YouTube takes a step backward with paid channels

Since Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, the company’s stock has steadily increased. YouTube’s content is improving and expanding, and people usually don’t mind watching 30-second advertisements for each video — or at least as long as they need to watch before hitting the skip button. The company’s revenue is growing, and so is the number of monthly users. 

But YouTube is still not satisfied. The company now allows certain channels to charge their subscribers $0.99 or more per month, money the channels must split with YouTube.

Is YouTube that desperate for money, or is it just greedy? The company should expect a steady decrease in audiences if big-name channels decide to make the switch from ad revenue to monthly paid subscriptions. This new feature could potentially be a major problem not only for YouTube, but for people who rely on the website to stream videos.

YouTube hasn’t released much information on the topic, but this paid-channel initiative has been in effect since May 2013. Since then, dozens of new paid channels have emerged, from “Sesame Street” to “National Geographic Kids,” which both charge $3.99 a month for people to subscribe to them.

Some may argue that the new paid-subscription option can bring in more content that would otherwise not have been on YouTube, which is a plus. However, this is hardly beneficial to the channel’s revenue since most users are unwilling to throw away their hard-earned change for a few videos a month. 

In fact, for the entire month of October, all paid content on both the Sesame Street and National Geographic Kids channel has received under 50 views per video. Considering these are popular brands, earning a few extra bucks a month through their small number of viewers on YouTube is nothing.

YouTube recently decided to release a statement on its blog saying that any channel with a YouTube partnership and over 10,000 subscribers is now eligible to begin charging for its content. Basically, any channel with a decently sized audience can charge its subscribers and in return drastically reduce its audience size.

After all, more paid content may generate fewer monthly users, and fewer monthly users can create a large decrease in revenue and possibly content as well. 

YouTube is reaching a point of no return. In the near future, more popular channels will shamelessly demand money from viewers. Then, as other channels notice this trend of selling-out, they dive into this “opportunity” believing they have struck it rich. 

However, give it time. People will ultimately just stop watching videos on YouTube and move on with their lives — maybe they’ll just stick to TV. YouTube will be long forgotten as well as the paid channels it once held, all because of this dumb attempt to earn more money.