Please Remember Your Promise to Compromise on Clickbait & Descriptive Titles

[RonnieOP]

18 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

I'm absolutely not criticizing them for making money. I'm criticizing HOW they make money. There are plenty of similarly sized tech channels that don't feature primarily paid sponsorships and merch stores in every video.

But do you know their financials?

 

You cant just compare two channels with the same number of subs. 

[lewdicrous]

12 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I'm annoyed of it, for a while it was good, and its useless to find a video on a specific topic on mobile but if I'm searching i'm on a desktop.

 

Please just put back on what the product is at the end. @LinusTech its one of the few things I miss from 2013 vids.

Hopefully their new channel moves away from this.

[GDRRiley]

Just now, lewdicrous said:

Hopefully their new channel moves away from this.

so far 2 for 2

 

[Roswell]

13 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

But do you know their financials?

 

You cant just compare two channels with the same number of subs. 

Do you know their financials? You're the one that brought up the subject to support your opinion of... my opinion. 

 

Stop using fallacies as argument points.

[RonnieOP]

6 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Do you know their financials? You're the one that brought up the subject to support your opinion of... my opinion. 

 

Stop using fallacies as argument points.

I dont need to know their financials.

 

They have spoken about it before as have other youtubers.

 

Your basically bitching that the free content they give you has sponsors....well your not paying for it so how do you think it gets funded?

 

What other youtuber the size of ltt with a company the size of lmg isnt using sponsors?

[lewdicrous]

7 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

I dont need to know their financials.

 

They have spoken about it before as have other youtubers.

 

Your basically bitching that the free content they give you has sponsors....well your not paying for it so how do you think it gets funded?

 

What other youtuber the size of ltt with a company the size of lmg isnt using sponsors?

Adding to this, YouTube is not very stable when it comes to monetization; you lose a lot of money when you get demonetized or get a copyright claim. 

[RonnieOP]

7 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

Adding to this, YouTube is not very stable when it comes to monetization; you lose a lot of money when you get demonetized or get a copyright claim. 

Its asinine to me how people could expect so much from free content.

 

And LTT even offers float plane for $3 a month if you dont want to deal with ads with the 100% free content. 

 

[Blademaster91]

5 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

Its how they make money.

 

Are you unaware on how business works? 

 

In order to make videos they need workers. In order to have workers they need to pay them. In order to pay them they need to make money. In order to make money they need ads.

 

The only way to make money off youtube is through ads.

 

Theres a very easy alternative to avoid ads for dirt cheap. Its called floatplane.

 

So they are giving you two different options (one free and one paid) to view the content how you like.

There are plenty of other tech Youtubers that don't have at least 1 out of 3 videos that are actually ads disguised as a review with clickbait, and considering LTT has 6 channels with a bunch of sponsors, a merch store, Floatplane,and the forum which also has ads I don't see how people are still blaming Youtube.

 

I don't think it's a problem and completely understand if people want to leave their adblocker on for a video, because most people are likely watching videos on their phone or tablet and have to sit through all the ads or at least LTT thinks so since a lot of their videos are cropped into a resolution more suitable for a phone screen, even though they shoot with 8K red cameras. And I don't see the point in paying for Floatplane since it has the same annoying clickbait as their Youtube channels.

[RonnieOP]

7 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

There are plenty of other tech Youtubers that don't have at least 1 out of 3 videos that are actually ads disguised as a review with clickbait, and considering LTT has 6 channels with a bunch of sponsors, a merch store, Floatplane,and the forum which also has ads I don't see how people are still blaming Youtube.

 

I don't see a problem and completely understand if people want to leave their adblocker on for a video, because most people are likely watching videos on their phone or tablet and have to sit through all the ads or at least LTT thinks so since a lot of their videos are cropped into a resolution more suitable for a phone screen, even though they shoot with 8K red cameras. And I don't see the point in paying for Floatplane since it has the same annoying clickbait as their Youtube channels.

Where are you seeing ads on the forum? Also it costs money to run this forum. Are you paying to use the forum? Thats another expense they have.

 

How are you forced to sit through sponsor ads? On the pc its one click to skip them and on a phone or tablet you just have to double tap to skip ahead. If you are "forced" into watching those its not LTTs fault its your own for not knowing how to use the youtube app.

