YouTube's Overmonetized Hellscape Is About to Get Worse

Summary

In a detailed critique by The Kingerd, YouTube's current trajectory is dissected for its heavy and evolving monetization practices. The video criticizes YouTube's shift towards a platform that prioritizes advertisers over creators and users, which could detrimentally alter the user experience and the essence of the platform. The discussion covers the introduction of initiatives like pay-to-win Hype tokens, controversial ad placements, and the diminishing freedom for content creators. The Kingerd urges viewers to recognize their power in shaping YouTube's direction and to support creators beyond just financial means.

Highlights

• YouTube is becoming heavily commercialized, prioritizing advertisers over its original 'Broadcast Yourself' ethos. 📺
• New monetization strategies, like Hype tokens, could lead to a pay-to-win structure, limiting visibility for smaller creators. 💰
• Ad placements are becoming increasingly intrusive, with auto-placement systems overriding creators' preferences. 🛑
• Creator-led content is at risk as YouTube leans towards monetization-driven decisions affecting video structure and pacing. 📈
• Viewers are encouraged to actively support their favorite creators to counterbalance YouTube's ad-centered approach. 👐

Key Takeaways

• YouTube's strategic shift heavily favors advertisers, adversely affecting user experience and creator autonomy. 🤔
• The platform's recent changes, including pay-to-win systems, signal a worrying trend towards over-monetization. 💸
• Creators are encouraged to align content with advertising strategies, reducing creative freedom. 🎨
• Viewer support is crucial in ensuring content quality and diversity remains intact on YouTube. 🤝
• There's a call to action for viewers to consciously support creators, opposing purely monetization-driven recommendations. ✊

Overview

In The Kingerd's latest video, the focus is squarely on the ever-intensifying monetization practices of YouTube. The platform, once known for its creative freedom, is now being criticized for turning into an advertiser's paradise, forcing creators to mold their content to fit the rigid structures dictated by potential revenue opportunities. He highlights the various revenue streams that are now influencing content visibility and creator independence.

The video delves into the introduction of new features like Hype tokens, which could potentially establish a 'pay-to-win' culture on the platform. This system, designed to boost certain videos for a price, is a part of YouTube's broader strategy to maximize earnings from both creators and audiences alike. The Kingerd warns of the dangers this system poses, suggesting it could undermine smaller creators by concentrating viewer attention and visibility based on financial inputs rather than content quality.

