I'm taking this into my own hands...

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, poochyena said:

He just accepts that the dislike counter is gone. Why? He has the power the unionize and force youtube to bring back the dislike counter. He has the power to organize a protest against it. 

 

Yeah, no, he doesn't. This is only slightly less absurd than the guy who wanted Linus to "use his influence" to make GPU shortages go away somehow. 

[Breadboi767]

6 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Why should he care though?

 

Why do you?

cause one:: he's channel and I'm not a moderator and other people already use this program that clearly does a better job then his moderators

 

and two: why bother mentioning the spammers on the video when he doesn't do anything about it either

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Breadboi767 said:

then his moderators

 

What moderators? 

 

Do you think he pays people to read through thousands of YouTube comments and report spammers? 

[poochyena]

8 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Yeah, no, he doesn't. This is only slightly less absurd than the guy who wanted Linus to "use his influence" to make GPU shortages go away somehow. 

The GPU shortage is caused by a lack of manufacturing facilities and a increase demand for GPUs. The solution is to build more manufacturing sites to create more GPUs. This is already being done and not something Linus can have influence over.
Ok, your turn. Explain why a youtube content creator union or large scale site wide protest would be ineffective at solving this issue.

[Breadboi767]

1 minute ago, Middcore said:

 

What moderators? 

 

Do you think he pays people to read through thousands of YouTube comments and report spammers? 

bruh it took me less then a minute to find them, I thought he knew automation software 

[IAmAndre]

The annoying part is that YouTube already had a feature allowing content creators to disable comments and like counters. What's the point of imposing this to everyone?

[Middcore]

Just now, poochyena said:

Ok, your turn. Explain why a youtube content creator union or large scale site wide protest would be ineffective at solving this issue.

 

1. YouTube has all the power, because there is no alternative platform for full-time creators to earn a living on. Linus may have enough money to "retire" if he wants, the same can't be said for most of the creators who would have to join this strike. 

 

2. Strikes only work if there is no source of replacement labor. The supply of people with dreams of being full-time YouTubers waiting to take the place of people like Linus is unlimited. This is the same reason why unionization in the games industry hasn't gained a lot of traction: too many naïve young people whose dream job is "tightening up the graphics on level 3." 

 

2. YouTube would sacrifice all of the independent creators in a heartbeat, even ones with subscriber counts in the millions like Linus, if the choice is between appeasing them and appeasing the corps this change was made for. 

[IAmAndre]

7 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Ok, your turn. Explain why a youtube content creator union or large scale site wide protest would be ineffective at solving this issue.

That's just ridiculous. How would it work? They all stop posting videos, lose their sponsors, and stop paying their employees?

[poochyena]

27 minutes ago, Middcore said:

1. YouTube has all the power

They do NOW. If content creators would actually unionize, then they wouldn't have all the power.

27 minutes ago, Middcore said:

because there is no alternative platform for full-time creators to earn a living on.

I would be shocked to hear if even a single youtube creator with over 5m subscribers said that most of their income came from youtube itself. Linus and all the other make their money from merch, sponsors, and paid subscriptions (Their own site (floatplane for ltt), patreon, onlyfans, or etc.)

27 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Linus may have enough money to "retire" if he wants, the same can't be said for most of the creators who would have to join this strike. 

Striking and unionizing is the opposite of retiring.

27 minutes ago, Middcore said:

2. Strikes only work if there is no source of replacement labor.

Strikes only work if there is no source of replacement labor of the same quality.
The part you left off is extremely important. People come to youtube for people like Linus.
Let me explain it this way. Microsoft paid Ninja around $30 million to join mixer. That one person was worth tens of millions of dollars to the platform. Now imagine how much dozens or hundreds of youtubers of similar popularity is worth to youtube. Content creators aren't interchangeable. You can't just replace a youtube celebrity with some nobody with 10 subscribers.

27 minutes ago, Middcore said:

2. YouTube would sacrifice all of the independent creators in a heartbeat, even ones with subscriber counts in the millions like Linus, if the choice is between appeasing them and appeasing the corps this change was made for. 

