Thread by @McJuggerNuggets

As of January 1st, 2020, I will no longer be making content for Youtube.

This has not been an easy decision to make and one that I've struggled with for the last couple years.

To put it frankly, I can no longer support a platform that doesn't have my best interest at heart.

Instead, I will be releasing all content on StoryFire (@storyfireapp).

Allow me to explain in a Twitter thread that will hopefully enlighten you as to why I'm making this decision.

And also note, that I will always be eternally grateful for the opportunity Youtube has given me.

I'm going to be presenting financial insights from my Youtube channel as well as analytics from StoryFire.

By no means am I complaining about the dollar amounts in general, but comparatively given the amount of value I'm bringing to the platform.

This is more for creators.

At the start of 2017, I had over 500 videos demonetized on the platform. Revenue dropped over 90%.

I've seen complete episodes from my series removed from Youtube without warning.

Communication from Youtube has been non-existent.

Sad that the only somewhat promising way to get in touch with Youtube support is on a completely different platform...(Twitter via Team Youtube) Usually a cookie-cutter response.

It's almost impossible to actually connect with fans on Youtube. That too, best done off-platform.

Here's earnings on a single video from two days ago.

$233 for 150,000 views. This had 4 mid-roll ads, was a 30 min video and commanded a large amount of watch time. How the fuck does this seem fair? I spent that on the video itself. Trains to NYC, food, etc. It took 24 hours.

In other words, with traveling, food, setup, filming, editing, etc...And taking 24 hours....

I could've worked at McDonald's for $10 an hour and made more than commanding the attention of over 150,000 people. Truly think about that number.

Citizens Bank Park in Philly holds 43,000 people at capacity. This is 3x that. The revenue disparity for commanding comparable levels of attention is astounding.

Understanding viewers are watching for free, but that ad rev is abysmal compared to what I know Google is taking in.

Let's scale that a little further...Here was one of my best months during the Psycho Series. 83,000,000 views in 30 days, which netted LESS THAN $1.00 per thousand views.

Would LOVE to see another Youtuber with similar viewership share their analytics for a month! TAG THEM!

Those videos were over 30 mins in length, with most having over 4 mid-roll ads. There's no reason for that low ad rev (yes, it's a fuckton of money) COMPARED to that amount of watch time/views.

Now if you don't believe me, let me show you some StoryFire analytics.

Below are StoryFire earnings and CPM's. Notice that it is 9x - 10x that of Youtube's and we are STILL a relatively new company. So why is Google (with billions in revenue) stifling cpm.

Also note that these are for impressions, not views. So the views would technically be less.

So taking the video I sampled earlier that received 150k views and made $230. My 3x shorter video on StoryFire made $400 off of only 30k views.

So that's almost TWICE the revenue with a shorter video that only got 1/5th of the views. Not to mention I had creative freedom.

My biggest problem with Youtube is as a STORYTELLER, I cannot create what I want to create and be compensated fairly for it.

Here is my episodic drama, "My Virtual Escape", which I took home a Streamy for and did very well view-wise per episode.

EVERY SINGLE EPISODE OF THIS NARRATIVE WAS DEMONETIZED. THE PILOT IS AGE-RESTRICTED. I lost well over $30,000 dollars on this series and MADE NOTHING...yet this is my best work.

Meanwhile, Youtube premium has series that have cursing, drugs, fights etc....NO FUCKING SUPPORT!

It's complete hypocrisy that Youtube premium shows can have premium ads and support, while my show gets demonetized and age-restricted.

This is ALL my content now. I cannot do anything. Youtube has stripped my creative license. Or should I say all of their AI and algorithms did

Let's talk about notifications, shall we?

Youtube does not push out our videos anymore. I have 100% confirmed evidence that they not only stagger notifs days later, but even don't send notifications AT ALL...This is for people that have "the bell" on and is set to "always".

This video was pushed THREE DAYS LATER. Picture on the left shows the notif being received on Sept 7th. The picture on the right shows the video being published on Sept 4th.

Views were suppressed and notifs were not sent out. No statement from Youtube. If anything, they deny it

Youtube Rewind 2018 is STILL the most disliked video on all of Youtube. Why? Because they were so out-of-touch with community. No love for the ACTUAL CREATORS that were blowing up in that year or that helped shape the platform.

They did not fit their SOCIAL AGENDA!

Also...just yesterday...they completely stripped the live subscriber counts. This was BLATANTLY AGAINST THE WISHES OF THE ENTIRE YOUTUBE COMMUNITY. Why? Because they do not care. They are a corporation. They do not care about the individual creators, it's about the bottom-line.

In my 13 years on Youtube, I've never once felt actually valued by them. The play buttons were great, but then realizing that the letters were not personalized and just another cookie-cutter facade. No real contact from anyone.

The heart of the platform is gone. And so am I.

The feeling I have reminds me of being in college, accumulating debt in some structured for-profit machine or working a job for a boss/company I don't agree with or feel undervalued by. This is that.

Just like how I wanted to drop-out and every time I quit those jobs...

The fire returns. I am done sitting idly by while these giant tech companies suck all the value out of us for scraps in return. We are being taken advantage of in many ways. And the monopolies are RIPE.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

This is why I'm going ALL-IN on StoryFire. I make way more revenue for my art, I do not have to sacrifice my creative freedoms and our notifications and community is STRONG AS EVER.

TAG EVERY CREATOR IN THIS THREAD. PLEASE SHARE THIS AROUND. IT'S IMPORTANT WE COME TOGETHER.

I'm tired of creators being afraid to speak out. You never know if your views will be suppressed, Youtube will be broken on a given day or you can't freely express yourself.

Don't even get me started on how they applied the demonetization AI. Targeting anything with LGBT in it.

Purposely banning all conservative channels just because Youtube doesn't agree with it. Having machine learning intelligence that actually reads every single pixel of your fucking face...

Not sure what I'm referring to? Check this out. Check my next thread coming out soon.