This kind of drives me bonkers too -- a lot of video content that would do fine in non-video form is in video. Ditto for podcasts, though there I get that there are people who want to listen to a podcast in the background while driving or something.
I think that a lot of people -- no idea if this is the case here -- post content to YouTube because it's got a low barrier to monetize a channel. I think that there's a very valid argument that there should be a written-media equivalent to YouTube. Like, there are blogging services, but AFAIK there isn't one that does that sort of monetization.
I'm not sure why.
Maybe it's that hosting video is bandwidth-expensive, so it's harder for another service to just rip the content or something.
Video ads are a lot more expensive/lucrative than still ads, I'm assuming
You are absolutely correct— major blog hosting, image hosting, and video hosting sites are all “free” for the content creator, but YouTube by far has the largest audience and highest monetization rates of any of them.
This is just creators buying in with their wallets; it makes sense to go where the money is, even if the format sucks for the idealized content consumer.
It sounds like this particular YouTube channel may take money to promote products -- it has a bit on "contacting the creator about business opportunities". I suppose that that would be independent of ad rates, though not of audience size.
I wouldn’t immediately jump to that conclusion. There are plenty of legitimate business opportunities that do not imply “taking money to promote products”. In-line advertising and properly disclosed free samples are standard operating procedure for the tech industry, but they are completely above board, and by themselves do not imply bias.
Nearly every content creator’s YouTube channel About page or website will have a similar line, somewhere.
This kind of drives me bonkers too -- a lot of video content that would do fine in non-video form is in video. Ditto for podcasts, though there I get that there are people who want to listen to a podcast in the background while driving or something.
I think that a lot of people -- no idea if this is the case here -- post content to YouTube because it's got a low barrier to monetize a channel. I think that there's a very valid argument that there should be a written-media equivalent to YouTube. Like, there are blogging services, but AFAIK there isn't one that does that sort of monetization.
I'm not sure why.
Maybe it's that hosting video is bandwidth-expensive, so it's harder for another service to just rip the content or something.
Video ads are a lot more expensive/lucrative than still ads, I'm assuming
You are absolutely correct— major blog hosting, image hosting, and video hosting sites are all “free” for the content creator, but YouTube by far has the largest audience and highest monetization rates of any of them.
This is just creators buying in with their wallets; it makes sense to go where the money is, even if the format sucks for the idealized content consumer.
It sounds like this particular YouTube channel may take money to promote products -- it has a bit on "contacting the creator about business opportunities". I suppose that that would be independent of ad rates, though not of audience size.
I wouldn’t immediately jump to that conclusion. There are plenty of legitimate business opportunities that do not imply “taking money to promote products”. In-line advertising and properly disclosed free samples are standard operating procedure for the tech industry, but they are completely above board, and by themselves do not imply bias.
Nearly every content creator’s YouTube channel About page or website will have a similar line, somewhere.