Why Patreon is Important

Recently, Youtube changed the way creators get views. They made it so that any video that is auto -played or hovered over or clicked on and off of for a second is considered a "view" and "engaged views" are what happen when someone sticks around and watches the video for more than the first frame.

So, you might be asking yourself "well isn't this a good thing more views simply by being on the platform?"

No.

Income and adrevenue methods did not change. You still get your revenue based on an equation of sorts that comes down to engaged views and watch time and time spent on the video. So, this video, 53,451 views. Engaged views 22,329. At this point, the metric of view is pure vanity and it sucks.

Small to mid creators like myself rely on adsense far more than we'd like. Yes, sponsorship opportunities certainly help, and it should be the goal of creators to be receiving sponsorships but it's never clear cut or obvious when a sponsorship or a "good month" will happen.

Views help us be able to actually understand if our viewers like a video so we can either repeat it or pivot and try something else that our audiences will like.

In order to see engaged views I need to go to my studio, go to views, go to see more, go to a + icon and then click on Engaged views in order to see how many views this video really got. It sucks.

So why is PATREON important? Stability. To be able to pay my team, or god forbid something should happen and the channel go belly up due to youtube randomly doing something or health issues etc. Patreon allows creators to at least know they can keep the lights on and then some. It means, so very much.

Your help and support is deeply important. Especially when things like this happen. I can't change this, I can't fix it, it won't change, this is how it is now. At least I know I have a bit of help and knowing this really helps me keep my mind at ease.

Patreon is important. Thank you So much.

Marco