The Kingerd emphasizes the power dynamics at play, urging viewers to support their favorite creators beyond monetarily, as viewer engagement can help counter YouTube's algorithmic biases. The overarching message is clear: YouTube has shifted its focus significantly from the original ethos of empowering creators, and The Kingerd calls on users to remind the platform of its roots. In doing so, creative diversity and viewer choice can still thrive despite the platform's changing landscape.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and YouTube's Overmonetization The chapter criticizes YouTube for degrading its user experience by over-monetizing content. It highlights how creators are penalized if they don't adapt to the platform's ad-centric demands, forcing them to tailor content for advertisers rather than viewers. The narrator, a content creator with less than two years of experience, observes negative changes in YouTube's operations, including impending unfavorable updates. The platform's shift from a 'broadcast yourself' ethos to a 'whoever pays most' model is discussed.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Content Creator Perspective and Monetization Changes This chapter addresses the rapid changes in YouTube's content monetization policies, which feel overwhelming to content creators. The significant shift highlighted is that creators previously had the option to display unskippable ads at the start of their videos, a choice that seems no longer available. The speaker acknowledges the presence of ads in their own video, stressing that YouTube dictates the advertising rules on the platform. There is an emphasis on the complexity of the situation, acknowledging that ads are essential but the dynamic nature of their implementation is challenging for creators.
• 01:30 - 03:30: Revenue Streams and Creator Opportunities This chapter discusses the evolution of monetization on YouTube, highlighting how the platform has become more of a 'monetization hellscape' over time. It points out that aside from the traditional ad revenue model, YouTube has expanded its revenue streams, including options like channel memberships, which allow users to support channels on a monthly basis. The discussion critically examines why these monetization strategies have been implemented.
• 03:30 - 06:30: Promotion of Smaller Channels and Revenue Strategy This chapter discusses various monetization features available to content creators on streaming platforms, such as super chats, super thanks, and gifts. These features allow viewers to make their messages or comments more visible during live streams or under videos, respectively. The chapter also briefly mentions the competitive environment with platforms like TikTok and humorously references a potential influencer scenario as an illustration. Importantly, these monetization methods are portrayed as optional for viewers and non-intrusive to their overall experience.
• 06:30 - 09:30: YouTube's Strategy and Potential Impact The chapter discusses YouTube's monetization strategy and its potential impact on content creators and viewers. It highlights the challenges with inconsistent ad revenue, leading to content creators being pleased with alternative financial options for support. Viewers can now support creators financially without obligation to continue enjoying content. The chapter notes a change in channel monetization requirements, reducing the subscriber threshold from 1,000 to 500, although ads are not yet implemented.
• 09:30 - 13:30: Premium Options and Ad Strategy The chapter discusses YouTube's strategy in offering premium options and ad strategies to compete with platforms like Twitch. It highlights the introduction of 'supers' and memberships as alternative revenue streams for smaller streamers. Additionally, it mentions YouTube's adjustment in its algorithm to promote videos from lesser-known creators, deviating from the traditional focus on larger, more profitable channels.
• 13:30 - 17:30: Hype System and Pay-to-Win Concerns The chapter discusses the challenges faced by small YouTube channels in gaining visibility and the potential need for platforms like YouTube to promote smaller creators more than they currently do. It reflects on the difficulty of being a small channel in today's digital landscape.
• 17:30 - 21:30: Ad Placement and Content Control The chapter delves into YouTube's handling of ad placements and content control, highlighting the platform's reluctance to penalize high-revenue channels despite burnout signals from long-running content creators. It uses an analogy of a property losing tenants to illustrate the financial impact of creators leaving the platform.
• 21:30 - 26:30: Creative Control and Monetization Impact on Viewers The chapter discusses the potential concerns of losing a tenant in a rental property scenario and relates it to YouTube's content ecosystem. Instead of relying on a single income source, like a single-family home's rent, diversifying income by having multiple tenant apartments is compared to promoting smaller channels on YouTube. The notion suggests that if one income source is lost, others can balance the revenue flow. This analogy helps in understanding YouTube's strategy of promoting smaller channels and enabling them to have multiple income streams rather than solely relying on ad revenues.
• 26:30 - 30:00: YouTube's Changing Landscape and Conclusion The chapter discusses YouTube's strategic shift in its monetization approach, moving away from dependency on high-profile creators like Moist Critical, Asmin Gold, Sniper Wolf, and Mr. Beast, and instead focusing on its expansive network of 113 million active channels. This strategy acknowledges that while losing a major creator won't cause an immediate exodus from the platform, it might miss out on audiences who are loyal to specific content creators. This evolution illustrates YouTube's adaptability in maintaining its platform's ecosystem and engagement.