 

And same question. What other tech youtuber is the same size as lmg? I cant think of one that has the size of the staff ltt does but maybe there is one out there.

 

Again...its free content. You dont pay for it. So how do you think its possible for them to put out the content? 

 

You see a 15 minute video and nothing more. You dont see the time spent on writing the script, filming it, and editing it. All of that costs time and money. 

 

Even if they only had one person who wrote the script, one person who presented, one person film, and one person edit it....thats 4 people that are being paid for multiple hours of work. Thats alot of money to make a video. And they pay all that money to make the video for you to watch for 100% free. Doesnt cost you a dime.

 

If you dont like the ads and sponsors you can pay $3 to get rid of it. If you cant afford that then beggars cant be choosers. 

 

Now the point of clickbait titles is legit. As thats a personal opinion. If you dont like the titles and consider them click bait thats your opinion. Then dont watch.

 

But turning on ad blocker and watching anyway isnt taking the high road. Its just someone being a dick tbh. 

 

"I dont want them making any money off me. Even though im still going to watch the video for free".

 

Its basically the same excuse people use to make them feel better about pirating a game or movie. And its bs.

[lewdicrous]

14 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I don't see how people are still blaming Youtube.

Their main sources of revenue are either YouTube, sponsors or both, afaik, and one influences the other; the more reach you have, the more companies are willing to pay. 

18 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Floatplane,and the forum which also has ads

Afaik, they're operating the forum at a loss, the amount of money they get from ads and contributions is less than what they pay to keep it running. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong tho.

[lewdicrous]

26 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

And LTT even offers float plane for $3 a month if you dont want to deal with ads with the 100% free content. 

It's $5 now.

2 minutes ago, RonnieOP said:

Where are you seeing ads on the forum?

There are ads on the forum, they're usually on the sidebar, but you can get rid of them by either paying (forum contributions) or using an adblocker.

[RonnieOP]

17 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

It's $5 now.

There are ads on the forum, they're usually on the sidebar, but you can get rid of them by either paying (forum contributions) or using an adblocker.

$5 is still cheap.

 

Tbh i use the forum off my phone basically 99% of the time. Never seen an ad. And im using the chrome os that comes on the phone.

 

Not saying your lying, i believe you that theres ads. I just really didnt know lol.

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, RonnieOP said:

I dont need to know their financials.

 

They have spoken about it before as have other youtubers.

 

Your basically bitching that the free content they give you has sponsors....well your not paying for it so how do you think it gets funded?

 

What other youtuber the size of ltt with a company the size of lmg isnt using sponsors?

Sounds like you have a problem with people having opinions that differ from your own.

 

Further, you're conflating my opinion with some perceived entitlement you think I have. I don't really care, I can simply choose not to watch their content, which I often do.

 

Again, to reiterate, I dislike how they make their money, not that they make money. Maybe it's not a great decision for your content consumers to scale your employee size to the point where you need to sell out as hard as possible and transform into an infomercial producer to sustain your business. MKBHD seems to be doing just fine and looks to be making more profit with all of 4 employees, while retaining a semblance of objectivity.

[RonnieOP]

21 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Sounds like you have a problem with people having opinions that differ from your own.

 

Further, you're conflating my opinion with some perceived entitlement you think I have. I don't really care, I can simply choose not to watch their content, which I often do.

 

Again, to reiterate, I dislike how they make their money, not that they make money. Maybe it's not a great decision for your content consumers to scale your employee size to the point where you need to sell out as hard as possible and transform into an infomercial producer to sustain your business. MKBHD seems to be doing just fine and looks to be making more profit with all of 4 employees, while retaining a semblance of objectivity.

No im fine with other people having different opinions. My opinions are much different then most on here.

 

But this is also a discussion forum. Hance the discussion.

 

MKHBs content is not the same as LTT. He couldnt do the same type of content as LTT with only 4 employees. Nobody could without giving up their entire personal life. And even then you wouldnt be getting as much content.

 

And it was 100% a great decision to do it the way they did. Hence why they are as popular as they are and are able to employ as many people as they do. 

 

Does it piss of a small  small minority of viewers? Clearly.