Corps want money. Youtube stars are worth a lot of money.

25 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

That's just ridiculous. How would it work? They all stop posting videos, lose their sponsors, and stop paying their employees?

Only 26% of their revenue comes from youtube directly (source.) They could organize a strike by turning off adsense, significantly reducing youtube's revenue, and take more extreme steps as time goes on such as hiding their channels for a limited time (day or two) and post their videos on alternative sites like floatplane.

Their income would be reduced, not eliminated, and the odds of it actually going that far would be unlikely as merely the threat of reducing youtube's revenue significantly would make them fold. But they only have that power if they unionize.

[Luscious]

Disingenuous much Linus???

 

Yeah, that Acronis sponsored piece was pathetic to sit through, but I distinctly remember posting here about my dislikes, even getting into an argument with some other douche bag (sorry I forget the guy) about that thing called "full disclosure", yet you decided to pull that entire comment thread from the LTT official section.

 

If you care SO MUCH about your viewers and your work you shouldn't be crying foul at YouTube when your own forum has issues with maintaining transparency. YT comments are a convoluted mess. So one of the reasons why I comment here as opposed to commenting directly under the video on YT is precisely because I can interact with a group of more intelligent people who are tech focused, offer help and are happy to share opinion. That kind of thing SHOULD matter. Take that away and you might as well give every LTT forum member the finger. The original air date for that video was also prior to 12/24 meaning it was pulled and reuploaded at some point as well - the original thread here is either buried or gone along with the multiple notifications I had that seem to conveniently disappear as well.

 

So no, at the end of the day I'm not convinced that you are NOT in this for the money and hype, or rather, you will do whatever it takes to get your greedy little hands on that sponsor money getting thrown at you, push out a lousy video that sucks meets the minimum requirements to get that money, reupload the poorly performing video later to remove any history of the original and then unashamedly sing along with the tune "I am being harmed" LOL You are no less guilty than the ones you are pointing your finger at.

 

You want to die like a YTer go ahead - plenty of other tech channels will pick up and carry on working to give us the news we need... WITHOUT the injected BS drama or your celebrity complex.

[Middcore]

19 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Linus and all the other make their money from merch, sponsors, and paid subscriptions

 

Which will all evaporate the moment they stop making YouTube content. 

 

Quote

Striking and unionizing is the opposite of retiring.

 

The point is Linus could stop doing this "job," whether as a protest or just because he doesn't feel like doing it anymore, because he doesn't need to keep making money from it to live. That isn't the case for all creators. 

 

19 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Strikes only work if there is no source of replacement labor of the same quality.
The part you left off is extremely important. People come to youtube for people like Linus.
Let me explain it this way. Microsoft paid Ninja around $30 million to join mixer. That one person was worth tens of millions of dollars to the platform.

Remind me what happened to Mixer? It's hilarious you use this as an example because it actually goes to show that having or losing particular creators, no matter how popular, doesn't matter. Microsoft paid Ninja a truckload of money, Mixer still completely failed to gain traction, and Twitch didn't suffer at all. 

 

Most of Linus's viewers wouldn't stop using YouTube if he quit. They'd just find some other videos to watch to fill their time. Do I need to post the infamous screenshot of the Modern Warfare 2 boycott group on Steam here? Look up lists of some of YouTube's biggest stars from 10 or even 5 years ago. All creators are replaceable for YouTube, but YouTube isn't replaceable for the creators. 

 

Quote

Corps want money. Youtube stars are worth a lot of money.

 

Not a lot by the standards you have if you're a Sony or a ViacomCBS or an AT&T, and the money they are worth isn't making more money for the corps. 

 

[Blademaster91]

59 minutes ago, poochyena said:

The GPU shortage is caused by a lack of manufacturing facilities and a increase demand for GPUs. The solution is to build more manufacturing sites to create more GPUs. This is already being done and not something Linus can have influence over.

