1180628

research-article20232023
SMSXXX10.1177/20563051231180628Social Media <span class="symbol" cstyle="Mathematical">+</span> SocietyRieder et al.

Article

Social Media + Society

Making a Living in the Creator Economy:

April-June 2023: 1­–20
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
A Large-Scale Study of Linking on sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/20563051231180628
https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231180628

YouTube journals.sagepub.com/home/sms

Bernhard Rieder1 , Erik Borra1 , Òscar Coromina2 ,

and Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández3

Abstract
This article explores monetization and networking strategies within the consolidating creator economy. Through a large-
scale study of linking practices on YouTube, we investigate how creators seek to build their online presence across multiple
platforms and widen their income streams. In particular, we build on a near-complete sample of 153,000 “elite” YouTube
channels with at least 100,000 subscribers, retrieved at the end of 2019, and investigate the URLs found in 137 million
video descriptions to analyze traces of these strategies. We first situate our study within relevant literature around the
creator economy, the role of platforms, and issues such as social capital building and economic precarity. We then outline
our data and analytical approach, followed by a presentation of our findings. The article finishes with a discussion on how
monetization and networking strategies via placing URLs in video descriptions have become more important over time, but
also differ substantially between channel sizes, content categories, and geographic locations. Our empirical analysis shows
that YouTube, as a highly unequal platformed media system, thrives on the economic pressures it exerts on its creators.

Keywords
creator economy, globalization, monetization, networking, YouTube

Introduction Digital platforms have indeed played a central role in this

story, to the point where scholars speak of a “platformization
While the web was initially designed as a convenient and of cultural production” (Nieborg & Poell, 2018). Social
easy-to-use way to help researchers share information, the media services, in particular, provide the communicative
last three decades have seen successive waves of “econo- infrastructure, set a number of ground rules, and create direct
mization,” in the sense that economic activity has become a pathways for monetization, for example, through sharing
central driver for online participation. E-commerce has advertisement revenue or so-called “creator funds” that pro-
changed how goods are found and sold; streaming platforms vide remuneration based on specific inclusion criteria.1
for music, movies, and tv-series have transformed remunera- YouTube has been one of the key players within the online
tion schemes in these industries; and various kinds of online creator economy. By sharing advertisement fees with video
services have become central parts of work processes. One producers almost from the beginning, YouTube has evolved
of the online activities that have expanded most dramatically from being a hoster of amateur clips into a vast ecosystem of
over the last decade has been addressed with terms like “cre- increasingly professionalized channels that are able to broad-
ator” or “influencer” economy. These terms, which arose cast to large audiences and acquire significant revenue.
from the mid-2000s emergence of web 2.0, address the While still open to the “ad hoc” productions of early days,
increasing economization or commercialization of user-gen-
erated content in the sense that “creators” or “influencers” 1
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
collect revenue through a variety of monetization schemes. 2
Malmö universitet, Sweden
While the creator economy is notoriously hard to scope, one 3
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
report (Shapiro & Aneja, 2019, p. 19) claimed that an “esti-
Corresponding Author:
mated 14.8 million Americans earned income by posting Bernhard Rieder, University of Amsterdam, Turfdraagsterpad 9,
their creations on Instagram, WordPress, YouTube, Tumblr Amsterdam 1012 XT, The Netherlands.
and five other platforms.” Email: b.rieder@uva.nl

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction
and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages
(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
2 Social Media + Society

many creators are now pursuing YouTube as a full-time job, channel sizes, content categories, and geographic locations.
with regular update schedules and polished production. This We conclude by arguing that YouTube, as a highly unequal
makes YouTube one of the pillars of what Cunningham and platformed media system, thrives on the economic pressures
Craig (2017, 2019a) have called “social media entertain- it exerts on its creators.
ment,” an industry that successfully attracts young viewers
in particular and allows certain creators to become stars who
rival actors and musicians in popularity. The Creator Economy in a Platformed
In analogy to Andrew Chadwick’s (2013) concept of a Media System
hybrid media system, “built upon interactions among older
and newer media logics” (p. 4), we have previously (Rieder
The Creator Economy
et al., 2020) conceptualized and explored YouTube as a plat- Digital platforms have become central organizing infrastruc-
formed media system, that is, as an emergent ecosystem of tures in many different domains of public and private life,
channels that is sufficiently large to develop high levels of transforming these domains in often significant ways (van
economic activity and internal heterogeneity, rivaling or sur- Dijck, 2020). Within cultural and media industries, sites cov-
passing the traditional media systems of nation states. eting user-generated content have lowered barriers of entry
This ecosystem is highly unequal—we found that the top for large numbers of “creators.” As Poell et al. (2022) have
0.4% of channels account for 62% of views—and structured argued, advances in computing more generally and platform
along dividing lines such as language, subject area, and so mediation more specifically have lowered the costs of pro-
forth. While YouTube sets its boundaries and governs it in duction, distribution, and transaction. In the case of YouTube,
different ways, content creators pursue their own production users can shoot a video with a cheap smartphone camera, edit
and optimization strategies relatively freely within its con- it on their device, upload it for free, potentially reach a large
fines, separating it from streaming services such as Netflix and diverse audience, and earn income without having to
where control over content is much tighter. Crucially, these search and contract with advertisers directly. Already over a
creators are, at least in part, able to build viable businesses on decade ago, authors like Kim (2012, p. 53) noted how
top of the functionalities and monetization possibilities made “smooth links between content and commercials” on
available to them. YouTube fuel tendencies toward institutionalization and pro-
Despite its internal richness, YouTube is not siloed off. On fessionalization. This transformation of cultural production,
the one side, videos are shared as links or embedded directly, together with the observation that “the rich get richer”
circulating through other platforms and the open web. On the dynamics at work in networked systems lead to the emer-
other side, creators can link elsewhere from their videos, in gence of steep hierarchies of visibility all over the web
particular via video descriptions, which allow for up to 5000 (Hindman, 2009), seriously dampened early enthusiasm
characters of text to accompany each clip. Next to promo- about the “democratic” potential of social media.
tions or placed advertisements in the videos themselves, While platforms like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok,
these links represent an opportunity for creators to reduce Instagram, and Twitter have given marginalized voices
their dependence on YouTube, both for generating income, access to expression and (sometimes) visibility, terms like
for example, through affiliate programs or crowdfunding, “user-generated content” and “participatory culture”
and for building social capital across other social media (Jenkins, 2006) have mostly been replaced by concepts like
accounts or websites.2 “creator economy” that locate the ecosystems that have
In this article, we deepen our investigation of YouTube as sprung up around these sites within the larger sphere of the
a platformed media system, focusing specifically on moneti- cultural industries (Hesmondhalgh, 2019). Burgess and
zation and networking strategies within the consolidating Green (2009) put a name to the “entrepreneurial vlogger” in
creator economy. More specifically, we build on a near-com- 2009 already, but the last decade has also seen the emer-
plete sample of 153,000 “elite” channels with at least 100,000 gence of more formalized economic actors active on
subscribers, retrieved at the end of 2019, and investigate the YouTube, including large channels run by entire teams,
URLs found in 137 million video descriptions to analyze multi-channel networks that further facilitate commercial-
traces of these strategies. We are interested in understanding ization (Lobato, 2016), and “legacy” media companies that
how creators seek to build their online presence across mul- expand into these newer platforms, for example, the music
tiple platforms and widen their income streams. The article is and news industries. The multiplication of terms used to
structured as follows: We first discuss relevant literature address these developments—next to “creator economy,”
around the creator economy, the role of platforms, and issues we find “influencer marketing,” “creative labor,” “platform
such as social capital building and economic precarity. We labor,” and others—signals the difficulty to demarcate a
then outline our data and analytical approach. The third sec- complex and layered phenomenon.
tion summarizes and presents our findings. We show how This complexity extends to the variety of available mon-
monetization and networking strategies have become more etization instruments, which includes not only direct reve-
important over time, but also differ substantially between nue from advertising, but also various kinds of affiliate
Rieder et al. 3

