YouTube bullied content creators into accepting YouTube Red

Now that YouTube has officially unveiled its ad-free subscription service, YouTube Red, you may be wondering how the company got content creators to agree to make their videos ad-free. Well, the answer is pretty simple: they didn’t have a choice. YouTube gave its content creators two options: agree to YouTube Red’s conditions and accept that your videos will be ad-free for premium subscribers, or have all of your videos removed from YouTube. Naturally, more than 99% of the content creators on YouTube chose the former option.

YouTube has never been great at communicating with creators, but the recent announcement of YouTube Red takes the cake as the most authoritative, aggressive move by the video service against creators and networks. Instead of working around issues creators have with the new subscription service, YouTube made an offer no channel could refuse: Accept the new terms or lose all your videos and revenue. Most YouTube partners rely primarily on ad revenue to survive, forcing 99 percent of creators to accept the deal regardless of the terms. YouTube has downplayed the deal, claiming that creators and viewers have asked for a subscription service for a long time. YouTube also said it wanted a consistent experience for viewers that subscribe, letting them view all content available for normal viewers. Most YouTubers seem to be fine with the deal, which would suggest YouTube is offering a fair rate compared to the 55 percent it gives to video creators in ad revenue share. It hasn’t disclosed details of the agreement to anyone outside of the partners and networks, however.