“Personally, I’m ok with if you use AdBlock on my videos. Ads are annoying, I get it, I’m not here to complain about that.” That’s what Felix Kjellberg, more commonly known as PewDiePie, had to say about ad blocking. However, he continued by saying that “for smaller channels, this number (amount of people who use ad blockers) can be devastating,” which is his reasoning as to why YouTube Red is necessary.
Kjellberg explained in a recent post on his Tumblr that smaller video channels on YouTube are suffering the most by the rising usage of ad blockers. While he himself do not mind people using ad blockers on his video, the same cannot be said for other people. After all, he has over 40 million subscribers to his channel.
https://youtu.be/YL9RetC0ook
According to his Google analytics, over 40% of his subscribers use ad blockers, to which he conclude that “YouTubers lose about 40% of their ad income” because of this. Needless to say, to lose almost half of what you rightfully deserve to be paid is a rather big concern. “Using AdBlock doesn’t mean you’re clever and above the system,” Kjellberg added.
If more people were to subscribe to YouTube Red, it’s obvious that even Kjellberg will benefit from it – though this also apply to many other content creators on the platform. After all, his own online TV show “Scare PewDiePie” will only be available to YouTube Red subscribers, which are one of the many perks of the subscription.
It’s entirely possible that YouTube Red is “an effort to counter ad blockers,” as Kjellberg put it. But the question is, how many people are willing to fork out US$10 (about RM43) every month for the service?
(Source: PewDiePie (Tumblr) via The Verge)