marketing, product placement, paid sponsorships, appear- then, is the fact that the platform relies on content created
ance fees, and other sources of income that are hard to mea- and uploaded by another group of users.
sure (Gerhards, 2019; Vrontis et al., 2021). Digital media YouTube seeks to attract and secure the loyalty of these
scholars describe a new class of “influencers” that is able to content creators through different economic incentives. Most
attract significant amounts of money from advertisers, importantly, the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), launched
albeit often under difficult labor conditions. Creators invest in 2007 and counting over two million members according to
time and energy not only in creating content but also in the company (Lyons, 2021), shares 55% of the revenue gen-
self-branding and networking across different platforms, erated by ads shown on monetized videos with their creators.
often exposing their private lives to establish and maintain The program has been central in transforming a platform
intimacy with audiences (Bishop, 2021), in the hope of hosting amateur videos into one where professionally gener-
gaining popularity and reputation, that is, of increasing ated content more aligned with the interests of advertisers
their social capital.3 As Gandini (2016, p. 124) argues, takes an always greater place (Kim, 2012). Sharing revenue
“social media has come to represent a working tool that with creators has also distinguished YouTube from other
serves the curation of a professional image and the manage- social media platforms and has been crucial for the develop-
ment of social relationships for purposes of professional ment of entrepreneurial careers (Burgess & Green, 2018)
success and career progression.” But content creators’ quest that form a proto-industry of social media entertainment
to monetize their social capital happens under great uncer- (Cunningham & Craig, 2019a) and fuel a platformed media
tainty, due to a continuously changing landscape of plat- system (Rieder et al., 2020). The YPP challenges the charac-
forms, terms of service, pay rates, competences, and terization of platforms as exploiters of free labor (Fuchs,
intermediaries, making the creator economy more often 2015) but also draws a line between “partners” and other cre-
than not part of a larger “gig economy” that faces consider- ators (Kopf, 2020).
able economic instability (Duffy, 2017; Scolere et al., 2018; To qualify for the YPP, creators have to be at least 18 years
Vallas & Schor, 2020). In the case of YouTube, bans, old and “in good standing with YouTube.” They also need at
demonetization, and algorithmic invisibility are constant least 1,000 subscribers and more than 4,000 watch hours in
threats (Duffy et al., 2021; Glatt, 2022; Kumar, 2019), par- the last 12 months (YouTube, n.d.-e). Meeting this basic
ticularly for channels that deal with sensitive topics (Caplan requirement gives access to ad revenue as long as creators
& Gillespie, 2020). Creators thus often entertain ambigu- adhere to the guidelines for “advertiser-friendly content” that
ous relationships with platforms that provide (economic) prohibit the use of inappropriate language, depiction of vio-
opportunities but may also hamper or destroy years of work lence, drug use, and other things not considered suitable for
in an instant (Scolere et al., 2018). Similar to fields like the advertisers (YouTube, n.d.-b). Prior to March 2021, YouTube
arts or journalism, platforms profit from the “aspirational” further distinguished channel “tiers” based on subscriber
character4 of much of the labor performed by users: many count—graphite (100), opal (1,000+), bronze (10,000+), sil-
creators are willing to accept precarious conditions as long ver (100,000+), gold (1,000,000+), diamond (10,000,000+),
as the promise of “making it” remains at least somewhat ruby (50,000,000+), and red diamond (100,000,000+)—giv-
believable (Duffy, 2017; Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2011; ing creators access to additional perks and resources as they
Kuehn & Corrigan, 2013). grow their audience, such as training opportunities and direct
access to partner managers. This has since been simplified to
The YouTube Economy and the Aspirational an awards system that no longer directly associates benefits
with subscriber numbers.5
Curve
Over the years, the YPP has evolved to include different
From an economic perspective, platforms like YouTube are ad formats and now offers a variety of monetization fea-
multi-sided markets. As Rochet and Tirole (2006) argue, tures inside the platform: channel memberships are a
such markets enable interactions between different types of means, similar to Patreon, for viewers to support individual
end-users and obtain revenue from this intermediation. On channels directly; Merch shelves enable creators to show-
YouTube, we can identify three different “sides”—viewers, case and sell branded merchandise; Super Chats and Super
creators, and advertisers—and the ability to balance the Stickers allow viewers to pay for having their chat mes-
interests of these groups is crucial for the platform’s success sages highlighted during live streams. Revenues from the
(Gillespie, 2010). Viewers constitute an audience that seeks subscription service YouTube Premium are also shared, and
free and unlimited access to a large variety of audiovisual in February 2023, YouTube finally introduced monetization
content. These “eyeballs” then constitute the main interest for Shorts (Southern, 2022).
for creators and advertisers to be on the platform. In that Important for the purpose of this article, the YPP also
sense, YouTube follows a business model that is similar to accepts that creators add “product placements, sponsor-
traditional media, which consists of attracting large audi- ships and endorsements” (YouTube, n.d.-a) to their videos
ences that can be sold as a commodity to advertisers (Smythe, with appropriate disclosure. Product placement, for exam-
1977). What distinguishes YouTube from traditional media, ple, can take the form of links in video descriptions, verbal
4 Social Media + Society

Table 1. Estimation of Ad Revenue Per Subscriber Tier, Based on the Distribution of Views Reported in Rieder et al. (2020) and
Google’s Disclosure of Ad Revenue of $15 Billion for 2019, of Which $8,25 Billion Were Distributed to Channels.