The shortage is mostly because of scalpers and mining, and not something more manufacturing sites can solve any time soon as those take years to build and start manufacturing chips. If tech youtubers got together and got card from sponsors to raffle them off or have a queue on cards at MSRP i'm sure they could have some influence on companies selling GPU's at stupidly high prices.

59 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Ok, your turn. Explain why a youtube content creator union or large scale site wide protest would be ineffective at solving this issue.

What would a content creator do to protest besides stop making content? Most content creators can't just stop if it is their main job, perhaps Linus could move completely over to floatplane but most people don't have any other option besides youtube.

15 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Which will all evaporate the moment they stop making YouTube content. 

Isn't that what floatplane is for? The sponsors and merch wouldn't go away, and i'm sure LTT has plenty of revenue from selling shirts and water bottles.

[EphraimK]

The sponsor link at the bottom of the returnyoutubedislike.com site that reads "Peter33" links to a trailer for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie!

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

Isn't that what floatplane is for? The sponsors and merch wouldn't go away, and i'm sure LTT has plenty of revenue from selling shirts and water bottles.

 

Linus himself admits Floatplane hasn't really gone anywhere.

 

The sponsors would absolutely go away. The sponsors pay to have Linus talk about their product in the videos he's regularly pumping out to millions of subscribers. Why would they keep paying him if he's not making videos?

 

Merch sales would dry up fast. I don't doubt he could get a little surge in sales at first with a "Help us stick it to YouTube and help me pay my staff" pitch, but after that? How many people are going to buy a shirt or a water bottle from a guy who used to be on YouTube? 

[poochyena]

7 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Which will all evaporate the moment they stop making YouTube content. 

Can you give any examples of this ever happening in history? I've never heard of youtube creators losing everything after they temporarily stop making videos.

11 minutes ago, Middcore said:

The point is Linus could stop doing this "job," whether as a protest or just because he doesn't feel like doing it anymore, because he doesn't need to keep making money from it to live. That isn't the case for all creators. 

Yea? Thats uhh, kinda the entire reason why a union is so important?? Maybe thats why he doesn't unionize, he couldn't care less about other creators. Youtube makes terrible decisions but doesn't really bother him, he's already at the top. The entire point of a union to to protect people who would be vulnerable to losing it all at the snap of their employer's fingers otherwise.

15 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Remind me what happened to Mixer? It's hilarious you use this as an example because it actually goes to show that having or losing particular creators, no matter how popular, doesn't matter. Microsoft paid Ninja a truckload of money, Mixer still completely failed to gain traction, and Twitch didn't suffer at all. 

...except that is completely wrong as after Mixer shut down, Ninja signed a contract with twitch. he announced a multi-year exclusivity deal with Twitch that will keep him exclusive to Amazon's wildly popular service. I can not comprehend how you think a company, whose whole purpose is to make money, would not care if one of their money making streams, a popular content creator, were to just stop creating content on their platform. These platforms care about popular content creators, its why they get them to sign exclusivity contracts.

 

20 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Most of Linus's viewers wouldn't stop using YouTube if he quit.

Thats why I'm suggesting he unionize. I would absolutely stop using youtube if all my favorite creators quit. Just look at Tumblr after they banned porn. They lost 1/3rd of their userbase since content creators moved to other platforms, and their followers, well, followed.

8 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

The shortage is mostly because of scalpers and mining, and not something more manufacturing sites can solve any time soon as those take years to build and start manufacturing chips.

Thats a weird sentence. You agree it can be solved with more manufacturing, right? You say it yourself. It just won't happen soon, takes years, but that is the solution.

10 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

If tech youtubers got together and got card from sponsors to raffle them off or have a queue on cards at MSRP i'm sure they could have some influence on companies selling GPU's at stupidly high prices.

I don't fully understand how that would have any effect on the supply, exactly. Selling cards at a low fixed rate hurts supply. If GPU companies would just raise their prices, then scalping wouldn't exist and it would be easier for people who need the cards most to get them.

