YouTube Creators Discover Content Ratings, Including P-score

[mr moose]

13 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

The problem here is what you've been describing is a business model whose primary purpose is to serve us the consumer ads.

Their primary job is to make money, serving adds the way they do that,  hosting video content is just a consumer service.

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Except watching ads isn't why any of us use youtube. We use it to watch youtube content by youtube content creators that where interested in. Watching the ads are how we pay for that.

No said that wasn't the case.

 

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In the supermarket analogy the purpose of the store for both the supermarket and the customer is the same. Sell you your groceries or whatever your there for. the supermarkets preferences on what you buy and your preferences on what you buy may not align but your marching the the same general tune.

I don't see how that  statements makes  any difference to what I was saying.   you know the supermarket has product you want, but it isn't always going to be front and centre because it isn't always the best profit earning product for them.  Just like youtube, you know there is content there you want to watch, it just isn't going to be promoted to the front page or in recommendations because of it's content.  It's a really simply concept,  if the content is problematic for youtube in either the form of advertiser appeal or legal ramifications they don't promote it. 

 

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With youtube a system for providing videos based on how much money that video can earn youtube the most can and does run into flaws in that it isn't necessarily in line with it's purpose for the consumers of being a place where they can find content they want to watch.

content is not hidden unless the uploader makes it private.   The only flaw here is that people are misunderstanding why this is a thing.

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To continue the supermarket analogy. A supermarket may encourage certain brands and products by making them highly visible, but they never actively hide products.

Just like youtube never hides videos.

 

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If you go into a random store looking for a specific item of a specific brand, it will be on public display somwhere 99% of the time, (Some specialty medicines may be behind the counter items not advertised anywhere, but thats an extreme exception that proves the rule), you never have to go upto a staff member, (the closest equivalent of asking youtubes search algorithm) and ask them to get specific brand of specific item X out of the back for you. If Supermarkets started doing that both consumers and groceries manufacturers would lose their collective minds with the supermarket that did it.

I think you are taking it too far.   You are describing a search issue not the p-score problem.  p-scores do not effect the search function on youtube.

 

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Don't get me wrong Youtubes sheer size makes it impractical for them to promote everyone and still provide extra promotion of select lines the way Supermarkets do it, but at the same time the current system Definetly biases against even trying to come up with an alternative solution.

 

And this all comes back really in the end to the whole issue of is Youtube a Service or a Business.

It is a business.  It provides both a basic free video hosting service and a way to make money creating videos. The business model is dependent on advertising to do that.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

It is a business.  It provides both a basic free video hosting service and a way to make money creating videos. The business model is dependent on advertising to do that.

@CarlBar further to this, "Is YouTube a Business or a Service" is asking the wrong question. That's like asking "Is Ford a Car company or a manufacturing company?"

 

The answer is both. All services (unless non-profit or government run) are businesses. But not all businesses are services (or rather, not all businesses offer "services" in the way we are using them in this context).

 

YouTube is unquestionably a business. If anyone is under the impression of otherwise, they are clearly mistaken. But more precisely, YouTube is a business that offers a service.

[CarlBar]

@mr moose I think my point kind of got lost in there somwhere. The point i'm getting at is that by its nature from the PoV of content creators, (the equivalent of groceries manufacturers in the supermarket scenario), Youtube's current system, (which is mediated by Pscore), is extremly poor at helping a random person just browsing youtube, (the way shoppers in the supermarket browse items on isles as they got towards a specific item), find a random video they might be interested in. It's setup to only promote their highest margin items and force people to go in specifically looking for somthing to find anything else.

 

Even in online stores the existence of breaking things down by categories means you've got good odds of seeing groups of things and the odd occasional other item that might interest you as you browse towards what you actually want.Youtube currently does a poor job of emulating this to the detriment of it's content creators. And thanks to things like P-Score even if it did a better job of emulating that a great deal of content would be buried by the p score system. 

 

@dalekphalm Again didn't quite get my point across i ummed and ahed about expanding that but i didn't want to start a huge tangent that would take away from the main point., in hindsight i should have worded it as "Primarily a business or Primarily a Service".

 

The larger point i'm getting at is that how google would/should be treated is very different depending on weather it's primarily a service to provide end users with videos, (with adds as a means of paying for that), or a Business that is primarily about serving you ads, (with the videos existing as a reason for people to watch the ads). Right now it seems to exist in a weird grey area where it's getting the benefits of both but few of the downsides of either.

