YouTube has become an undeniable force in entertainment. Every month, the video site tops Nielsen’s list of most-viewed platforms. But content creators are beginning to jump ship, believing that they’ll be more profitable and have more freedom on their own branded streaming services.

The Try Guys moved their content to a streamer called 2nd Try ($4.99), “Unspeakable” creator Nathan Milner is in the process of creating his own branded service, and “Dungeons and Dragons” darlings Critical Role have built Beacon ($5.99).

In their announcement videos, creators frequently take aim at the frustrations of the YouTube algorithm. There’s a reason every thumbnail features the “shocked face” of a channel creator - YouTube has reason to believe you’ll click on those more frequently. The algorithm is why every creator begs you to “like and subscribe” - those are two important success signals on the platform, and the subscription can bypass the often-frustrating search results.

YouTube often demonetizes or kills videos it deems unacceptable, sometimes for innocuous reasons. A channel could be hit by a copyright strike for nearly any reason by any party. For example, some shadow group named LDS Affiliate US tried making more than 30 copyright claims on my content, trying to assert Mormon Church ownership over things they definitely did not create. (A Pillsbury commercial from 1991? A Buick commercial from 2012? Really?) This forced me to fight every claim through YouTube’s cumbersome platform, and the Latter-Day Saints suffer no penalty for this nuisance behavior.

Critical Role’s Marisha Ray explained, “It’s not uncommon for our content to get demonetized because we all have the vocabulary of teenage sailors, or on the extreme other end of the spectrum, we’ll sometimes have ads run in front of our content that don’t really vibe with our beliefs. That’s not cool.”

Ray called the Beacon platform “the most direct way that you can support us and everything we do” while not having “a portion of your hard-earned subscription dollars going to a massive third-party corporation.”

Critical Role is unique because it already has a hit on another streaming platform: the animated “Legend of Vox Machina” on Prime Video. Notably, however, the team funded its first 10 episodes with an $11.3 million campaign on Kickstarter.

For YouTube creators considering their own streamer, it’s a difficult choice. Sure, the site gives you access to a worldwide audience, but you’re always walking a knife’s edge with a nameless, faceless corporate giant that offers almost no beneficial appeals process. For creators who have quit their day jobs, YouTube has the power to make or break their bank accounts. For every superstar multi-millionarie like Mr. Beast, there are far more stories of failure, or once-popular channels that got thrown in the demonetized dungeon.

The grandfathers of the YouTube independence movement are the team behind College Humor, which launched Dropout way back in 2018. The service is unique because it offers profit-sharing to its employees. The company even pays for actors to audition for any of its shows, a practice that would make Netflix nauseous. Dropout has subscribers in the “mid-high six figures,” which is pretty remarkable for a streamer without a giant media company behind it.

It’s not terribly difficult to create your own streaming service. Companies like UScreen allow you to build one at home. Plans start at $149/month plus $1.49 per paid subscriber. The trick is to find a way to make the economics work. Can you draw a big enough subscriber base? Can you find time to market your service in addition to creating content? Given the stakes, it’s no wonder most creators simply dance to whatever tune YouTube is playing at the moment.

Most streamers who create their own services still maintain some presence on YouTube. The size of the audience makes it too tempting to pass up. But since YouTube seems glacially slow to respond to creator concerns (it’s hard to listen over the sound of the party happening inside the money vault), it’s likely we’ll continue to see defections to standalone creator services.

The Legend of Vox Machina

January 27, 2022

They’re rowdy, they’re ragtag, they’re misfits turned mercenaries for hire. Vox Machina is more interested in easy money and cheap ale than actually protecting the realm. But when the kingdom is threatened by evil, this boisterous crew realizes that they are the only ones capable of restoring justice.