6 minutes ago, Middcore said:

The sponsors would absolutely go away. The sponsors pay to have Linus talk about their product in the videos he's regularly pumping out to millions of subscribers. Why would they keep paying him if he's not making videos?

Its already been explained once that there are more ways to strike than to simply stop uploading videos to youtube. And as mentioned, there are other platforms to upload to like twitter. Also, sponsors pay for social media shoutouts too.

7 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Merch sales would dry up fast.

What are you possibly basing this off of? You think anyone who is willing to buy LTT merch would suddenly refuse to if they stopped applying adsense to their videos or stopped making videos for a day or two?

9 minutes ago, Middcore said:

How many people are going to buy a shirt or a water bottle from a guy who used to be on YouTube? 

He would still be one??????
We are talking about striking and unionizing, not retiring.

[dogwitch]

this reminds me of a video. where said channel was claiming 4k high texture in the game.... single player offline.... here the kicker... you need to be online and had to stream the texture to you.

there no way you could do it with dlss ,streaming textures offline...

i both dis like and called it out in the comment section.

video got pulled by person to...

 

[Middcore]

39 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Can you give any examples of this ever happening in history? I've never heard of youtube creators losing everything after they temporarily stop making videos.

"temporarily"

 

You could ask basically any moderately successful YouTuber what the algorithm does to them after even a brief pause in posting new content regularly. Besides that, how long is "temporarily"? YouTube has Google/Alphabet's money behind them. They can wait this thing out indefinitely. And they will never, ever give in because if they did they would have to start giving in to creators on a whole range of other stuff, and they are perfectly satisfied with creators as replaceable grist for the mill. 

 

39 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Yea? Thats uhh, kinda the entire reason why a union is so important?? Maybe thats why he doesn't unionize, he couldn't care less about other creators. Youtube makes terrible decisions but doesn't really bother him, he's already at the top. The entire point of a union to to protect people who would be vulnerable to losing it all at the snap of their employer's fingers otherwise.

This is beside the point. The point is Linus can afford to stop doing videos, or do other things that lessen his revenue stream, temporarily or even permanently, for the sake of making a point. Most creators can't. A strike simply isn't feasible for them. 

 

39 minutes ago, poochyena said:

...except that is completely wrong as after Mixer shut down, Ninja signed a contract with twitch. he announced a multi-year exclusivity deal with Twitch that will keep him exclusive to Amazon's wildly popular service. I can not comprehend how you think a company, whose whole purpose is to make money, would not care if one of their money making streams, a popular content creator, were to just stop creating content on their platform. These platforms care about popular content creators, its why they get them to sign exclusivity contracts.

Twitch wasn't hurt at all by losing Ninja, and having Ninja didn't do anything to save Twitch's competitor from failure. Individual creators, no matter how popular, don't matter. They can be replaced. And YouTube doesn't even have any competitors as significant as Mixer or whatever Facebook's game streaming thing is called were to Twitch. 

 

39 minutes ago, poochyena said:

And as mentioned, there are other platforms to upload to like twitter.

Ah yes, the noted video site Twitter. 

 

Come on man, even saying DailyMotion or something would have been more plausible than this. 

 

39 minutes ago, poochyena said:

What are you possibly basing this off of? You think anyone who is willing to buy LTT merch would suddenly refuse to if they stopped applying adsense to their videos or stopped making videos for a day or two?

He would still be one??????
We are talking about striking and unionizing, not retiring.

All of this "temporarily," "day or two" stuff assumes YouTube would quickly capitulate. They wouldn't. Ever. 

[Rex Hite]

I think there's a more fundamental issue.

If I am going to help a business, beyond simple purchase or consumption of their product, then I want to be paid by that business.  It's basically e-begging. "Help me run my business better!" Well, if that help is valuable, then pay for it. If value is going to be placed on my 'click", then I want my cut.

Like/dislike, ratings, feedback, etc are basically getting consultations and focus group type data, for free. It's not a benign relationship; it is literally demeaning.

