Funding creators on YouTube which in turn encourages content creation has been a problem for Google since they purchased the platform. They’ve tried many methods, and today they’re ending one, while introducing something new.
Google has today announced that they will end Fan Funding, a financing model which let fans throw a few dollars towards their favourite creators, at the end of next month in favour of Super Chats. Super Chats will let viewers purchase a highlighted message in a chat during a live stream. The highlighted message in theory will give your message greater prominence, which increases the chance of your favourite YouTuber seeing your comment.
The model for Super Chats allows you to select how much you want to pay by selecting a colour that your message will be highlighted with during the chat, as well as how long the message is highlighted for and how many characters it can be. It ranges in price from $1 all the way up to $500 if you really want your message to be seen.
| Purchase amount (USD) | Color | Color name | Max. message length | Max. time in the ticker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $ 1.00 – 1.99 | Blue | 0 characters | 0 seconds | |
| $ 2.00 – 4.99 | Light blue | 50 characters | 0 seconds | |
| $ 5.00 – 9.99 | Green | 150 characters | 2 minutes | |
| $ 10.00 – 19.99 | Yellow | 200 characters | 5 minutes | |
| $ 20.00 – 49.99 | Orange | 225 characters | 10 minutes | |
| $ 50.00 – 99.99 | Magenta | 250 characters | 30 minutes | |
| $ 100.00 – 199.99 | Red | 270 characters | 1 hour | |
| $ 200.00 – 299.99 | Red | 290 characters | 2 hours | |
| $ 300.00 – 399.99 | Red | 310 characters | 3 hours | |
| $ 400.00 – 499.99 | Red | 330 characters | 4 hours | |
| $ 500.00 | Red | 350 characters | 5 hours |
YouTube is trialling Super Chats with a limited selection of YouTube creators including iHasCupquake, Great Library (buzzbean11) and Alex Wassabi but will be rolling it out to users in 20 countries on the 31st of January. Though limited to creators in 20 countries, people in 40 countries will be able to purchase Super Chat messages as well.
I like YouTube, and there’s creators on there that continue to deliver great videos time and time again who I may consider doing this for, but as an old man yelling at clouds, perhaps I`m not the right demographic. There’s a big swing towards watching content on YouTube as opposed to traditional media, and for the younger viewers this may be a great way to both support and be acknowledged by their favourite YouTuber.
I think the money they get from ads ins’t enough i guess
YouTube is a breakeven business, they don’t make a profit. The astronomical bandwidth costs that they have to pay for the hundreds of millions of hours streamed every day are only just covered by their advertising revenue.
I’m just hoping for the sake of the great (essentially free) service they provide that they’re able to keep expanding and improving it