 

Does that really matter? Not at all. 

 

The vast vast majority of successful business owners out their would trade 1 diehard for 100 casuals. 

 

Not everything im saying applies directly to you. If you dont like it, dont watch it. Thats a perfectly sane opinion. 

 

 

 

 

 

[greenmax]

3 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

The vast vast majority of successful business owners out their would trade 1 diehard for 100 casuals.

A young successful business owner that wants to retire, soon.

100 casuals, whats the Bullzoid term?

[lewdicrous]

4 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

$5 is still cheap.

 

Tbh i use the forum off my phone basically 99% of the time. Never seen an ad. And im using the chrome os that comes on the phone.

 

Not saying your lying, i believe you that theres ads. I just really didnt know lol.

Yea, they have tiers too.

 

On mobile, the ads are towards the bottom of the page, near the recent videos iirc. The ads are non intrusive on both the web version and the mobile version, they don't pop up or something, you just see a white box with "displate" written on it for example. 

[spartaman64]

if you dont like it then dont watch. i understand people not liking clickbait and i was in the same boat before refusing to watch any video thats clickbait but after i saw a lot of my favorite youtubers started going that direction i accepted that its necessary for a lot of them to grow. and you realize how entitled it makes you look if you expect them to change the way they do things and earn less money just to please you. theres lots of youtube channels that i dont like the way they do things but do i go in demanding them change their format to fit my preferences no i just dont watch them and let them do their thing for people that do watch and enjoy their content

[JoostinOnline]

I don't why you marked the "kickproof TV from China" one as clickbait. That's exactly what it was.

 

Plenty of them I absolutely get. If you want them to stop, you need to mark those videos as "not interested".

[greenmax]

5 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

I don't why you marked the "kickproof TV from China" one as clickbait. That's exactly what it was.

 

Plenty of them I absolutely get. If you want them to stop, you need to mark those videos as "not interested".

Or report them to Youtube!

[spartaman64]

2 minutes ago, greenmax said:

Or report them to Youtube!

ok good luck with that

[JoostinOnline]

10 hours ago, greenmax said:

Or report them to Youtube!

Um, no. Even if I thought that was effective, I have no desire to demonetize their channel. I just want to give feedback that will be listened to, and Linus reads the analytical data. They're a business, and act as one.

[SenKa]

There are a couple you marked with the orange circle or X that i disagree with, but overall: yeah.

 

LMG is a for profit company, they will act in the interest of profit and Linus has made it VERY clear that as much as he loves the community he will air on the side of keeping the doors open if thats what it comes down to. Which, thats what he should do.

 

Kick proof TV and Gaming web browser are passable, because theyre literally the exact phrasing i would expect somebody to search if they wanted a topic on said objects. Thats what a title should be.

 

"This Prototype PC..." is arguably passable because, as a prototype from an unknown company nobody is really going to search it by name. 

 

What irks ME more is when the title doesn't align with the actual conclusions in the video such as "Stop buying the Macbook Air" concluding with the opinion that though it still demand an unjust premium it IS the cheapest way to get in to macOS on a 'new' device and isn't a BAD device at all.

[aisle9]

On 2/15/2020 at 8:07 AM, Anomnomnomaly said:

 

Whilst I do still watch some of their videos... I use ad blockers and I consider any sponsors unworthy of my money... I also refuse to buy any merch.

 

So when they change their methods, I'll reconsider stopping them from earning a single penny from my views.

Wow.

 

Ok guys, (not so) quick primer on how capitalism works:

 

You have $1 to spend. I want your dollar, but do countless other companies that do the same thing. This being YouTube, I want you watching my videos as well, which means I want you to subscribe to me and get notified about my new videos before one from Zach's Tech Turf or whoever lands on your front page instead. That way, if you watch one video and that's it, you're seeing mine and I'm getting the view. YouTube is about viewer count and watch time, not necessarily about subs. I could start a channel today and literally buy myself a million subs if I wanted to, but if those million subs from shady sources aren't actively watching and engaging with my videos, they're just useless numbers that YouTube won't pay me for and potential sponsors won't care about.

