Jim Spergling

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

I like how they all dance around the fact they were never formally employed by youtube, have no relationship WITH youtube and youtube has no obligations to them. They can't even claim to be workers on a contract basis. They're like dudes who showed up at your house with rakes and raked your yard, then they hung around with their hands out. You never asked for them to rake your yard. You never hired them. You never needed them. But they showed up anyway and raked your yard and now they act like you OWE them a living. Forever.

This. Unless you're one of those internet nobodies on Youtube Red, there's a pretty good chance that you never interacted with anyone who actually is employed by YT before.

YT's already giving them free and unlimited space to upload their content on. The whole partnership stuff is something they literally do out of the goodness of their heart, not because of some obligation.

[mad bum]

And that's the key issue. An employee might be "dependent" on their employer, but your employer generally can't just fire you if they feel like it, they need a valid reason, and it's possible to take them to court if that reason doesn't hold up.

Not in burgerland.

What Does a "Fire at Will State" Mean?

In forty-nine states -- Montana is the exception -- an employer has the legal right to fire an employee without cause. An employee who thinks his job is secure could be called into the boss’s office and told “We don’t need your services anymore,” with no recourse.

I've had it happen, I've had friends have it happen, they can basically think you don't look good and just lie to your face without any real reason.

[Some Sick Fuck]

YT's already giving them free and unlimited space to upload their kahntent on. The whole partnership stuff is something they literally do out of the goodness of their heart, not because of some obligation.

Which is absolutely ridiculous. I've started uploading streams from certain youtuber that I follow, because I like listening to his commentary as a background noise when I'm working, and it's hillarious to see youtube allowing me to upload hundreds of gigabites worth of videos that only get few thousand views in total.

[rabidtictac]

And then imagine, Sick Fuck. You have people like DSP who upload literally 6 hours of 720 and 1080p quality footage PER FUCKING DAY to the website, and the videos get maybe 200-1000 views each. 1000 being the top end for a lot of them. 200 views per is pretty average for some of his shit.

What is the value of those videos to youtube? I would argue those videos are a drain on the website's resources and would bring in more profit for youtube with their absence.

I'd love to know what the average filesize is he's uploading to youtube per day. How many gigs of shit is he forcing onto their servers every day? That youtube would pay him any money at all for the pleasure of being swamped with bullshit nobody is watching is a joke. No wonder the website struggles to make money when you have let's player fags like DSP doing this shit.

I've said it before. I'd ban every account that uploads more than once a day. Maybe make an exception if your videos bring in millions of views per video. Otherwise, ding dong bannu. Get fucked.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Every YTer should have a running total of their server costs vs ad income, visible to everyone.

[Some Sick Fuck]

What is the value of those videos to youtube? I would argue those videos are a drain on the website's resources and would bring in more profit for youtube with their absence.

They absolutely are. I only upload there because they have no control that would limit my account - I'm assuming they must at least have some limit to how much you can upload per day or a week, but that hasn't stopped me from storing at this point probably over 400 GB data that I don't need to store on my HDD. Which is fucking absurd, who gives you that much for free and more?!

No wonder youtube is barely profitable, because they have no standards. How can there be videos that have 10 minutes lenght, with millions of views, next to videos that have hours and hours, in 1080p, and those don't even have hundred views per video.

[Just Some Random Guy]

And that's the key issue. An employee might be "dependent" on their employer, but your employer generally can't just fire you if they feel like it, they need a valid reason, and it's possible to take them to court if that reason doesn't hold up.

Not in burgerland.

What Does a "Fire at Will State" Mean?

In forty-nine states -- Montana is the exception -- an employer has the legal right to fire an employee without cause. An employee who thinks his job is secure could be called into the boss’s office and told “We don’t need your services anymore,” with no recourse.

I've had it happen, I've had friends have it happen, they can basically think you don't look good and just lie to your face without any real reason.

I should have phrased that a little differently. Sure, unless otherwise specified, your employer can fire you if they want. Which is why a lot of jobs, in their contracts, put various measures in place to protect you from that sort of thing because they realize that employees, particularly skilled employees, are more interested in working for a place that can't fire them on a dime. Most of the places I've worked for, even at low-level intro jobs, are only "at will" for the first year, and afterwards you're protected from being fired on a whim and they have to be able to point to specific cases of rules breaking in order to get rid of you.

I suppose one could say he therefore has a point in that anyone who's on "at will" employment can't just chastise someone for relying on YouTube, but those jobs can transfer more easily to other professions.

[rabidtictac]

Even in an at-will job, you learn skills that you can transfer to other real jobs. And your employers still have obligations towards you for the duration of your employment which youtube does not have towards the shitty video makers.

[Guest]

It seems though it depends on how autistic your fanbase is. While people watch RTU's garbage they weren't hardcore enough to support him on patreon when he set it up

That thing with the data cap, they probably gonna crack down on this pretty soon. They already starting to limit some things that people can do when they have no views.

[drisko]

Even in an at-will job, you learn skills that you can transfer to other real jobs. And your employers still have obligations towards you for the duration of your employment which youtube does not have towards the shitty video makers.

Pretty much, even if you get fired from a low-level entry job, that still counts as experience in the eyes of another employer and will benefit you in the long term. Now if Jim lost his patreon, he could go to another site, point to his audience, and use that as leverage to get another job. But he also brings a lot of baggage with him, including lawsuits, so it'd have to be a site that needs him more than he needs them, like Bob going to Geek after getting fired by Screwattack because his shows just weren't bringing in enough numbers to justify the shit storms those videos were causing.