 

Don't get me wrong i've pointed out before how tricky the internet makes things for companies online providing purely digital services. By their nature such business are accessible from anywhere in the world and that can create serious issues since laws differ between countries and can on occasion be mutually contradictory.

[spartaman64]

On 11/3/2019 at 2:27 AM, CarlBar said:

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we are not YouTube's customer the advertisers are. We are YouTube's product. If you don't like that then either don't watch youtube or get youtube premium. If someone owns a pet store who are the customers the pets or the people who buy the pets. Just because the pet store feeds the pets etc basically offering services to the pets doesn't make the pets the customer

[dalekphalm]

20 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

@dalekphalm Again didn't quite get my point across i ummed and ahed about expanding that but i didn't want to start a huge tangent that would take away from the main point., in hindsight i should have worded it as "Primarily a business or Primarily a Service".

Again, that's the wrong question to ask. Both are businesses.

20 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

The larger point i'm getting at is that how google would/should be treated is very different depending on weather it's primarily a service to provide end users with videos, (with adds as a means of paying for that), or a Business that is primarily about serving you ads, (with the videos existing as a reason for people to watch the ads). Right now it seems to exist in a weird grey area where it's getting the benefits of both but few of the downsides of either.

A Service to provide end users with videos is a business. A business that is primarily serving ads is.. also a business. And a service - for that matter.

20 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

Don't get me wrong i've pointed out before how tricky the internet makes things for companies online providing purely digital services. By their nature such business are accessible from anywhere in the world and that can create serious issues since laws differ between countries and can on occasion be mutually contradictory.

Typically businesses like that must follow the laws of their home country (whichever country the business is registered in and operates from), as well as any countries in which they host infrastructure (though the business would typically only need to ensure the infrastructure - and any content on it - follows local laws, not necessarily the whole business).

 

In YouTube - we the users, are the product, ultimately. The clients are the advertisers, and the "employees" are the content creators (which act as independent contractors).

 

I think maybe you're just explaining yourself wrong, and getting hung up on the term business. YouTube is a business - period. There's no ambiguity on that. A business that primarily offers a service (instead of, say, a physical product). That service is twofold: serving content uploaded from third party contractors ("Creators"), and serving ads from advertisers.

[CarlBar]

46 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I think maybe you're just explaining yourself wrong, and getting hung up on the term business. YouTube is a business - period. There's no ambiguity on that. A business that primarily offers a service (instead of, say, a physical product). That service is twofold: serving content uploaded from third party contractors ("Creators"), and serving ads from advertisers.

 

To specifically address this bit, (i'll get back to the rest later bit low on IRL time for now), edit: going to come up with a better analogy. Tired honestly, need a snooze. Get back to you later.

[dalekphalm]

9 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

To specifically address this bit, (i'll get back to the rest later bit low on IRL time for now), i'd use the BBC vs other UK TV companies as an example of the kind of divide i'm talking about, (it's not perfect as analogy ofc, hence my not using it before). Both provide the same service, Tv show content. But the non-BBC are businesses out to make money. The BBC isn't, it;s just there to produce content. And whilst they share some regulatory rules, (actually most of them), being a non-for profit entity does mean there are differences.

The BBC is a non-profit - so that's the key difference to, say, them and Sky. The BBC isn't out to make profit for it's shareholders.

 

YouTube is by no means a non-profit, in any meaning of the word (neither their "Content serving" service nor their "ad serving" service). So I don't really see how that applies to this context.

9 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

Note i'm not arguing that Youtube is or should be non-for profit. but right now it's in a weird regulatory position where it's not being properly treated as either a money making business or a non-for profit service.

How is it not being treated as a money making business? In what way, specifically?

[CarlBar]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

The BBC is a non-profit - so that's the key difference to, say, them and Sky. The BBC isn't out to make profit for it's shareholders.

 

YouTube is by no means a non-profit, in any meaning of the word (neither their "Content serving" service nor their "ad serving" service). So I don't really see how that applies to this context.

How is it not being treated as a money making business? In what way, specifically?

 

 

See my edit, typing up a better example now.

[CarlBar]

To specifically address this bit, (i'll get back to the rest later bit low on IRL time for now), The scenario i'd use would be the role of the BBC's broadcasting arm, (which last i checked was responsible for owning all the hardware that actually transmits the various tv channels signals containing their, well channels).

