There is no single reason why YouTube earnings are not much much higher than they currently are. A plethora of reasons has made YouTube become an inaccessible medium unless you are an FTSE100 company.
1. Video is expensive to make.
If some companies struggle to find the right image to post on Instagram or 40 characters on Twitter, they are not about to start producing expensive video content. Video is so expensive to make that it is possibly affordable by less than 15% of all businesses. And this is the reason why so many video-producing agencies have failed. It’s only for big companies.
2. Hate and inappropriate content
Watching a family brand ad next to a beheading, general violence, bullying or the grotesque stuff some people post on YouTube is not the best experience for a brand. And despite ‘assurances’ from Google, YouTube will keep showing videos next to inappropriate content, simply because inappropriate content is a lot more than the appropriate stuff. In addition extreme content gets more views.
3. YouTube is a TV channel at heart
With the frequency and duration of ads on YouTube, it feels a lot more like watching TV than immersing in a social networking experience. TV watching has been declining for decades. This decline started when advertising content overtook publishing content and Youtube is going down the same road.
4. Lots of effort, little gain.
Creating an engaging video ad can be devastatingly expensive and YouTube videos have a very short viewing time. Ads are a lot less so. So unless you are a massive company dedicating money and effort on Youtube, right now it appears to be a very costly experiment with no promise of a return.