10M+ 1M–10M 100k–1M (Silver) 10k–100k (Bronze) 1k–10k <1k

(Diamond) (Gold) (Opal)
Channel count 517 14,969 138,284 769,472 3,491,938 31,727,531
Percentage of 9.8% 27.5% 25% 17.6% 11.4% 8.6%
views
Share of revenue 10.7% 30.1% 27.4% 19.2% 12.5% 0%
Average revenue $1,707,446 $165,892 $16,346 $2,058 $295
per year

advertisement in videos, or “visual-only” promotions where an important role in creators’ search for what has been called
a product is merely displayed (Schwemmer & Ziewiecki, “alternative monetization strategies” (Hua et al., 2022), at
2018, p. 11). Although the inclusion of affiliated links in least in certain sectors of the ecosystem, there are other fac-
video descriptions, which allows creators to obtain a com- tors to take into account. Early studies already indicated that
mission for transactions made after viewers click on the popular content creators on YouTube have always deployed
link, is common on YouTube (Mathur et al., 2018; Ørmen a wide array of strategies to find success (Morreale, 2014).
& Gregersen, 2022; Schwemmer & Ziewiecki, 2018), the But more fundamentally, a system animated by low barriers
YPP does not explicitly recognize the practice as an official of entry, high aspirational attractivity, performance-based
revenue stream available to creators. Affiliate links are only pay, and hierarchization through cumulative advantage
mentioned in YouTube’s external links policy (YouTube, (Hindman, 2009) is bound to produce a long-tailed income
n.d.-d), which states that they are allowed as long as they do distribution where the vast majority of participants will not
not violate spam guidelines. be able to find economic success. To illustrate this principle,
Despite the multiplication of monetization possibilities we use data from our previous analysis of a large-scale sam-
within YouTube, income from advertising remains the cen- ple of over 36 million YouTube channels (Rieder et al.,
tral source of revenue for the platform, growing from 8.1 bil- 2020), to estimate average advertising income for channels,
lion in 2018 to 28.8 billion in 2021. To protect its business divided into tiers based on subscriber numbers (Table 1).
model, YouTube has had to adjust numerous times to exter- While this calculation has a number of limitations,7 it pro-
nal controversies that have challenged its economic interests. vides an order of magnitude for channel income across
In the first years, music copyright violations were a major YouTube. Taking the highly uneven distribution of views as
problem, leading the company to introduce the Content ID a stand-in for revenue, we see that only a small fraction of
system to appease music companies (Burgess & Green, channels can expect to earn a living wage from advertising
2018). More recently, the need to provide a “safe” environ- income. The vast majority of creators are stuck on the lower
ment for advertisers has prompted it to take a more active rungs of what we call the “aspirational curve,” that is, the
role in content curation. This shift occurred in lockstep with emergent distribution of success in a market where large
moments of crisis, most clearly in 2018 when advertisers numbers of participants are willing to perform “hope labor,”
withdrew from YouTube after discovering that their ads were a “future-oriented investment” (Kuehn & Corrigan, 2013,
running on videos promoting terrorism and hate speech, p. 10) that is likely to never pan out. Our numbers indeed
what later became known as the first “adpocalypse” (Caplan show a steep income pyramid where the lower tiers are basi-
& Gillespie, 2020; Kumar, 2019). YouTube’s ad policies cally working for free. Given their relatively low contribu-
have since continued to become stricter, the most significant tion to overall view numbers—the 153,000 channels on the
move being the outright “demonetization” of certain kinds of top account for 62% of all views—it could be argued that
content such as “low-quality”6 videos, which has had major these smaller channels are simply irrelevant to YouTube. But
consequences for some creators (Caplan & Gillespie, 2020). they play an important role as an “innovation department”
These broader changes in monetization practices and, in par- that invests time, assumes risk, gains experience, and creates
ticular, the demonetization of individual YouTube channels fresh content to attract viewers. They are a standing reserve
further illustrate the uneven power relations between the of content and labor, and the “natural” replacement when
platform and creators who have limited possibilities for channels from the top cease their activity or move to other
demanding redress and, more broadly, lack any formal rec- platforms. Crucially, they put pressure on the whole system,
ognition as stakeholders in the evolution of the platform forcing even top creators to keep uploading if they want to
(Cunningham & Craig, 2019b). remain successful. In such a setting, there are strong incen-
While YouTube’s changes to monetization policies and tives to develop alternative monetization pathways, even
often erratic reaction to specific events have certainly played without any threat of demonetization. In the following
Rieder et al. 5

section, we explain how we investigate these pathways in over time, and inquire how these practices differ between chan-
more detail. nel size, thematic focus, and geographic location. In the follow-
ing two sections, we outline our methodology.
Studying Monetization and
Optimization Practices on YouTube at Data and Initial Overview
Scale This article is based on a large-scale sample of over 36 mil-
Previous Work on URLs as Indicators for lion channels that was gathered at the end of 2019. A detailed
description of the data collection method can be found in
Monetization Practices Rieder et al. (2020). In short, we used a crawling strategy
Several studies have used links in video descriptions to study that followed featured channel and subscription links. For
monetization practices on YouTube, differing in terms of this study, we zoom in on the 153,770 channels8 with at least
subject focus, data sampling, and analytical methodology. A 100,000 subscribers, for which we were able to retrieve the
study of 139,475 videos posted by the top 100 German chan- (almost)9 full video lists and collected metadata for
nels (Schwemmer & Ziewiecki, 2018) manually coded 136,909,228 videos published between 1 January 2007 and 1
domains “related to product promotion” from the 50 most December 2019. While our crawling method has its own
common domains in the data set, which accounted for limitations and caveats, we are confident that our sample
83.32% of all links in the sample. The authors found that contains virtually all channels in the Silver tier and above
there were on average more than two such links in the sam- (see Table 1). Compared with the studies by Schwemmer and
pled videos, and they were particularly concerned with the Ziewiecki (2018) and Hua et al. (2022), we are thus not lim-
increasing difficulty for users to distinguish between com- ited to German- or English-language content. At the same
mercial and non-commercial content. Another study (Mathur time, in contrast to the prefix sampling method used by
et al., 2018) working with 515,999 videos selected through Mathur et al. (2018), our sample is not representative of the
prefix sampling—a method for creating random video iden- overall video population on YouTube but focuses on those
tifiers—followed a similar research interest, focusing on (the channels that have already been successful in accumulating a
lack of) mandatory disclosures when using affiliate links. substantial number of subscribers. While a sample that
The researchers applied frequency analysis to discover link- includes videos from channels with fewer describers has its
ing patterns associated with affiliate marketing and compiled own merits, it would include many videos that were never
a list of “57 unique affiliate URL patterns from 33 different uploaded with the intention of reaching a large audience or
affiliate marketing companies” (Mathur et al., 2018, p. 9) engaging in forms of monetization.
that were then used to parse collected links to detect moneti- To analyze linking practices, we extracted all correctly
zation and disclosures. Based on their research, the authors formatted URLs from roughly 137 million videos, yielding
estimated that more than 7% of YouTube videos contain 570,996,385 individual links from the 93,186,712 video
affiliate links. Closest to our own research interest and meth- descriptions that actually contained links (68%). Since many
odology, a recent study by Hua et al. (2022) relied on the of the resulting URLs were using a shortening service like
YouNiverse data set which “covers around 25% of the top Bitly, we followed all links to their end point, finding that
100k most popular YouTube channels and around 35% of the 0.82% could not be resolved and 3.66% failed to return a
top 10k most popular” (p. 6) to investigate “alternative mon- valid response, similar to what Mathur et al. (2018) reported.
etization strategies.” Using a combination of manual coding In our analysis, we did not limit ourselves to only recent vid-
and automated analysis, they classified all of the URLs in the eos, for several reasons. First, since the volume of videos has
sample, including crypto addresses for donations, but were grown significantly over time, there is already a heavy skew
limited to English-language content. They found that 61% of toward the present. The videos published from January 2017
the channels in their sample included links to external mon- to November 2019, for example, amount to 59.8% of our
etization sites in their videos at least once, which led them to sample (compare with Figure 1). Second, older videos may
conclude that “alternative” monetization practices via link- still attract viewers. This also points to a limitation affecting
ing URLs are “extremely prevalent among popular channels analyses over time, namely that video descriptions may have
on the platform” (p. 22). been edited after a video was published, a common practice,
Our study differs from these efforts in a number of ways, especially for channels that are able to attract viewers to their
particularly in terms of subject focus, where we inquire not older videos and want to monetize them.
only into monetization in a strict sense, but also into the broader With these caveats in mind, Figure 1 shows how linking
process of professionalization, which includes building social practices in our sample have evolved over time. While the
capital beyond YouTube. Using a near-complete data set, we majority of older videos do not contain links, this trend
also provide the first overall picture of monetization and net- reversed in 2012 and has since stabilized at around 75% of
working practices by “elite” channels on YouTube at scale and videos containing at least one link.
6 Social Media + Society