 

The TV companies, (sans the BBC), are ad serving companies who use their content to get people to watch said ads, (in much the same way youtube does), the broadcasting hardware component of them is instead providing a distribution platform, (TV signals), to the TV companies in exchange for money.

 

At least in the UK the TV companies and the broadcasting arm of the BBC are regulated very differently and have very different legal requirements and are otherwise functioning in very different ways. The broadcasting company has no obligations to regulate or check what it's broadcasting. Thats on the TV Company providing it with the stuff to broadcast. On the other hand it has obligations about provide said broadcasts in an accessible and otherwise viewable fashion to us the end consumer. Conversely TV companies have no obligations regarding how content is provided to us, only that said content is acceptable and they have the rights to it. But unlike the broadcasting company they have obligations to the people, (be they're employees or outside contractors), providing them with the content.

 

In a TV Company the people it sources content from work for it, (directly or as an outside contractor producing something for them), in a broadcasting company the broadcasting company works for the TV Company, (and us the end consumer as it needs us to be happy with it to get TV Companies to sell it stuff).

 

Right now Youtube is getting to do the best of both. It treats content creators like it's a broadcasting company and us the end consumer like it's a TV Company.

 

If it's a Tv Company Analogue it should be more responsible for what's on the youtube more and has one set of obligations legal obligations where content creators and especially remuneration for their work are concerned. But it's free to manipulate what we watch to our hearts content within it's liabilities on content shown.

 

Conversely if it's a broadcasting company then it has next to no liabilities and a very different set of legal requirements where content creators are concerned. But whilst it can refuse to serve certain content creators at all it has no authority to manipulate us the end use.

 

Right now it's getting the best of both worlds IMO.

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, CarlBar said:

@mr moose I think my point kind of got lost in there somwhere. The point i'm getting at is that by its nature from the PoV of content creators, (the equivalent of groceries manufacturers in the supermarket scenario), Youtube's current system, (which is mediated by Pscore), is extremly poor at helping a random person just browsing youtube, (the way shoppers in the supermarket browse items on isles as they got towards a specific item), find a random video they might be interested in. It's setup to only promote their highest margin items and force people to go in specifically looking for somthing to find anything else.

What you are describing and what you are claiming are different things.  You are describing the effects of p-score for the end user,  you are not describing a problem with the system.  As spartman pointed out, we are not the clients.  we are the product.   Youtube is a business, if they were to run it to benefit the users over revenue then the business will fail and you will have nothing.

 

3 hours ago, CarlBar said:

Even in online stores the existence of breaking things down by categories means you've got good odds of seeing groups of things and the odd occasional other item that might interest you as you browse towards what you actually want.Youtube currently does a poor job of emulating this to the detriment of it's content creators. And thanks to things like P-Score even if it did a better job of emulating that a great deal of content would be buried by the p score system. 

Youtube puts things in categories too.   I don;t know how much better you expect youtube to be able to pigeon hole videos when it is up to the creator to describe the content of the video and choose  a category.

 

 

[CarlBar]

On 11/5/2019 at 7:27 PM, mr moose said:

What you are describing and what you are claiming are different things.  You are describing the effects of p-score for the end user,  you are not describing a problem with the system.  As spartman pointed out, we are not the clients.  we are the product.   Youtube is a business, if they were to run it to benefit the users over revenue then the business will fail and you will have nothing.

 

Youtube puts things in categories too.   I don;t know how much better you expect youtube to be able to pigeon hole videos when it is up to the creator to describe the content of the video and choose  a category.

 

 

 

Going to reverse order my reply.

 

Youtube has categories, but there's now way for the end user to access them. You want to find a specific type of content you have 2 options. Trending which isn't category based (and i've given up using ages ago), and the search function. There;s no ability in my UI to browse content from specific general or broad categories.

 

 

Also Yes Youtube is a business, a business exists to make money. it does this by providing a product to someone. Except right now it's treating everyone it interacts with as if they're the product and isn't doing a good job of providing back to them. Thats really what this is all about.

 

To go back to my better example a Broadcasting hardware company provides a product, (the services of it's transmitters), to the TV companies and the end users in front of their TV's in exchange for the money the Tv company gives. The TV company provides a service to the End Users as well in exchange for the showing of adds.

 

A business is a triangle of product, remuneration and customer/end user.Obviously you can have overlap, (Many sellers at auction houses are also buyers, but the key point there is how they're treated and what responsibilities they have depends on which side of the equation people are on).