YouTube's Overmonetized Hellscape Is About to Get Worse Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 YouTube is actively making its user experience worse and punishing creators who don't comply Force placing ads pay to win and demanding creators cater their content to the advertisers instead of the viewers are all things that are happening right now and YouTube's announced even worse changes coming over the next few months what used to be the site for broadcasting yourself is looking more and more like the site for broadcasting whoever pays the most I've been making YouTube content for less than 2 years and even in that time the
• 00:30 - 01:00 Whiplash of changes we've seen is snapping my neck content creators once got to choose if they did or didn't want to show unskippable ads at the beginning of a video not anymore what the hell am I looking at and before we go any further yes this video will have ads Traer we might be the ones playing this game but YouTube wrote the rules of it and before I get flattened by the hypocrisy train let me make this clear today I'm not making the case that YouTube's monetization issues are the existence of ads ads are why we
• 01:00 - 01:30 get to use this site for free after all it's YouTube's progressively worse handling of them and other monetization methods so how's this site I've been watching since people thought Fred was funny turning into a monetization hellscape let's get into [Music] it for context let's look at YouTube's rapidly expanding revenue streams and why they have them set up this way aside from ads there's memberships where you can support a channel on a monthly basis
• 01:30 - 02:00 in exchange for perks chosen by the Creator super chats where your message stands out in a live stream super thanks where your comment can stand out under a video and Gifts got to compete with Tik Tok add gifts to live stream so maybe Jack dhy will come over here to EEG the next time he reaps the consequences of his broken childhood was that too harsh stop you're hurting her no no it wasn't and you know none of the revenue streams I've mentioned so far do I have a problem with yet they're all optional for the viewer and they don't impact a
• 02:00 - 02:30 video's reach in the algorithm yet this will come up again later in the video feel free to check my bias because again I upload videos here but with ad Revenue being so inconsistent I think it makes sense why content creators are glad to have these options activated on their channels and viewers are glad to have means to financially support their favorite creators without having to do so to keep enjoying the content Channel monetization used to require 1,000 subscribers now it's just 500 no ads yet
• 02:30 - 03:00 but you can still get supers and memberships YouTube needed to compete with twitch with smaller streamers after all now keeping these revenue streams and the lowering of the minimum sub count in mind you might have also noticed when you're scrolling on your homepage you're likely to come across a few videos with sometimes hundreds sometimes tens of views from a Creator you've never heard of why is this YouTube usually just throws the biggest most profitable most algorithm pleasing channels at us even if we've never watched before and they absolutely still
• 03:00 - 03:30 do that it's still very hard to be a small Channel but what could have happened recently to make YouTube think about promoting us little guys more than they used to so I'm taking a break for some time I don't know when or if I come back on March 9th I'll be hosting my last Theory episode we're going to list these 10 permanently banned channels from smallest to largest explaining what they did Welcome to rumble recent heartbreaks of beloved creators retiring large creators getting into scandals
• 03:30 - 04:00 where it's pretty obvious YouTube really doesn't want to punish them because you know their videos make money want to show each other sure yeah and the overall feeling of burnout in some long running channels hasn't just been noticed by viewers it's been noticed by YouTube imagine you're the landlord of the property at 123 YouTube Avenue now picture this property brings in $4,000 of rent income every month and you've just learned your tenant is moving out if this is a single family home that's a
• 04:00 - 04:30 problem your tenant that's moving out is your only tenant and now you've got to find someone else to replace them to keep your bills paid and revenue flowing but what if 123 YouTube Avenue wasn't a single family home anymore what if it had say four apartments that pay $11,000 each now losing a tenant doesn't seem so bad you've still got three others making you money this is how I see what YouTube is doing by promoting smaller channels more and these small channels having more means of income other than just ads even you YouTube doesn't have to solely
• 04:30 - 05:00 rely on its own algorithm to spread out monetization this shift in strategy means less Reliance on the moist criticals the asmin golds the sniper wolves the Mr beasts and more Reliance on the other 113 million active YouTube channels out there sure losing one creator doesn't mean their entire audience will never watch YouTube again but I guarantee you there's plenty of people who don't avidly scroll through YouTube every day they just watch the content creators they already know they like losing one big fish might cost you a meal but losing one of several small