 

So let's say I've earned my million subs the hard way, and 300,000-ish of them are actively engaged with the channel and watching new videos as they come out. The generally-accepted number for YouTube is $1,000, give or take, for a million views. If a video lands 300,000 views, that might only be $300 for a video that cost much more than that to produce, and that's before YouTube tries to demonetize me and other media companies try to step in and claim copyright infringement so they can take my ad revenue. There's actually a YouTuber who created his own music for videos, registered that music with a copyright trolling engine and hit himself with copyright claims to cut back on the amount of money that other copyright engines were stealing from him. 

 

So you need to fill that gap, and that's where sponsors come in. Big sponsors for big channels can pay well into the four-figures per video range. Let's say it cost me $2,000 to produce a video that gets 750,000 views. Ok, awesome, I've probably lost $1,250 on that video. Now let's say I have a standing deal with a big company that pays me $3,000 per video and loans/gives me the materials needed for it. The cost to make that video just went down considerably. Ever wonder why a channel as big as The King of Random stays decidedly low-tech so much of the time? They're masters of material cost, and if you listen carefully, most of the stuff they use for their videos is already owned by one of the hosts. If they do have to make a purchase more significant that a thousand Jolly Ranchers or 15 lbs. of steel wool, it's probably for a sponsored video, and they're going to milk as many videos out of that purchase as possible to get their money's worth out of it. How long have they had that freeze drying machine for? Seriously, anyone looking to make a channel like that would do well to go back and watch Grant Thompson's original videos to see how much can be done and how many views earned with so little investment in materials.

 

Back to the main point, assume that you've earned $750 per video in AdSense revenue on a video with 750,00 views, with $350 lost to ad blockers.

 

Re: ad blockers, I take no stance on these one way or the other. I use one myself, and I turn it off for sites and YouTube channels I want to support. I understand the desire to not have ads covering your screen or popping up underneath your mouse right as you're about to click, but I empathize with content creators and site owners who need ad revenue to survive and are using only banners and AdSense words to do so.

 

So, $400 on your video that cost $2k to make. And we haven't hit the possibility of a copyright claim or some form of demonetization happening. As long as we're here, let's talk about demonetization a bit. There are some pretty clear-cut, hard and fast things that will get you demonetized. Here's one that Demolition Ranch stared down a while back: guns. Any video seen as promoting the use or purchase of guns will be demonetized. If you're not familiar with DR, basically everything they do involves shooting something. They're not selling guns, they're not advocating the purchase of them, they're mostly just shooting at stuff to see if something is possible, or how big a bang they can get. Will tracer rounds ignite gasoline, that sort of thing. But when YouTube laid out the gun restrictions, well, how is a YouTube algorithm going to look at videos that are 50% talking about guns and 50% shooting them and not flag the video for demonetization? That could have ended the channel very easily, because there are plenty of companies out there squeamish about being associated with guns at all, and being demonetized by YouTube for "promoting guns" would be a nail in the coffin for those sponsor deals. Demonetization is one of the key reasons that smaller and smaller channels are getting sponsor deals. In a niche that's tightly crowded and low in total audience size like tech used to be, sponsorships and product samples as low as 20-25k aren't unheard of. Anyone else remember when Science Studio was getting mechanical keyboards, cases and off-brand RAM kits sent to him at 50,000 subs?

 

So, you've lost $350 to ad blockers and, hopefully, avoided demonetization or any copyright claims within the first few days of your video's release when all the big money rolls in. You're at a net of $400 on your $2,000 video, but thanks to a sponsor who's given you $3,000 to feature their products in a 15-minute video, you're now in the black by $1,400. Congratulations, you're making money! But you're a big channel now, and you've got sponsors willing to pay you more, way more, if you can get to 1M views per video. How do you get there?

 

Drive traffic to your videos, duh. And how do you do that? Look, you can have the best content in the world, but if your video is titled, "Prototype PC fits i9-9900K and RTX 2080 Super into toaster-sized chassis," with a dull, neutral colored thumbnail, no one's going to click that. Side note: I don't remember the exact specs of the PC--and that's the point. I didn't click on that video for a spec list. I clicked on it because it's a prototype PC that, based on the thumbnail, performs above its physical weight class, and I noticed the thumbnail because it's brightly colored and contrasted in a sea of, well, not brightly colored thumbnails. Look, any YouTube 101 video or course you find from the last 5 years is going to tell you that your title will make or break your view count more than anything else.