This is beyond the scope of the video but when claims of "it's my business and I have to pay my employees" is brought up then it's fair to consider the bigger picture.

I suggest that "clicks" in any context not be given any value and that businesses do their best to satisfy their employees, suppliers and customers as best they can without inventing and then administrating a convoluted relationship with their customers.

One of the claims that YouTube is making is that there is significant toxicity, manipulation and deceit inherent in the like/dislike model and that this needs to be somehow managed. Maybe Instead of finding ways to manage the toxicity, manipulation and deceit it would be preferable to declare consumer rating systems defunct and valueless. Then it is no longer a concern.

 

Unless you're in the business of pandering to whims.Then I can see it.

 

 

 

 

 

[themrsbusta]

It's all Brandon's fault.

[Ein0r]

And all of this could have been prevented if they didnt remove the dislike count.

[poochyena]

15 minutes ago, Middcore said:

you could ask basically any moderately successful YouTuber what the algorithm does to them after even a brief pause in posting new content regularly.

I'm subscribed to 80 people on youtube. Linus is the only one that uploads every day. I can name dozens of successful youtubers who do not upload regularly (as in, daily or weekly uploads). Boston Dynamics, Captain Disillusion, CGP Grey, I Hate Everything, JCS - Criminal Psychology, LEMMiNO, Mark Rober (more popular than linus), Veritasium, Wendover Productions, and thats just the people i'm subscribed to. They all have millions of subscribers with millions of views on all their latest videos, yet they only upload once every few weeks or months.

23 minutes ago, Middcore said:

They can wait this thing out indefinitely.

Why would they? They removed dislikes because it makes them more money. There is 0 reason to believe they wouldn't immediately add it back if they lost more money from having it removed. They will choose the option that makes them more money. Always.

25 minutes ago, Middcore said:

This is beside the point. The point is Linus can afford to stop doing videos, or do other things that lessen his revenue stream, temporarily or even permanently, for the sake of making a point. Most creators can't. A strike simply isn't feasible for them. 

You understand they would stop releasing videos onto youtube, right? They wouldn't stop making videos. they would upload them after the strike is over or just on another platform. Or, for the 3rd time, they would remove adsense and keep their own sponsorships in the video as thats where the vast majority of their income comes from. Unionizing would strengthen their revenue streams and make their revenue more steady.

28 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Twitch wasn't hurt at all by losing Ninja, and having Ninja didn't do anything to save Twitch's competitor from failure. Individual creators, no matter how popular, don't matter. They can be replaced. And YouTube doesn't even have any competitors as significant as Mixer or whatever Facebook's game streaming thing is called were to Twitch. 

Why did microsoft pay Ninja millions to stream exclusively on mixer? Why did Amazon pay him to stream exclusively on twitch?
but yes, you are partly right, individuals don't matter much, thats literally the entire point of unionizing. Youtube has dozens of competitiors. Twitch, twitter, tiktok, facebook, instagram, floatplane, nebula, and more I can't think of off the top of my head. Have you seriously not noticed how youtube has been pushing extremely hard for creators to make "shorts" videos? Look at the side of this page, a "shorts" video is being promoted that ltt made. Look at other channels, look at youtube front page on mobile, short videos are being pushed hard by youtube onto creators and viewers. Do you know why? Can you think of any big video platform that could possibly be in response to? Youtube sees tiktok as a competitor and its obvious to anyone paying attention. The suits at youtube would be screaming at their underlings if a sizable chunk of youtube celebrities threatened to start taking a bulk of their content over to tiktok.

37 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Ah yes, the noted video site Twitter.

Come on man, even saying DailyMotion or something would have been more plausible than this. 

?
I don't get what you mean by this. Twitter is a video website. Even ltt uploads shortened videos there https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/1476251699371077633

40 minutes ago, Middcore said:

All of this "temporarily," "day or two" stuff assumes YouTube would quickly capitulate. They wouldn't. Ever. 

Why do you think hiding the dislikes is more important to youtube than profits?