Figure 1. Monthly change of video volume and percentage of videos with and without URLs.

Coding Monetization and Networking Via monetization links, we find that 14.79% of YouTube videos
Domain Names make use of at least one of these revenue sources. This is
higher than the 7% in Mathur et al.’s (2018) random sample,
In an effort to get a more detailed account of monetization which can be explained by our inclusion of music streaming
and networking strategies on YouTube, we manually coded sites and stronger skew toward popular channels, but it is
the top 1,000 domains present in the video descriptions of our lower than the 18% found in the English-language sample in
sample of 571 million URLs.10 Together, these 1,000 domains Hua et al. (2022). Figure 2 adds detail by tracking the evolu-
cover 86.42% of all links. The distribution has a very long tail tion of linking practices over time. Intra-platform and cross-
with 865,488 unique domains overall, showing considerable platform links grew at a fast pace, slowing down somewhat
diversity when it comes to connecting with the web. In an around 2016. Monetization through marketplace links also
iterative grounded coding approach, three coders indepen- stabilized around that time at around 16%–17% of all videos.
dently classified the list of domains. Following the first itera- Crowdfunding comes in at a much lower level and stabiliza-
tion, the coders agreed on five categories. In line with our tion occurs a little later, around 2018. Interestingly, links that
broader research interest, our classification considered “value are part of our “other” category or not classified are steadily
generation mechanisms” in less granular fashion than other going down. One possible explanation of this finding might
studies, distinguishing between cross-platform (links to other be that having one’s own domain in video descriptions is
social media platforms), intra-platform (links to YouTube becoming less important in a moment of “platformization”
content and channels), marketplace (links to websites that (Helmond, 2015) where a few proprietary platforms increas-
offer direct income streams to creators), crowdfunding (links ingly dominate the internet.
to services like Patreon, GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and PayPal), When looking at the most linked domain names (Table 2),
and other domains. Since a website or platform may offer we instantly recognize the familiar pattern that a small num-
more than one revenue stream to creators, we assigned more ber of heavily linked sites dominate. YouTube itself accounts
than one label to certain domains instead of resorting to fully for over a third of all links and, on further investigation, we
exclusive categories. We remained on the level of the domain discovered that 59% are links to channels, 20% to playlists,
and did not include specific URL patterns in our classifica- 18% to videos, and 3% could not be parsed. This shows how
tion. We also cross-referenced our list with both Mathur et al. creators seek to direct viewers to their own channels and vid-
(2018) and Hua et al. (2022). In a second iteration, all coders eos, but also to other creators.
assigned the above codes to domain names independently Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the pillars of cross-
once more. After this second iteration, the coders discussed platform linking (Figure 3), with over half of the channels
their differences and came to an agreement. Appendix A under observation linking to each of these platforms at least
explains our categories in more detail. once. This shows how these services have become central to
the quest for gaining visibility, accumulating social capital,
and constructing “a platform-independent brand with the
Findings freedom to leave YouTube if conditions become unsatisfac-
Basic Findings tory” (Ørmen & Gregersen, 2022, p. 15). The now defunct
Google+ already comes in at much lower numbers and con-
Looking at the full sample of videos, we found that 68% of tinues to lose ground; more topic- or country-specific ser-
video descriptions contain at least one link and, respectively, vices like Twitch, VK, Pinterest, and Discord—although
44.2% for intra-platform, 49% for cross-platform, 13.4% for important in specific content categories like Gaming or
marketplace, and 2.55% for crowdfunding links. If we con- Howto&Style—are nowhere near as popular as these “gen-
sider marketplace and crowdfunding together as “alternative” eral-purpose” social platforms.
Rieder et al. 7

Figure 2. Evolution of URL categories over time.

Table 2. The Top 20 Most Linked Domains.

Domain Number of videos Number of times Number of channels Average number of links to Average view count
with domain domain is used having the domain in domain per video using the per video
at least one video domain
youtube.com 61,136,695 202,512,766 129,988 3.31 191,166
facebook.com 56,844,667 68,459,334 102,459 1.20 175,857
twitter.com 47,851,232 54,013,191 77,652 1.13 172,218
instagram.com 28,220,142 32,565,093 92,079 1.15 257,392
plus.google.com 7,504,791 7,728,009 10,903 1.03 104,035
play.google.com 5,737,921 6,369,735 48,649 1.11 216,163
twitch.tv 4,643,068 5,733,792 20,948 1.23 126,580
vk.com 3,699,364 5,524,526 12,952 1.49 179,040
accounts.google.com 2,842,577 2,966,170 12,676 1.04 116,930
soundcloud.com 2,238,778 3,227,781 39,856 1.44 325,011
itunes.apple.com 2,180,841 2,446,946 25,014 1.12 355,875
patreon.com 2,164,406 2,313,591 13,733 1.07 154,004
pinterest.com 2,016,337 2,095,498 6,923 1.04 163,127
amazon.com 1,746,282 6,083,436 37,602 3.48 468,534
apps.apple.com 1,631,920 1,774,244 23,620 1.09 188,781
discord.gg 1,401,069 1,511,300 9,372 1.08 139,291
google.com 1,215,290 1,255,340 9,882 1.03 171,092
open.spotify.com 1,062,797 1,347,938 30,042 1.27 1,291,757
creativecommons.org 852,377 1,095,396 23,946 1.29 410,075
steamcommunity.com 827,871 1,060,872 8,482 1.28 98,981
8 Social Media + Society

Figure 3. The 10 top cross-platform domains over time.

Figure 4. The 10 top marketplace domains over time.

