I remember when everything was recorded and edited videos, from short to long, maybe 5 minutes to 1 hour, but it was rare seeing longer videos. Most videos where edited, cutting off boring parts, and videos seemed centred on the content. Also facecams, while still gaining popularity, were not omnipresent.
Nowadays I find it hard to find videos that are not just reuploaded streams. Hours and hours of unedited video. Most of the time seems that the streamer really do nothing, they vaguely read comments, talk about their life and sometimes play a game or something, but the unedited nature of it make it really boring for my taste, there are lots of long dead times where nothing really happens. Also there are constant interruptions, visual and audio noise, the whole every time someone suscribe or paid something noisy has to happen for everyone to see. That takes the quality of the content down. And of course half the screen is covered by face cam, chat, subscriber count, donation objetives, etc. And the streams are always hours and hours and hours, the content is so diluted in long periods of time, it’s unrespectful with out time.
I just don’t see how this format has taken over the internet, it’s worse than what we had. I see how it’s more profitable for the creators, more hours of content for less effort, but I don’t get how viewers prefer that format over a well curated and edited video.
Just a rant. Maybe someday someone searches “why everything is a stream nowadays” and sees that they are not alone, I hate streams too.
Ah that’s a shame, nowt worse than when a creator you like changes direction to something crap. Still, maybe a wave of unsubs will help point them back to the path of rightousness 😄
I assume they are rational actors and making this shift because it is more money for less effort on their part. Ad revenue from produced videos is a very slow and dilute stream. Your channel has to be huge to make much. And when your whole thing is about a niche audience, Patreon etc and streams with tips will just make you more money, plus there is more of a direct interaction with top fans that the creator may enjoy. I just don’t care for this. I don’t need to hear my name read out or pretend I’m their friend. Just gimmie the content!
I’m literally a YouTuber and still agree with you lol. Some of my friends have shifted into doing streams (moved to Twitch though rather than do it on YT) and I’ve just stopped watching because frankly who has the time.
It’s a weird one, video monetisation. For example gaming is well-known to be pretty much the lowest paying niche you can get, so I definitely understand people having to do what they can. In my own niche it’s thankfully much more lucrative so there’s less pressure to pad things out and let the content suffer (not that my content is amazing but you get the point). Moving to slower, drawn-out hour-long videos instead of 15-minute ones would no doubt make me more money, but that’s a choice I face and not a requirement to survive like it can be in the lower-paying niches.
Definitely not a dilemma I envy.