 

Congratulations, just by changing the way you write titles and the way you do your thumbnails, you've now hit 1M per video. Do all of your long-term subs like it? No. Will you lose some? Yes. But not enough to counter the influx of views and new subs you have now, and honestly, the overwhelming majority of your subs don't care. So why do you hear about it from some that do?

 

Because you chose to do what any good business owner with a recognizable brand would and monetize it. You've got a forum now that, while not a huge moneymaker, probably sustains itself. You've got merchandise that costs very little to produce and is aimed squarely at your target market. You've got a Patreon set up that supplements video and sponsor income, and if only 1,500 subscribers sign up for Patreon at a pledge level of $1.00 per month, that's still $1,500 per month and $18,000 per year (pre-fees) that your brand wouldn't otherwise be getting, and that's going to further defray costs on your videos. I, as the hypothetical business owner, have given myself the best possible chance to get your dollar, but there's one thing I have to do to keep myself in position for your next dollar, and all the other dollars that come with it, to keep the channel's lights on:

 

People have to keep watching my videos. If they don't, sponsors will leave, I'll be forced to cut way back on the scale and type of content I make, my Patreon flow will dry up, and all the ancillary revenue that comes from forum ads, merchandise sales, subscription fees for alternative viewing sources will disappear. I'll have smaller sponsors coming in with lower offers, and a harder time getting the things I need to keep per-video costs down. You can milk hours and hours out of a GPU, but good luck getting more than one video out of an off-brand mechanical keyboard.

 

What's one way to ensure that views will always come in? A catchy title and a flashy thumbnail. So, "ASUS shows strong performance gains at CEX", becomes, "WHOA! ASUS blew our socks off!", and instead of the backdrop for the thumbnail being the trade show floor, that's going to be replaced with a bright, eye-popping background that you'll notice. Why? Because if you don't notice or click on it, I need someone new to replace your click, and boring titles with boring thumbnails ain't gonna make that happen in 2020.

 

Welcome to capitalism. Also, if you survived reading all of that and it made sense to you, can anyone really blame Linus for suffering burnout?

[Tristerin]

What I noticed - it was bad.  I didn't watch their videos.  It was promised to be made better - and the titles were correct for....1 month.  Then they want back to the same shenanigans.  So, Ive only watched a couple videos since.

 

Next step for me is to unsubscribe to their YouTube channel, and not watch a single video and wash my hands of it.

[Blademaster91]

19 hours ago, lewdicrous said:

Their main sources of revenue are either YouTube, sponsors or both, afaik, and one influences the other; the more reach you have, the more companies are willing to pay. 

Afaik, they're operating the forum at a loss, the amount of money they get from ads and contributions is less than what they pay to keep it running. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong tho.

I understand LTT wants to grow, although asking for video titles that are more honest and maybe make the thumbnails more related to the video, I'm not sure it would hurt them much at all, would it help? Like i've seen complaints before of not being able to find a video because the title had little to do with what the video was about.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong though, and I've heard Luke mention before the forum makes "nothing at all" but I've wondered if that was any exaggeration, I just assumed the ads or google search results at least had them break even on running the forum. An ad at the right of the page or at the bottom is hardly anything though compared to some tech sites.

19 hours ago, RonnieOP said:

Where are you seeing ads on the forum? Also it costs money to run this forum. Are you paying to use the forum? Thats another expense they have.

 

How are you forced to sit through sponsor ads? On the pc its one click to skip them and on a phone or tablet you just have to double tap to skip ahead. If you are "forced" into watching those its not LTTs fault its your own for not knowing how to use the youtube app.

-snip-

I'm saying it doesn't matter if a few people use adblock doesn't really matter because most people are going to sit through the ads, I only watch the vids that are interesting to me and otherwise avoid the clickbait. I know how to use the app, though multiple ads throughout a video, on top of the built in ads and the pushing merch gets annoying, and if the video is an ad or "showcase" for some product then that video is already paid for by the sponsor. Having unique titles and thumbnails is fine,but when it's the point where people can't tell a video is an ad, or the title has little to do with the subject of the video is just bad and there isn't any excuse to that.