When it comes to our broad marketplace category point toward download pages for apps, for example, Zee5,
(Figure 4), Google Play and the different Apple stores are a popular Indian video on demand service. Music services
the most common domains. Many of the links in our sample like SoundCloud, iTunes, and Spotify indicate another
Rieder et al. 9

Figure 5. The 10 top crowdfunding domains over time.

pathway to direct monetization as these services provide Investigating Channels

income through sales or streaming. The videos linking to
these services generally have a higher view count as music YouTube channels remain the most pertinent unit of analysis
videos are often watched more than once. The various when it comes to studying monetization and networking
Amazon country domains clearly dominate the affiliate practices because they structure production and output on
sales monetization space. What we notice, here, is that YouTube. One of the characteristics of YouTube as a plat-
these links often appear in clusters (the average number of formed media system is channel diversity (Ørmen &
links in a video that has at least one link to amazon.com is Gregersen, 2022; Rieder et al., 2020). This means that,
3.48), possibly the result of creators linking to their video while we could calculate values for domains found in an
equipment in every video they make and similar practices. “average” channel, it would hardly represent the important
In the crowdfunding category (Figure 5), Patreon and differences between large and small channels in terms of
PayPal are most prominent, and other sites such as subscriber or viewer numbers, between channels active in
GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and Tipeee also appear within the different content categories, and between channels based in
top 10 ranking. DonationAlerts/DonatePay (subsidiaries of different locales.
VK) and APOIA.se specialize in two particularly active When looking at the distribution of linking activities over
YouTube countries: 27% of all 5,061 Russian channels in our our channel collection (Figure 6), two extremes come into
sample link to the former at least once, and 6% of the 9,907 view. The peaks at both ends of the histogram indicate that
Brazilian channels to the latter. there are channels that pay scrupulous attention to placing
Overall, we notice the importance of cross-platform links in a large majority of their videos—87,455 channels
linking, which confirms the hypothesis that creators are (56.9%) have links in at least 80% of their videos—while
investing heavily in social capital and brand building. another group invests little in linking (29,665 channels,
Marketplace and crowdfunding URLs are found much less 19.3%, have links in less than 20% of their videos). Indeed,
frequently, despite the fact that each has dominant actors 10,460 channels (6.8%) in our sample have videos listed, but
that reach across content categories and geographies, without even a single link in any of them. These channels
accompanied by websites that specialize in specific content generally have lower subscriber, video, and channel view
categories or geographies, indicating a “tiered” system of counts, but an almost three times higher average view count
linking. per video. Looking at these channels’ self-chosen country
10 Social Media + Society

Figure 6. Percentage of videos with links distributed across the channel population.

flags, Asia (India, Indonesia, Thailand), Latin America and a more positive likeratio tend to link more (0.109/0.104
(Brazil, Mexico), and the Middle East (Egypt, Turkey) are correlation) overall and particularly to other platforms
overrepresented compared with the channels that do link, but (0.188/0.158 correlation). These channels may be more
almost half (43.5%) have no country selected, indicating explicit in asking for audience reactions (“leave a like”) or
lower attention to metadata optimization than the linkers, audience feedback (“let me know in the comments”), seek-
where only 21.5% miss that information. In terms of content, ing to boost both algorithmic visibility and community para-
these channels often feature music videos and content target- sociality. They also monetize more heavily, both with regard
ing kids, which explains the high per video view numbers, as to marketplace and crowdfunding.
well as TV shows and movie-related content. Three observa- Channels that want to gain social capital on YouTube do
tions can explain the lack of linking here. First, large parts of so largely via intra- and cross-platform links, which account
this content may be bootlegged and shared without the inten- for the largest number of links overall. When it comes to
tion to create a professional YouTube presence or brand. the most obvious “alternative” sources of revenue (crowd-
Second, the infrastructure for alternative monetization in funding and marketplace), however, we find that most
many non-Western countries remains limited, making link- channels in our sample do not monetize heavily outside of
ing less relevant. For example, we could not find specialized YouTube, at least not through URLs. About 53,256 (34.6%)
crowdfunding sites for India,11 while we did for Russia do not use marketplace links even once and 115,904
(DonationAlerts) and Brazil (APOIA.se). Third, countries (75.37%) in fewer than 20% of their videos. Only 10,221
like India are generally “mobile first”12 and linking into the (6.6%) have such links in 80% or more of their videos. For
open web may simply be less important. While this may crowdfunding, the numbers are even lower: 127,805
seem counterintuitive, we also found that channels with a (83.1%) channels do not use crowdfunding links even once
denser posting schedule link and monetize slightly less. This and 144,521 (94%) use them in fewer than 20% of their
may be an effect of high-volume channels such as news sta- videos. Only 2,675 (1.74%) add crowdfunding links in 80%
tions that often post many videos per day with relatively little of their videos or more. These findings nuance previous
invested in YouTube/internet-native practices. Video dura- claims around affiliate links and crowdfunding sites being
tion does also not correlate with linking behavior. common revenue sources for YouTubers wanting to profes-
On the other extreme, we find channels that are heavily sionalize (e.g., Cunningham & Craig, 2019a; Hua et al.,
invested in networking within YouTube and beyond. Looking 2022; Ørmen & Gregersen, 2022).
more deeply into the relationship between linking practices
and other channel behaviors, we find, unsurprisingly, that Subscriber Tiers. Considering the great differences in terms
channels that link a lot also promote or feature other chan- of subscriber and view numbers between channels, one ques-
nels in their YouTube profiles more (0.15 correlation). One tion is how monetization and networking practices change
explanation for this finding is that channels that want to suc- between subscriber tiers. Following YouTube’s now defunct
ceed economically on YouTube will either have more than nomenclature, Table 3 shows the relative percentages of link-
one channel or promote other channels to network and poten- ing categories for silver (100k-1M), gold (1M-10M), and
tially gain visibility. Another set of insights into profession- diamond (10M+) channels. We notice that crowdfunding, in
alization comes from indicators that connect with community particular, grows as we move down the hierarchy, with mar-
building and audience interaction. Relying on metrics we ketplace going into the opposite direction.
developed in the context of our previous publication (Rieder Table 3 shows that the tiers are progressively differentiated
et al., 2020)—intensity (the relationship between views and in terms of channel age (“days active”) as well as number of
more “active” reactions such as liking, disliking, and com- videos. Diamond channels are older, on average, and have
menting) and likeratio (the relationship between like and dis- posted almost six times as many videos as Silver channels.
likes)—we find that channels with higher average intensity This connects to what Gregersen and Ørmen (2023) have
Rieder et al. 11

Table 3. Channel Statistics Split by Subscriber Tier.