 

The problem is Youtube is getting away with treating everyone like their product without treating anyone like a customer whilst pretending to everyone that they're really the customer. That's really what ad-pocalypse was about, the advertisers got fed up of it and unlike us and content creators they had the means to do somthing about it.

 

P score is an issue because it lays bare parts of this. P score doesn't work if youtube is providing a service to either us or content creators. because it harms the product for the customer. it only works if the customer is the add companies. But in that case youtube should have significant other legal responsibilities towards us and content creators. At that point one of the two remaining groups, (Us and content creators), is providing a service to youtube and the other is the product. The thing is anything it's providing a service to should have legal protections in place, thats a fundamental reality of contract, sales, and employment law the world over. But youtube currently gets away with having very few responsibilities towards either currently because the legal framework isn't there and it's pretending to everyone else that someone else is the product and they're all customers.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

Going to reverse order my reply.

 

Youtube has categories, but there's now way for the end user to access them. You want to find a specific type of content you have 2 options. Trending which isn't category based (and i've given up using ages ago), and the search function. There;s no ability in my UI to browse content from specific general or broad categories.

 

Never had a problem with this, home page has categories in it, the most popular ones are at the front.  When I search for specifics I get all the other ones.

 

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

Also Yes Youtube is a business, a business exists to make money. it does this by providing a product to someone. Except right now it's treating everyone it interacts with as if they're the product and isn't doing a good job of providing back to them. Thats really what this is all about.

I don't understand what you mean by "Thats really what this is all about"   If you are a content creator that wants to make money then you have to work within the system that makes the money, if you are a casual video watcher then you are the product, never expect to be given anything because it doesn't work like that.

 

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

To go back to my better example a Broadcasting hardware company provides a product, (the services of it's transmitters), to the TV companies and the end users in front of their TV's in exchange for the money the Tv company gives. The TV company provides a service to the End Users as well in exchange for the showing of adds.

That doesn't really make much sense,  is youtube the broadcast hardware company or the tv company?  Either way it doesn't work ion your analogy because if they were the broadcast company then you are forgetting about hosting fees and they should be charging channels per view. If they are the tv company then they should be paying content creators what they think a show is worth and only showing viewers what they can get ads for (which is pretty much what is happening)

 

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

A business is a triangle of product, remuneration and customer/end user.Obviously you can have overlap, (Many sellers at auction houses are also buyers, but the key point there is how they're treated and what responsibilities they have depends on which side of the equation people are on).

 

The problem is Youtube is getting away with treating everyone like their product without treating anyone like a customer

The advertiser is the customer, that's who they treat as the customer.

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

whilst pretending to everyone that they're really the customer.

I don't really see that.  I don't feel like a customer to youtube and I certainly haven't heard content creators talk in that fashion.

 

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 That's really what ad-pocalypse was about, the advertisers got fed up of it and unlike us and content creators they had the means to do somthing about it.

No, the advertisers had issues with their ads being in front of content that was bad for their PR.  It had nothing to do with how youtube treated them and is exactly the reason the P-score exists.

 

6 hours ago, CarlBar said:

P score is an issue because it lays bare parts of this. P score doesn't work if youtube is providing a service to either us or content creators. because it harms the product for the customer. it only works if the customer is the add companies. But in that case youtube should have significant other legal responsibilities towards us and content creators. At that point one of the two remaining groups, (Us and content creators), is providing a service to youtube and the other is the product. The thing is anything it's providing a service to should have legal protections in place, thats a fundamental reality of contract, sales, and employment law the world over. But youtube currently gets away with having very few responsibilities towards either currently because the legal framework isn't there and it's pretending to everyone else that someone else is the product and they're all customers.

 

You have way over complicated the point of the p-score and now you are moving into the realm of civil business law.  When you upload content to youtube you are agreeing to a service conditions.  That is you agree to how the system generates funds, deals with copyright and pays you.  If you don't like it then don't upload content.  There is literally nothing that youtube are doing that is illegal or that should be done a different way in this regard.  It is common practice in most industries.   labor hire is the same, you don't get to dictate where you work only to take the job or not, nor the pay as you get the minimum legal pay or whatever they offer above min., you don't get to choose employers. and so on.  Don't like it get a job yourself.  Same with video content, don't like youtube's payment and copyright system then create your own website and stream your own videos there instead of using an establish video platform.