On the surface, channel memberships are a pretty good idea. Viewers toss a bit
of coffee money to their favorite creators, and YouTube doesn't have to
just sit on the sidelines, while platforms like Patreon and Flowplane
reap all the rewards from early access or exclusive content. And for a while,
it was working pretty well for both us and for our community, generating
positive feedback from our channel members and helping to support our team.
So then what changed to cause the recent outpouring of negative feedback around
YouTube memberships? Well, I hate to throw blame at YouTube or especially the
algorithm, but basically it's YouTube
and the algorithm. Let's talk about it and the changes we're making on our
channels because of it after a quick message from our sponsor MSI. Their
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gaming beast. Check it out today using our link in the description. When they
were first introduced a little over 6 years ago, paywalled videos, let's just
call them what they are, could be accessed by clicking the join button
next to the subscribe button on your favorite channels. They lived in a
dedicated tab on the channel page and the promotion of these videos. Both the
aggressiveness and the frequency was largely left up to the individual
creators. Some directed viewers through their own website, others created
playlists, while others created a carousel of membersonly content on the
channel page. We had our own video platform already, Floatplane, that
contains the same behindthe-scenes and early access content that we have on
YouTube memberships. So, we usually focus on promoting that with little
callouts in our videos. So, we took a pretty light, hey, just kind of putting
this button here approach when it came to promoting YouTube memberships. It
didn't make a lot of money that way, but with some fine-tuning to the pricing, we
also weren't losing money after YouTube's cut. And we were just happy to
be able to offer that as an option for anyone who wasn't comfortable or just
didn't like the inconvenience of navigating offplatform to Flowplane. But
then came a major shift. The membership tab, well, that's still there, but the
membersonly videos are no longer confined to it. And I got to say, I'm
with Coor Upload here. In fact, I don't even think messy is a strong enough word
to describe the unnavigability of YouTube when a whole bunch of the
thumbnails that I'm looking at are for videos I can't freaking watch. And as
bad as the channel video list page is, that's nothing compared to the way that
YouTube has cluttered up recommendations, the homepage, and even
freaking search. Like seriously, off script for a moment here, how bad is
YouTube search these days? And the worst part is for every few
bucks that we've made on this extra promotion and spam, we've received a
barrage of complaints from our viewers talking about everything from the gross
FOMO sales strategy of having this tiny green membersonly indicator that then
turns into a giant sales pitch the second they click on it to talking about
how honestly it's like killing their interest in our channel. I mean, to say
that this hasn't been worth it for us would be a gross understatement. So, let
me make this clear. This is not a change that we would have enabled if we were
given the choice. Nor would we have signed up for the channel memberships
program in the first place if we'd known that this was coming. And the most
frustrating part of all of this for me is how utterly lacking in self-awareness
YouTube seems to be here. Look at all this money you could make by enabling
memberships on your channel. Sorry. $8 a
month to harass and spam ads at people who are by definition the ones who are
likely to be my most dedicated audience members. Are you kidding me right now? I
mean, it would be one thing if there were mechanisms like there are for ads,
subject matter, or even for creators to opt out of these promotions as a viewer
or if there were exemptions for people who are already paying for YouTube
through premium. But at this time, no such mechanisms exist. And I've seen no
indication from YouTube that they plan to enable creators to go back to
controlling the promotion of these membersonly videos. The only assumption
I can make then is that membersonly videos haven't impacted overall platform
viewership enough to make them care andor that YouTube has found the upside
of the additional revenue, they take 30% of course, is worth the friction with
their users and creators. Oh yeah, did did I mention I'm not the only creator
who's pissed off about this? The one and only DankPods wrote up this lengthy post
on his Garbage Time channel just a couple of weeks ago outlining a number
of complaints about the program that happened to mirror our own. So then what
are we going to do about it? Effective.
I'm not wearing a watch, but you get the point. Now we're going to begin the
process of turning off membersonly videos on our YouTube channels. That
means all of our payw wall videos will be either hidden or removed from the
channel, and anyone who is enrolled in the support tiers that entitled them to
those videos will be refunded a prrated amount for any time that was already
paid according to YouTube's policies. As for the folks who joined the channel in
the lower support tier for smaller perks like user badges and all that kind of
thing, they'll be unaffected. That is, at least as long as that stuff doesn't
start cluttering up our channels and our feeds. I mean, it's not that we hate the
overall idea or that we don't love the support of our community. Like, if there
are any YouTube members out there who liked the content and want it to
continue, we would welcome you over at LMG.gg/flatplane.
We just can't do it on YouTube until they make some changes. Speaking of,
what is YouTube going to do about this problem? Well, I think that depends on
you. I've obviously had my conversations with them about this, but most of it was
off the record. So, I can't really say any more than what I heard was not
enough to convince me to keep this feature enabled, at least not for now.
And I think realistically it's going to take sustained pressure from both
creators and viewers if you want to see them change course on this. But just so
I don't get your hopes up, I don't think that pressure is going to come. Since
the change, we have seen a measurable uptick in member subscriptions, even as
our overall channel viewership has fallen during that time. So clearly,
there's a lot of money in keeping things the way that they are. And in fairness,
for some smaller creators, this difference could be life-changing, and I
could see why they would want to keep it as is. There's also a lot of money in
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enjoyed this video, I don't know, maybe the last time we gave YouTube a hard time. What was that? Not moderating
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