Count Mean (videos Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean Mean
with URL %) (marketplace %) (crowd %) (cross-platform %) (intra-platform %) (days active) (number of (average
videos) intensity)
Diamond 517 88.11 33.12 1.18 69.25 63.26 3070.61 4595.35 2.9
Gold 14,969 83.78 22.35 2.97 64.52 57.85 2375.11 2279.2 3.3
Silver 138,284 73.17 17.23 4.50 52.59 44.13 2090.65 782.3 3.62

Figure 7. Percentage of videos with links for countries with at least 100 channels in our sample.

called the “output imperative,” but also to geographic particu- Countries. As we have previously noted, monetization and
larities: an important number of highly subscribed Asian networking practices are distributed unequally with respect
channels, like T-Series or SET India, have published tens of to geographies. Using the creator-chosen country flags for
thousands of music clips or television programming, follow- channels as indicators, we can explore this distribution in
ing a different publication rhythm as “typical” Western chan- more detail. As Figure 7 shows, URLs in video descriptions
nels. Diamond channels are less community-oriented, are most heavily present in Western countries with Japan,
however: they rely less on crowdfunding and their videos Russia, and Vietnam constituting notable exceptions. Latin
solicit less intense reactions (see “average intensity” column America mostly sits in the middle, although we notice that
in Table 3). In that sense, they resemble TV channels more limiting ourselves to countries with at least 100 channels
than what one would imagine as “traditional” YouTube chan- excludes smaller countries on that continent as well as much
nels. Their high use of marketplace links again shows that the of Africa. Linking practices to marketplace sites (Figure 8)
link between “alternative” forms of monetization and the show an even more accentuated pattern, with German and
waves of adpocalypse may be exaggerated. These channels Austrian channels standing out as monetizing particularly
are mostly safe from demonetization and simply seek to max- heavily and the Global South showing much lower use
imize revenue like other businesses in a capitalist economy. overall.
12 Social Media + Society

Figure 8. Percentage of videos linking to marketplaces for countries with at least 100 channels in our sample.

Figure 9 indicates that Ireland, Australia, Canada, Austria, previous sections. The “big three” (Facebook, Instagram,
and the United Kingdom are the channel geographies most and Twitter) dominate across all content categories, indicat-
strongly relying on crowdfunding—all smaller countries that ing that these “general-purpose” platforms have become
are part of a larger language sphere. Russia has compara- unavoidable promotion tools for YouTube content creators.
tively high levels of crowdfunding (given that marketplace A level below, however, we find more specific relations
links are not very prominent), which can be explained by the between content categories and social media domains.
availability of specialized sites like DonationAlerts, by the Twitch and Discord are strongly associated with gaming, and
international sanctions in place since the invasion of Crimea Pinterest is prominent across categories, but particularly
in 2014 making monetization through advertisement more present in Howto&Style and Pets&Animals.
difficult, and by the country’s prominence in the Gaming When zooming into direct monetization tactics (linking
content category, which is particularly active in that regard. practices to marketplace and crowdsourcing sites), we see
significant differences between verticals. As we found previ-
Monetization and Networking Per Video Category. Video cate- ously (Rieder et al., 2020), Gaming is a particularly competi-
gories are another useful unit of analysis to investigate struc- tive category, where many channels are trying to “make it”
tural fault lines in YouTube’s platformed media system. and where the concept of “hope labor” (Kuehn & Corrigan,
Unlike channel categories, which are automatically attrib- 2013) applies most clearly. The category has the highest per-
uted by YouTube, video categories such as Gaming and centage of links across all our classification categories, that
News&Politics are set by video creators for each of their vid- is, intra- and cross-platforms as well as marketplace and
eos. YouTube itself refers to these categories as “verticals” crowd monetization links. This somewhat contradicts the
(Patel, 2021), indicating both their importance for organizing findings by Schwemmer and Ziewiecki (2018) and Mathur
content and the substantial differences between them. et al. (2018), who found that Technology and Howto&Style
Figure 10 shows that cross-platform and intra-platform had the most affiliate marketing. These two categories are
linking practices are important across content categories, among the highest in our data as well—for example, Asian
which aligns with the general findings described in the gadget websites such as Gearbest and Banggood are
Rieder et al. 13

Figure 9. Percentage of videos linking to crowdfunding sites for countries with at least 100 channels in our sample.

prominent in Science&Technology—but significantly behind from video descriptions is a very common practice that has
Gaming. We also find that Music links to marketplace steadily increased over the years. On average, there are
domains at a high level, although this is certainly due to our 4.17 URLs in the almost 137 million videos in our sample.
choice to include streaming services. About one third of those links connect within the platform
When it comes to crowdfunding specifically, Gaming and two thirds point elsewhere. While we have described
again stands out, in line with the community focus that also YouTube as a platformed media system that hosts a large
manifests in the highest intensity level (Rieder et al., 2020), and heterogeneous population of content creators, it is
which may also be connected to the high prevalence of live “porous” in the sense that incoming and outgoing connec-
streams. But we also find relatively high levels of crowd- tions abound, and a considerable part of social and eco-
funding in Science&Technology, Comedy, and Pets&Animals. nomic activities “leak” elsewhere. Since native ads, as we
News&Politics and Sports are particularly low on both crowd have estimated in Table 1, only generate substantial reve-
and marketplace percentages suggesting that videos in these nue for a limited number of channels, there is pressure to
categories may come in large parts from “non-native” chan- look for other forms of income. The largest part of linking
nels such as TV news, which have not yet fully invested in practices is, however, not directed toward direct monetiza-
YouTube economics or may even be funded by public tion opportunities, but toward other social media platforms
institutions. for the purpose of social capital accumulation, which may
Interestingly, Nonprofits&Activism channels show the in turn drive back traffic and serve as a (limited) fallback in
highest use of links in our “other” category, indicating a cer- case of trouble with YouTube. Even channels with few or
tain resistance to platformization, although even here, we see no traces of direct monetization (marketplace and crowd-
a heavy drop-off over time (Appendix B). funding) in their video descriptions make sure that links to
other “socials” are in place, confirming Gandini’s (2016)
hypothesis that content creators are investing heavily in
Discussion and Conclusion social capital and brand building.
The first and most general observation we can make is that, Concretely, this means that Facebook, Twitter, and
at least for the elite channels that we have analyzed, linking Instagram form the first rung of a highly skewed linking
14 Social Media + Society

Figure 10. Relationship between video categories and types of linking (number of videos in brackets).