• 05:00 - 05:30 fish will still keep your net full and boy do we have a lot of those fish coming to this site SpongeBob just doesn't run out of memes man in a 2019 Global survey 30% of subjects ages 8 to 12 years old listed YouTuber as their dream career now I'm no 8 to 12 year-old that you know of and this is far from a career for me right now but I'm still part of this new wave of YouTubers it's funny I made fun of my nephew when he first told me he wanted to be a YouTube streamer when he grew
• 05:30 - 06:00 up YouTube recognizes that there are more creators now than ever who wanton a slice of the pie and with over 500 hours of new content uploaded every minute I'm sure they can see this happening in real time and hey I say come on if you're interested more channels out there means more content variety for us with YouTube trying to motivate small creators to keep at it maybe more people will keep at it and maybe someday they won't be any Mega content creators as we know them now I don't know but this video is not about YouTube feeding fish bread to
• 06:00 - 06:30 the masses out of the kindness of its heart helping the little guys and making some extra money for YouTube smells like a win-win scenario to me and it is if you ignore the big picture of what YouTube is actually trying to do to its audience how's this making it a hellscape I'll tell you more early Financial incentive means more channels grinding to unlock the ad Revenue more channels with ad Revenue means hopefully more viewers seeing ads getting sick of them and moving to YouTube premium get YouTube premium all YouTube no interruptions we're on a per user basis
• 06:30 - 07:00 YouTube stands to make much much more money take my channel for example it tells me that advertisers pay $896 per 1,000 views I don't make that yeah I was going to cut you in oh you were going to cut me in I usually make about $3 for every thousand views on a good month but that's what YouTube says the advertisers are paying by that metric it would take one person watching just under 1,000 long form videos a month for YouTube to make as much money off of that single user as they would would if that user were instead paying
• 07:00 - 07:30 for premium light just there's money coming out of your pocket instead of just the advertisers some of you might actually be on here that much I don't know the baby shark numbers don't lie and did I say premium light what's that you might be asking well after YouTube successfully created the problem of overloading us with ads including sometimes showing ads for videos that aren't even monetized YouTube then successfully sold the solution to this problem they created with YouTube premium maybe you didn't want to breach
• 07:30 - 08:00 terms of service with an ad blocker but you still wanted to tone down the ads so maybe you subscribed and what is your reward oh loyal Patron a price hike maybe even more than 40% of a price hike depending on your region and your plan no worries guys you want to pay less like you did before just downgrade to our new plan premium light where your subscription will give you that classic YouTube premium feel with limited ads bro come on I see what you did there
• 08:00 - 08:30 YouTube you got people to basically pay what they did before but now you get to double dip with their money and add Revenue chef's kiss hats off to you slide dogs it's that shrink flation now as for that comment about them showing ads on videos that aren't even monetized yes this is true I witnessed this firsthand on my second channel before we hit 1,000 Subs not all the time but sometimes all of the cons of making your audience watch ads but none of the pros of getting paid for it I guess by
• 08:30 - 09:00 evening the playing field for creators and pushing for Revenue to come from subscriptions per user over ads per view YouTube is propping themselves up to make sure they will never have to worry about any single content creator being too big to control or too big to lose ever again meaning YouTube could even say slip to the lowest pits of pay to win Hell and even if a couple of creators get mad and leave they'll be okay I promised you we'd come back to pay to win YouTube at a later time that time is now have you guys ever
• 09:00 - 09:30 heard of YouTube's hype system I imagine a lot of you haven't it's only been rolled out in a few regions as of the timing of this video well if I got a video for you and today we're talking about hype specifically a myth we've heard that the feature will be pay to play that title plus that dislike ratio ought to tell you everything you need to know but I'll explain anyway hype allows users to spend these sort of tokens to boost videos top High videos show up on a new leader board designed for up and cominging creators but only if the
• 09:30 - 10:00 creator has under 500,000 subs and their video is less than a week old are you worried people will spam hype nah everyone's hype as a weekly cap unless if you've seen any of my channel prior to this video you already know where this is going we're currently testing the option to pay to H videos in some locals viewers who use this option can give even more points to a single video giving it a better chance to make it onto the leaderboard that's right unless you pay for more hypee tokens to give a myth we've heard a myth we've heard a
• 10:00 - 10:30 myth we've heard paid hype will still have a cap but payers will have more tokens to disperse and non-payers unlike super chats or memberships which support a Creator financially without impacting their visibility hype explicitly sells influence it's YouTube's first real step into pay to win territory and what a busted greedy Iceberg this will be if we ever get past the tip of it but as most of you Kings watching this right now we already know people will defend and this too and that's okay they just can't be
