashians. Felix is a normal kid who brought the LP thing to mainstream awareness and made a killing playing his PDP character. He established himself as a household name while working completely outside of the normal channels that people use to become well-known in the first place. His success is all his own. The Kardashians have been rich and famous for generations. There is no comparison there.
I don't consume PDP's content (I'm not really into that style of internet humor), but I do respect him for doing so well for himself and maintaining his identity and humility in the process.
who cares if his is starting a Twitch show, he's an a** hole anyway
still the thing with youtube and what they are doing right now is crazy, they had a system that worked well for the most part but with all the stuff they have been doing lately it's almost as if google are PURPOSELY trying to make youtube fail
You have been warned several times about your language, we will see you in a few days -Tasuki-
@Ralizah I'm not obsessed with them at all, but nice try making this about me twice so far in lack of a good argument.
I specifically argued against the idea that for someone to have millions of fans, they have to be smart. You never managed to prove me wrong. As for the Kardashians, they were rich but far from famous. It took one of them being somewhat known for working for Paris Hilton and then having a sex tape leak. Then her entire family got filthy rich and they have millions of fans. Doesn't make them smart or anything close to that.
You can disregard luck all you want. Successful people who know a thing or two about success will tell you that talent alone won't take you far. You also need luck (in some cases it's mostly luck). Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, and Justin Bieber were never out of the ordinary talented. They were attractive and lucky enough to get the career they ended up having. Felix did nothing extraordinary no matter how you try to present it as. Had it not been for luck (and his looks), he wouldn't have brought anything to the mainstream.
@naruball When someone keeps bringing up the Kardashians in a forced comparison that is out of place in the conversation, it looks like a pretty solid fixation. Don't bring up unrelated things and then fuss at me for calling you out on it. Do you want to talk about PDP or the Kardashians? Because I have no interest in the latter.
As I've already said, PDP's success is nothing like the success of the Kardashians or Paris Hilton. I'm not denying that luck was involved at any point, I said him being a successful entertainer who found a way to appeal to a generation of young people wasn't reducible to "luck."
Felix's success is probably a combination of luck, talent, hard work, and the intelligence to jump at a valuable opportunity when he sees it. But no, I don't think he stupidly stumbled upon success like Forrest Gump or something.
@get2sammyb "Unfortunately that's not how YouTube works, though, I don't think."
You'r eright, it's a bgiger deal than I thought. I still think Google will fix things, the advertisers will come back, adn Youtube will be fine, but it does look like Google has some work to do.
Oh look, some thug employees just dragged a passenger off of a United flight, everybody is probably forgetting about Google as I type this.
There's room for Twitch, just like there's room for Hulu and Amazon Prime, but I just can't see youtube going away. But I guess nobody saw Kodak and AOL going away either.
MS Vista went away today, better update your PC.
@Rukiafan7 kotaku? Or some shmuck commenting in the Kotaku comments? I didn't see these numbers thrown around in any of their articles.
@Ralizah I brought them up and you replied. Then you mentioned them again, and I replied again. That's that happened no matter how much you like to twist things into something else. It's not like I keep bringing them up in different conversations/threads. You really don't know how to argue so this is my last response to you.
You claimed that they were rich and famous (in reality, they were rich but not mainstream famous, making millions) before the tape, which is false. So your counterargument was based on a lie. You keep saying that the comparison doesn't work, but have provided no evidence with solid foundation to show that (a lie is not a solid foundation).
Worst of all, you keep resorting to ad hominem attacks which is clear sign that you've lost the argument. Keep believing whatever you want.
Lastly, you just changed the argument.
Compare
"The man became a millionaire by filming himself sitting in a room playing video games.If that's not a form of genius, then I don't know what is."
with
"I don't think he stupidly stumbled upon success like Forrest Gump or something".
I disagreed with the first statement, i.e. concluding from the fact that he became a millionaire playing video games that it is a form of genius. I argued that even stupid people can become rich and famous, not that he is an idiot. In other words, that his success is by no means an indication of his intelligence. He could be smart, but not only smart people succeed in the entertainment field. A genius, a smart person, a person of average intelligence and a stupid person can all become multimillionaires and famous. Conversely, a talented, genius, charismatic youtuber can be stuck with max 300 views per video if they have no luck (or, like I said, they can be extremely successful).
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