ichthyoid

Recently, Youtube announced a change in its terms of service, which will take effect in December 10, 2019 (less than three weeks away). While most news sites claim that it was just simply making Youtube’s terms of service easier to read, one important change tells us that it can now delete a creator’s account if it’s not “commercially viable”.

Of course, previously, Youtube has always held the right to terminate accounts when they want to, and over the past few years have exercised that ability quite liberally (pun intended). But this noticeable update to their terms of service is a direct acknowledgement of the direction Youtube has and will be going toward in the future. Namely, that Youtube is shifting from being primarily a platform for new creatives and experimentation towards a platform for business-oriented media and entertainment companies.

The Problem

This isn’t an unexpected thing to happen. And it’s not necessarily evil or even bad. As companies grow, especially publicly owned ones, they tend to shift from the core audience of their early days to a more general audience that is better able to allow the company to profit. But because of the shift, most of the time, the little guys (or the original core audience) often get left out or even uncared for. This often allows for competing businesses to then come in and take disenfranchised customers.

In the case of Youtube, however, it’s important to realize that its sole customers are not viewers like you and me. Rather, Youtube’s customers are other businesses that want to advertise on its platform. In this way, it functions much more like a television network than a simple video hosting and sharing platform.

However, the problem is that Youtube has more than 70% of the market share of online video-sharing services. The next highest service is Vimeo, with less than 20%, and every other service has less than 2% of the marketshare. This means that vast the majority of online videos and video consumers are on Youtube, giving it an attractive advantage for companies that want to advertise to those consumers.

Escalation

If Youtube terminates an account, that creator has been blocked from 70% of their potential audience. Furthermore, Youtube has always held the right to stop the monetization of any channel. This basically means that, even if your account is not terminated, but is demonetized, you would lose out on the potential 70% of customers that may have wanted to support you. But since most creators online only have Youtube channels, rather than spreading their videos across all video services available, demonetization often means a 100% removal of online income.

The problem compounds when multiple companies are doing the same thing. The scandals from are pretty nuts these days. Google blacklists websites from their search. Facebook bans pages for political reasons, as does Twitter with its users. Patreon, a platform that claimed to want to allow all creators to have a chance to be supported by their audiences, terminates accounts which have not actually broken its terms of service. And perhaps strangest of all, Paypal, an online payments company, has prevented business and non-profit organization accounts from receiving payments and donations.

These terminations and bans are not just silencing people who haven't done any legal wrong, but destroying the livelihoods of those same people who depend on these platforms for their jobs and income.

The Solution

Coil, it seems, is poised to take advantage of the strange vacuum left open by these giant tech companies. It has one essential goal which is basically broken down into two parts: the monetization of the web through its own platform as well as external websites and channels which decide to integrate Coil’s code. Payments can be processed through a third-party online bank or cryptocurrency in the form of XRP through XRPtipbot.

This solves two problems. First, it allows creators to be paid no matter what, since they can receive XRP payments that don't need to go through any specific company. Second, it allows creators to either put content on an already existing platform, or make their own.

This is a great way to allow small-time creators to be able to support themselves without the worry of whether they’re making enough to be on a platform. In fact, this is one of the reasons I keep coming back to post on Coil. Given I have a job and do work elsewhere in life, it’s difficult to find time to consistently attend to my hobbies and passions. While I haven’t receive much from viewership, every little bit keeps me going, as I see my efforts in continuing the blog on Coil pay off. On the other hand, from my Youtube channel, I haven’t earned a single cent.

And that is why I believe Coil, and other platforms and services like it, are so important in the world of the Internet today.

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