hierarchy, with 42% of all external URLs pointing to one of While linking is overall popular, our analyses have identi-
these three. All other social media sites are far behind in fied two very different extremes when it comes to linking
terms of numbers, even if their presence can be considerable behavior, even within our sample of highly successful chan-
in certain topic areas (e.g., Twitch and Discord for Gaming) nels. While there are many channels that pay scrupulous
or geographies (VK for Russia). A similar hierarchy emerges attention to placing links in a large majority of their videos
with regard to specific forms of monetization: Amazon dom- (48,6% of channels have links in at least 90% of their vid-
inates affiliate programs, Patreon is by far the most common eos), a second group invests little or no effort in linking
(external) crowdfunding service, and Apple and Spotify con- (15,6% have links in fewer than 10% of their videos).
trol the music market outside of YouTube itself. The fact that Overall, almost 32% of videos have no links at all. While this
both Apple’s and Google’s online stores combine the sale of part of YouTube includes channels and videos from countries
all kinds of products with affiliate programs complicates fur- that have less developed alternative monetization infrastruc-
ther differentiation concerning the precise economic activi- tures and “mobile first” habits that deemphasize linking,
ties their domains are indicators of. these findings also point to remnants of the “old” YouTube,
The clear overall trend toward platformization is further where contents can be non-commercial, artistic, weird, or
confirmed by the steady reduction of sites we have classified blatantly illegal, and still find a large audience. For example,
as “other”: while they made up roughly 15%–20% of the the channel with the largest number of uploads in our sam-
overall linking volume until 2013, this has since declined to ple, Webdriver Torso with over 600,000 videos listed, auto-
around 5%. This does not preclude that smaller actors can matically generates videos with abstract shapes and beeps
play important roles in certain niches or geographies, but the that YouTube apparently uses for performance testing and
ongoing process of “ingestion” of online activity into a lim- the occasional joke. Some of the non-linking channels thus
ited number of platforms and services complements the pro- fall into the “avoidance” category identified by Ørmen and
gressive rise of linking on YouTube. Gregersen (2022), as they “actively avoid or passively ignore
Rieder et al. 15

monetization on the platform” (p. 15) for various reasons, rest, but national and language spheres developing at differ-
while others may in fact follow a “conformity” strategy that ent speeds and in different directions within the larger fold of
“relies solely on YouTube-native monetization options” a platformed media system. Exploring these particularities is
(p. 13) and does not bother to connect directly to other web- one of several directions for further research that comes out
sites. In the absence of easy techniques to detect whether a of our work. Suffice to say, we should be careful when trans-
video is monetized on YouTube or not, it is hard to distin- posing experiences from Western countries to the other parts
guish these categories automatically. of the world: YouTube, seen as a platformed media system, is
The same limitation applies to attempts to distinguish “localized” in many different ways. That said, US platforms
channels that monetize solely off-platform from those that globally dominate the social media services YouTube cre-
profit from YouTube-native income streams as well. Overall, ators link to.
monetization through linking remains relatively rare in our The sheer size of YouTube also means that the channels
sample of popular channels. About 75.37% of channels have putting marketplace or crowdfunding links into at least 80%
marketplace links in fewer than 20% of their videos and only of their videos still amount to 10,221 and 2,675 channels,
6.6% in 80% or more. For crowdfunding, the numbers are respectively, a sizable number given our sample of 153,770
even lower with 94% in fewer than 20% of videos and 1.74% channels. And there are another 4.26 million channels in our
in 80% or more. This does not include paid product place- sample that have between 1,000 and 100,000 subscribers,
ments or other forms of “non-linked” income, but it does which we have not analyzed. While these channels would
show that this rather accessible pillar of monetization—both have a hard time earning a living wage outside of particu-
affiliate programs and crowdfunding platforms are relatively larly profitable niches, they add substantially to the overall
low effort—is not as common as often hypothesized. We also economy on the platform. We have indeed found that mar-
do not see an uptick in the prevalence of such links during ketplace linking diminishes as we go down the subscriber
the various “adpocalypses” that started in 2018 (Caplan & rungs, whereas crowdfunding increases. With this and the
Gillespie, 2020). If anything, their growth starts to slow finding that channels that often link to crowdfunding sites
down around 2016. are geared toward community building, we can argue that
One of the reasons for this cognitive mismatch is that smaller channels are emphasizing monetization schemes
YouTube is a much larger and much less Western-dominated that reward closer relationships with viewers (crowdfund-
platform than the English-language literature, which often ing), whereas larger channels emphasize monetization
focuses on political issues pertaining to Western countries, schemes that benefit from scale. This also shows that there
leads us to expect. Since our sample is internationally diverse is no upper bound to income aspirations: very large channels
and topically agnostic, a more comprehensive picture that are highly unlikely to be demonetized are the heaviest
emerges. One of the key findings of our project, which users of affiliate links.
already became visible during our initial exploration of the We also found considerable differences between topic
same data set (Rieder et al., 2020), are the important differ- areas or “verticals.” Gaming, as so often, stands out as the
ences between geographies when it comes to monetization domain where all types of links are used the most heavily,
and networking practices. The creator economy in countries with Howto&Style, Music, and Science&Technology over-
like India, the biggest video producer in our sample, looks represented for marketplace links. With the exception of
substantially different from what we see in the Western Music, where links to streaming services dominate, these
world. There, we find very large channels producing very categories are the classic “vlogger” domains, where we find
large numbers of music videos, tv shows, and even full- “let’s play” videos, technology reviews, beauty tips, and
length feature films without investing as heavily in linking or similar YouTube-native content. These are the areas where
“alternative” forms of monetization. The mobile phone as the pressure from the aspirational character of the work is
the primary consumption device may be one explanatory fac- particularly high: as we previously found (Rieder et al.,
tor, the lack of easy access to a monetization infrastructure 2020), Gaming channels are trying the hardest to “make it”
another, but there may also be less “demonetization pres- and the heavy use of monetization links further confirms
sure” to contend with. As the Francis Haugen (Rev, 2021) this finding.
hearings revealed, platforms—in this case Facebook, but This leads us back to an argument we started to develop
there is little reason to believe that the situation with YouTube with our rough estimate of average channel income. Given
would be substantially different—invest much more heavily the lack of visibility of the “adpocalypse” in our data, we
in Western language spheres when it comes to content mod- argue that demonetization may add to the pressure to diver-
eration, and this may spill over into areas like demonetiza- sify income streams, but the aspirational curve itself—the
tion. Countries like Brazil (APOIA.se), Russia fact that there are thousands or millions of creators hoping
(DonationAlerts), and others are nevertheless big enough to to develop their channels into viable businesses—is already
support a nascent infrastructure of companies that provide turning the platform into a pressure cooker for creators. To
possibilities for alternative monetization adapted to local cir- boil the story down to its most bare-bones expression: there
cumstances. This is not simply a story of the West vs. the is an abundant supply of people hoping to turn playing
16 Social Media + Society