• 10:30 - 11:00 shocked when bot accounts and more well-off creators beat this system in the submission and get put in front of more viewers regardless of the quality of their content speaking of which YouTube says hype tokens will only get videos ahead on hype leaderboards for now not the algorithm at large but this is still a leaderboard people will see and the videos that get more hype tokens will be seen more so that in and of itself is boosting Outreach and never mind listen to what I found while I was editing how does hyping benefit me
• 11:00 - 11:30 beyond the leaderboard when your video is hyped YouTube May feature it on the home feed with a special hyped batch letting everyone know that it's a viewer favorite think of hype as a way to amplify your fans voices and increase your visibility on YouTube minut we've heard that the future will be pay to play imagine if your homepage were sorted by Channels with most members to Channels with least members would you like that would you like people's money being how YouTube chooses what and what not to show you not your recent watch histories your search history not your
• 11:30 - 12:00 interests this would compromise arguably the biggest part of YouTube's appeal to viewers full stop if hype ends up taking off YouTube might as well change its slogan to broadcast what rich people want you to see sorry about that Gizmo did that scare you I'm sorry boy he was taking a good nap too speaking of prioritizing monetization over video quality YouTube has been hit with a new wave of backlash recently so far it's mainly been creators who can see the riding on the wall but don't worry viewers are going
• 12:00 - 12:30 to feel the effects of YouTube's newest changes very soon in the name of improving the user experience in May of 2025 YouTube is scheduled to roll out a new way to combat interruptive ads you know interruptive ads the kinds that pop up at a time when it doesn't really make want to be sold to constantly but tired of that pesky content getting in the way join YouTube Ultra for ads and full length sponsor videos only now on paper I don't have any paper in here on paper this sounds great right no more poorly
• 12:30 - 13:00 timed interruptions in the middle of content anymore right yes but in reality it's one small step for user satisfaction and one giant leap for stifling creative control of the content that we watch several creators who already have this feature rolled out to them will tell you it's retroactively going back and marking several ads on several videos that aren't interruptive at all as interruptive and interruptive ads means the Creator may see less Revenue as you can expect the reception
• 13:00 - 13:30 to a flawed ad Placer system deciding what's interruptive and what isn't has been overwhelmingly negative I've seen a lot of displeasure at having to go back through years worth of upload history to change ad placement but more importantly displeasure at the complete lack of trust that automation will actually make the viewer experience better hold it at this point you might be asking but if YouTube is sometimes removing ads doesn't that make the site less monetized to which the answer is is we've got to remember what YouTube's
• 13:30 - 14:00 goal with this is the goal is not to lessen the load of ads on the site it's to compel creators to structure their content around YouTube's preferences for advertising under threat of reducing Revenue this goal is more clear when you realize that in a lot of cases YouTube's Auto placement feature uh ads way more ads than most content creators would have ever actually placed themselves when someone makes a video for YouTube they're already catering its style and pacing to what they think Their audience will like for example cut commentary
• 14:00 - 14:30 videos or gameplay videos usually try their best to keep the viewer engaged from start to finish keeping pauses and silences to a minimum so people don't get bored YouTube's not going to like that so it'll have to pick a minuscule pause it finds somewhere in the audio timeline or just not place any ads at all and YouTube pops up and says we couldn't find any natural break points in the video therefore YouTube is not going to put any ads in this video well what
• 14:30 - 15:00 about my next video no ads what about my next video no ads what about my next video no ads what about my next video no ads it's Financial discrimination based on content Niche it's that nism meanwhile scripted videos like the one you're watching right now usually chooses where to place ads based on flows of thought or Cliffhangers to try and keep the ad breaks As Natural as possible and keep the viewer intrigued enough to stay say through the ad break
• 15:00 - 15:30 oh my God we don't go it probably is one of the coolest things anybody can ever do get YouTube premium to keep any video game alive YouTube's new system doesn't care what kind of pacing the Creator thinks is best or that the audience prefers no it demands the content be made in a way to make room for monetization before it's ever even uploaded I smell money YouTube's saying loud and clear they think their automated system can choose ad breaks better than a human content creator can
• 15:30 - 16:00 the system that thinks it's acceptable to place ads every 3 minutes in a live stream the system that shows ads and places the Creator didn't even want ads to go seriously pause this video for a bit come back hit play and I guarantee you in the first couple of seconds YouTube will play you an ad and I didn't put it there yeah do what he says you don't want to miss out on money do you now I've screamed cried and pissed my P now I've screamed cried and pissed my pants from a Creator's point of view but what about the audience what does this matter to you well here's the simple
