Top PewDiePie Vlogger Tests YouTube Business Model

In 2015, YouTube video service launched a paid subscription for $ 9.99 per month. Paid program called YouTube Red . Its main feature, in addition to the possibility of completely disabling advertising on the site and saving videos for offline viewing, became authoring programs. Top videobloggers, sportsmen, comedians began to create premium content: interviews, shows, comments on current topics, etc.

The idea of ​​management was, firstly, to improve the monetization of YouTube, and secondly, to compete with Netflix, Amazon and other video services that create their own content, providing it to subscribers for a relatively small monthly payment. Author programs on YouTube often began to be made by “people from the people,” bloggers who could become famous without outside help. One of the authors is Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie .

He currently has more than 53 million subscribers, it is the most famous video blogger (or vlogger) in the world. Due to his fame, he was able to conduct his own show, which he did with success all this time. Last year, Kjellberg earned more than $ 15 million on YouTube. In many ways, the high salary was due to the fact that the blogger account was part of the Google Preferred advertising network. Its members are popular bloggers and advertisers who are willing to pay large sums to bloggers.
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Everything went well until the recent actions of PewDiePie spoiled the reputation of both himself and YouTube, casting doubt on the entire business model of the service. We are talking about dubious videoblogger jokes with elements of racism, chauvinism and many other unpleasant things that the Wall Street Journal journalists saw in his videos. The other day the publication on its website says that nine PewDiePie videos contain content related to Nazism and anti-Semitism. It is hard to say whether it is so or not, since most of the controversial points can be called taken out of the context of the commercials themselves (some Geektimes readers think so). The situation is quite complicated, because the PewDiePie has long reproached the media for being against ordinary people like him who have influence over the masses. The media does not remain in debt, often blaming the blogger for all mortal sins.

Anyway, as a result of the subsequent proceedings, Kjellberg’s partners began one by one to break off cooperation with the blogger. In particular, the Swede lost a contract with one of the Disney divisions and YouTube itself, plus some smaller partners terminated contracts with him. His account is no longer part of the Google Preferred network, so the imprudent Swede has lost financial revenues from the world's largest companies. "Felix has become popular due to provocative content, but now he has already gone too far, the resulting videos are unacceptable," said a spokesman for Disney, who signed a contract with PewDiePie. It is clear that well-known brands, in order not to spoil their reputation, seek to distance themselves from any scandal, without searching for the right and the guilty.

It is not known how all this will affect the fate of the author himself, but all this has already influenced YouTube’s reputation. Other materials that have compromised the video service’s reputation include videos in which PewDiePie compares actress Leslie Jones with a gorilla , discusses slavery almost in a positive way and talks about other things that are not very pleasant.

The problem is that YouTube is betting on nobody accountable bloggers whose content is either not moderated, or is checked only from time to time. If the company wants to continue to cooperate with such celebrities, then you need to pay more attention to the personalities and actions of invited "stars". In addition, the leadership of YouTube need to think about how to moderate the content produced. The traditional strategy, which works in the process of creating regular shows, is not applicable here, since the vloggers often have no scriptwriters, no producer, no agents. There is only a man and his camera, plus ideas for creating a video.

In the near future, the removal of the PewDiePie show from YouTube Red can only slightly reduce the number of users of a paid service company. Despite the fact that the Swede is the most popular vlogger on video service, he is far from the only one. His place will be taken quickly, in the entertainment industry such situations often occur, and new stars take the place of old stars who have gone for some reason. The Swedish blogger aggravated the situation by not immediately making an apology about what happened (presumably, he does not use the services of a personal lawyer who is new to such cases), but continued to produce ordinary videos in his own style. They themselves had nothing to do with politics, racism and other things, but the commentators of the videos began to express a clear hostility towards the author of the materials after what had happened. In the end, he nevertheless apologized, saying the following: "I believe that you can joke about any things, but I am also sure that you need to do the right thing and not joke about such topics." He said that, in his opinion, the journalists of The Wall Street Journal deliberately pulled out of the context some fragments from his commercials in order to spoil his reputation. “This is an attack from the media in order to reduce my influence,” says the Swede.


The lesson Google got is pretty painful. First of all, by the fact that the scandal itself will not subside, and this is not so much about the blogger himself, as about the reliability of the YouTube business model. This situation will be happy to use other video services in order to entice to itself a part of paying users of YouTube. The bloggers themselves are not hired employees of video service, although they get money from him. Perhaps the video service will somehow change the current scheme of work, in order to be able to monitor the work of their top vloggerov. So far, it’s difficult to understand how the video service management will act; everything will become clear only after some time.