Sure, YouTube could have done a better job at responding to the Logan Paul situation, but they also could have done a better job at preventing it by disincentivizing “Logan Paul Loopholes”.
What is the Logan Paul Loophole?
The deep neural networks in YouTube recommend newsworthy content from “trusted publishing websites”, but it doesn’t distinguish the type of content being circulated. For Logan Paul, it was controversial news that spiked him to the top of the trending list, or as MatPat put it – “He gamed the system.”
Create Controversy → Get Featured → Get Embedded → Get More exposure → Get More Views → Get More Subs → Profit
So what if that video wasn’t monetized right? Nope. Even if people don’t subscribe, they go to watch more of his videos that are monetized – what MatPat calls “trickle down views.” He wins either way. Logan Paul is now the sixth fastest growing YouTube channel after the controversial video was posted.
Why is this a problem for YouTube? Advertisers.
Ok, the people who post these videos aren’t getting hurt but who is? Well, it’s all the other creators and YouTube itself.
Controversial Video scares advertisers →
Advertisers pull ALL ads from the platform of the controversy, not just a specific channel →
Less money in the system →
Everyone gets hurts, including YouTube
After the controversy has died down and Logan Paul goes back to vlogging, he will be stronger with more subscribers than ever. And those smaller channels and YouTube itself? They will have taken a huge hit. All the ad revenue that could have come in during that period did not, and hope of future advertisers funneling money into the system decreases. Any press is not good press.
What does this have to do with decentralized versions of YouTube?
There aren’t advertisers driving our decentralized platforms, so why is this important to us? Because it’s not about the advertisers and making money, it’s about the community and the underlying incentive structures. And what is tokenization all about? Incentive structures.
Being paid for the content you create and curate is how Steem powers platforms like Steemit, DTube, and others. That is the core incentive for long-term adoption of this new technology, and what makes it stand out from similar centralized platforms. But we have to be careful to take a close look at what the Steem blockchain incentives in terms of content and interaction. Some examples of potentially harmful user behaviors and side effects include upvoting your own posts excessively, voting bots manipulating the rewards pool, and whales curating the promotion feed. These are self-funding and promotion tactics that can and have been taken advantage of already. And at scale, this creates a specific type of structure which could ultimately detract new users from coming and staying on these platforms. Why would they join if there’s no hope in their upvote meaning anything or their content never being seen?
Also, branding is one of many important parts of creating a successful company. If your brand is continuously getting negative headlines in the press, then as MatPat put it – “The long term viability of your platform takes a hit.” How people see you and how you present yourself matters, regardless if you’re centralized or decentralized. New decentralized platforms need to ask themselves “who are we and what do we stand for?” as well as “how do we want people to use this?” Branding and the system itself will work together to build a community that is viable long term.
And to be clear, none of this is about censorship. Like MatPat said, that is not the answer. Building a better system is.