• 16:00 - 16:30 answer YouTube is showing that they are happy to limit creative control of the content you consume if they think it will earn them more money think of this like the pay to- win debate in video games somebody will'll drop some kind of microtransaction for faster leveling or in-game items one side will say it's no big deal it's not that big of a difference while the other side the correct one has their own Line in the Sand that says extra purchases should never Impact gameplay no matter how small the change or shortcut that it gives because whenever you give an inch
• 16:30 - 17:00 they're always going to look for the next inch they can take it's kind of like that here but instead of video games and impacting gameplay with monetization it's YouTube and impacting content with monetization yes there's a terms of service against things like explicit content but this new ad system goes beyond the realm of trying to make things age appropriate YouTube's turned into the pacing police I'm just a cousin I'm just a now does an arbitrary occasional pause ruin
• 17:00 - 17:30 an entire video no not necessarily but mark my words this is step one to taking away manual ad placement entirely consider them marked YouTube is not good enough at placing ads and they do not prioritize you as a viewer enough to have this responsibility and if you think you'll stop at ad breaks just wait remember when YouTube changed their to to say that videos that have cursing in
• 17:30 - 18:00 the first 15 seconds won't be eligible for ads and applied this retroactively to videos that have been uploaded for years they ended up loosening these restrictions a few months later when they realized just how many videos they were losing money on but they still tried it insisting on auto ad placement is kind of like that but taking it a step further that was when YouTube wanted to cater intros to advertisers this is when they want to cater the pacing of an entire video to advertisers and shocker I know but advertisers don't
• 18:00 - 18:30 always want what you want you want to rewatch a how to tie your tie video for the h hundredth time on your way out the door to that next job interview they want to sell you I don't know a Fushigi or something those things were such a scam the ball does not float on its own there's no tell marks to be able to see how the sphere is moving I've been saying for years that if YouTube could treat creators like Mindless content Farms or get rid of them entirely they do it in a heartbeat remember when they tried and failed with you YouTube Originals because turns out people
• 18:30 - 19:00 aren't interested in YouTube being just another Netflix or Prime video Cobra Kai started out as a YouTube show till Netflix picked it up two seasons in isn't that crazy to think about but with YouTube having since dropped the original content initiative the next best thing it can do is be a backseat driver to other people's content YouTube is supposed to be a place for viewers to find unfiltered takes advice how-tos independent Artistic Endeavors and a lot more that may not otherwise be available to them aren't you already tired of
• 19:00 - 19:30 seeing creators who once posted about things that they wanted to post about now posting about the same topics as everyone else because they feel like to grow they have to do this to appease the algorithm aren't you sick of seeing thousands of dollars of marketing money being pumped into fulllength sponsored videos all in the name of determining what products you should get exposed to rather than what should entertain you wouldn't it be a Twist of the knife to see that even the variety content that isn't even looking for virality Is Now puppeteered by YouTube's monetization
• 19:30 - 20:00 priorities Broadcast Yourself is dead we're now in the era of broadcast the marketing budgets pay to- win practices and ads dictating the structure of content is a fundamental shift in the way that YouTube has operated creators don't want to see this viewers don't want to see this nobody wants to see this except YouTube so let them know it seems to take videos like this picking up steam for YouTube to even pretend to care about the viewer experience hopefully with the ne ative feedback they've already gotten YouTube will
• 20:00 - 20:30 reverse these things or at least scale them back but we already know the language they speak don't we money so the next time you see a content creator that you enjoy working their tail off to entertain or inform you just remember buy more hype tokens I'm just kidding support your favorite content creators before YouTube decides who you should watch for you doesn't have to be financial support even just a like or a positive comment on a video or a share it's stuff like that that gives videos the success they need to rise above the
• 20:30 - 21:00 noise and give the Creator the drive to keep sitting back down at the editing desk excited to deliver you another video remind YouTube it's not the advertisers that got them to where they are today it's you the viewer if you want to see another nonv video game Centric video of mine click this one here it's about the Dark Side of digital media and speaking of support thank you to the patrons the channel members the viewers the Discord members every one of you that's ever sent support my way since I started this thing as always thanks for for watching Carry On You
• 21:00 - 21:30 Kings [Music]