[Vishera]

It was me who said that the woke mob were running the show

I still stand by it,Linus said that they are removing it just because others do,isn't that woke?

But i think that the reason is different - They find the dislike button offensive.

Anyway you look at it - it's woke.

[Ginger Penguin]

I know this is a bit of a side step but on YouTube Vanced, I do use it although I never used to. YouTube has been ramping the number of ads up for a while and it got to the point a few months ago where they were at 3 ads, each 17sec long and none skippable. I get the need for them but if you're making me sit and wait for nearly a minute before I can even start watching something, that's pretty annoying.

 

For a creator I know well like the LTT channels for instance (though I do have Floatplane but for other channels), I don't mind because I can be reasonably sure that I'm going to enjoy the video once it starts. But if it's something I'm just checking out that got recommended to me, chances are I'm not going to think it's worth it. On my desktop or my laptop, sure, because I can easily multitask and go and do something else for a minute while the video's loading but I can't on my phone for obvious reasons.

[Uttamattamakin]

5 hours ago, yoyoyonono said:

Not nessecarily. Different communites will engage with videos differently, and unless you really want to spend all that time relearning what ratio constitues a good/bad video for every context then it's not very useful.

lol @ asia

removing the count wouldn't and hasn't changed any of that. Dislikers are going to dislike, whether the count is there or not; and as Ein0r said, it could increase dislikes as people might think that there is no effect, probably worsening things for the very people this change was "made" to "protect" (scare quotes, not actually quoting).

The big English markets in Asia are in India and Pakistan and while it can seem like they all know English they don't.  The elites and those who migrate here do.  As for the rest of Asia, likewise very few know English.  The biggest market in Asia, the People Republic of China, Youtube is utterly banned.  

Here are some hard numbers which mostly align with my hypothesis.  As you will see the USA has almost double the views of anywhere else, and English is used 3x more than the next biggest language Hindi/urdu.  https://alanspicer.com/top-languages-on-youtube/  

 

All places that are either part of the anglosphere at in the case of India influenced by the UK from way back.  Hence a certain kind of person, speaking a certain language, gets one kind of treatment.  Everyone else runs a real risk of great hostility that has no correlation at all with their content. 

 

The quality of the video not having a cause effect relationship with the dislikes means that the dislikes are useless for a great many people.  

5 hours ago, Quackers101 said:

race/religion and other cultures. yes that is a problem online on any platform.

"This happens to any minority person who speaks on any controversial issue at all", with what the US have done, there can either be good reasons for it or not.

As both google/youtube and bigger corporations that want to use these groups and make american problems into global problems and way more. but that can be a rabbit hole to go into.

 

but I can totally see people disliking videos by being in the minority, like for instance not talking english on a very english platform used by a good portion of people? like an tutorial you want to look up, but it's not in english and getting down voted (maybe mostly so if it had an english title?). but then again some stuff would maybe be region locked or rather filtered by region.

Think about this.  How does Der8auer not have a million subs? 
 

A German fellow who speaks only German in many of his videos.  I wonder what kind of non sense comments he gets.   How many have disliked his "unhelpful" video because it is in German?  I'll bet that has been more of a thing than anyone thinks.  

Now layer being trans on top of being German.  Not even bringing "race" into it yet. 

 

2.3 MILLION views less than 46k likes.   Does this deserve to have been "ratioed"?  If even 10% bothered to interact with the like VS dislike button that video should have 230 k like + dislike.  That would imply quite a few dislikes.   All for a reason that bears no relationship to actual video quality. 

[Quackers101]

7 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Think about this.  How does Der8auer not have a million subs? 

not sure, but if I'm not mistaken, he made a own english channel?

7 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Now layer being trans on top of being German.  Not even bringing "race" into it yet.

can't say, wouldn't know. as for songs would think people wouldn't care or maybe it's more regional to the countries that have heard the song.

Not sure if your wording here was related to how I worded my words, or if that has somehow been a very hot topic there or something like that.