video games into a career. This does not mean that the often Declaration of Conflicting Interests
capricious governance of YouTube is irrelevant, but that the The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
organization of the platform as a porous market recreates respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
the competition and uncertainty dynamics we know all too article.
well from other artistic/media sectors. The precarity we
find on YouTube is thus not simply due to being “plat- Funding
formed” but also to being a “media system.” What plat- The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
formization changes, here, is that the barriers of entry are for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
even lower and some level of income is generated relatively work has been supported by the Platform Digitale Infrastructuur
early, furthering creators’ hope that this could become a Social Science and Humanities (PDI-SSH).
profession somewhere down the line. Much like in other
media industries, the aspirational labor creators perform on ORCID iDs
YouTube is constantly fueled by new entrants seeking to Bernhard Rieder https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2404-9277
make it on the platform. YouTube has the same lack of
Erik Borra https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2677-3864
labor rights as Uber or Deliveroo, but young people are
dreaming of becoming influencers, not delivery drivers, Òscar Coromina https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6306-4154
and this means that they are willing, at least for some time, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernandez https://orcid.org/0000-0003-
to work for less than little. 2149-3820
YouTube has no incentives to change this, on the contrary.
While the top channels are providing the bulk of views and Notes
advertising income, the (still) fundamental openness of the 1. In addition to sharing advertisement revenue, YouTube has
platform—which we can see in the considerable heterogeneity specific funds for Shorts and “black voices” in 2022, while
in our findings—means that the company can delegate innova- TikTok’s “creator fund” constitutes the main form of revenue
tion and the risks that come with it to its creators. This extends going from platform to creators that exceed certain popularity
to monetization. While advertising and paid promotions in thresholds.
2. YouTube also provides an array of affordances for building
videos are governed by a number of explicit rules, linking is
social capital and community engagement within the platform,
largely unregulated, which may actually be a perk from for example, the comment function and the “community” tab,
YouTube’s perspective: instead of prohibiting links that move which are beyond the scope of this study.
economic activity off-site, the company is able to see what 3. As formulated by Bourdieu (1986), social capital depends on
“works” and can replicate these features within its own inter- the volume of network connections an actor can mobilize and
face. Channel subscriptions and various forms of tipping emu- on their belonging to certain collectives.
late Patreon and PayPal, merch shelves and shopping features 4. At least one survey now mentions YouTuber/Vlogger as the
move certain kinds of sales in-house, and so forth. And even most desired job among young people in several Western
value that is not captured in this way is useful to the company countries, guaranteeing an endless supply of new entrants
as it sustains the creation of even more content. Instead of try- (Colagrossi, 2019).
ing to emulate Netflix and other streaming services by pouring 5. In this article, we sometimes use the old nomenclature for
easier reading.
money into original content, a strategy YouTube tried out and
6. YouTube defines “low quality” videos as those that promote
abandoned, the aspirational curve wins the battle for efficiency harmful behavior and are too “commercial or promotional,”
as creators struggle for success. The role of ranking and rec- among other principles (YouTube, n.d.-c).
ommendation systems in this context is not only to help users 7. Views do not translate directly into income as cost per view
find content that they “like,” but to sharpen the contrast for advertisers varies greatly across countries and topics. Also,
between winners and losers. The result is not a singular domi- only about half of the channels above 1,000 subscribers actu-
nant mainstream, but a form of managed heterogeneity that ally participate in the YPP (Lyons, 2021).
allows for both variety and popularity to coexist. 8. A total of 2,113 (1.3%) channels in our sample had no videos
While linking allows us to study one of the three pillars of listed. This includes hundreds of internal YouTube constructs,
monetization, YouTube-native income streams and non- such as topics, video rentals, or “Popular on YouTube—
linked alternative monetization such as product placements Country” lists, which YouTube’s application programming
interface (API) exposes as channels without video count, but
remain hard if not impossible to study at scale. Future work
also channels like Machinima that removed all videos after
could combine large-scale approaches as ours as a basis for being bought by Time Warner. We also noticed channels that
sampling to apply manual or automatic modes of content habitually delete their videos very quickly after posting them,
analysis or ad detection. As YouTube grows at a steady pace, possibly to escape copyright violation detection. Finally, there
we need to understand the platformed media system it instan- were many kids channels without videos, possibly in anticipa-
tiates much better to further scrutinize its role as the truly tion of the tighter rules coming with the “YouTube for Kids”
globalized content behemoth it has become. program early 2020.
Rieder et al. 17

9. The data collection depends on YouTube’s Web-API and its the digital age (pp. 26–41). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://
limitations, some of which are known, while others may be doi.org/10.1057/9781137478573_2.
unknown. For example, for 83 channels with over 100,000 Gandini, A. (2016). Digital work: Self-branding and social capital
listed videos, we were only able to retrieve the most recent in the freelance knowledge economy. Marketing Theory, 16(1),
100,000 videos. 123–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593115607942
10. We share the code and classification data for our project here: Gerhards, C. (2019). Product placement on YouTube: An explor-
https://github.com/ErikBorra/yt_url_analysis/ ative study on YouTube creators’ experiences with advertis-
11. Also, the US-based platform Patreon notified that it was hav- ers. Convergence: The International Journal of Research
ing problems in India after the India Reserve Bank (RBI) into New Media Technologies, 25(3), 516–533. https://doi.
announced new regulation in late 2020 (Patreon, n.d.). org/10.1177/1354856517736977
Furthermore, Patreon only accepts USD, which makes it diffi- Gillespie, T. (2010). The politics of “platforms.” New Media & Society,
cult to use in countries without easy access to foreign currency. 12(3), 347–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809342738
12. Statista estimates that 73% of Indian internet traffic in Glatt, Z. (2022). “We’re all told not to put our eggs in one bas-
2019 came from mobile phones. https://www.statista.com/ ket”: Uncertainty, precarity and cross-platform labor in the
statistics/558610/number-of-mobile-internet-user-in-india/ online video influencer industry. International Journal of
Communication, 16, 1–19.
References Gregersen, A., & Ørmen, J. (2023). The output imperative:
Productivity and precarity on YouTube. Information,
Bishop, S. (2021). Influencer management tools: Algorithmic cul- Communication & Society, 26, 1363–1380. https://doi.org/10
tures, brand safety, and bias. Social Media + Society, 7(1), .1080/1369118X.2021.2006745
1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211003066 Helmond, A. (2015). The platformization of the web: Making web
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), data platform ready. Social Media + Society, 1(2), 1–11. https://
Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of educa- doi.org/10.1177/2056305115603080
tion (pp. 241–258). Greenwood. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2019). Have digital communication tech-
Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2009). The entrepreneurial vlogger: nologies democratized the media industries? In J. Curran &
Participatory culture beyond the professional/amateur divide. D. Hesmondhalgh (Eds.), Media and society (pp. 101–120).
In P. Snickars & P. Vonderau (Eds.), The YouTube reader Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501340765
(pp. 89–107). National Library of Sweden. Hesmondhalgh, D., & Baker, S. (2011). Creative labour: Media
Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2018). YouTube: Online video and partici- work in three cultural industries. Routledge.
patory culture (2nd ed.). Polity Press. Hindman, M. S. (2009). The myth of digital democracy. Princeton
Burgess, J., Marwick, A., & Poell, T. (2018). The SAGE handbook University Press.
of social media. SAGE. Hua, Y., Ribeiro, M. H., West, R., Ristenpart, T., & Naaman, M.
Caplan, R., & Gillespie, T. (2020). Tiered governance and demon- (2022). Characterizing alternative monetization strategies on
etization: The shifting terms of labor and compensation in the YouTube. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2203.10143
platform economy. Social Media + Society, 6(2), 1–13. https:// Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring partici-
doi.org/10.1177/2056305120936636 patory culture. NYU Press.
Chadwick, A. (2013). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Kim, J. (2012). The institutionalization of YouTube: From user-
Oxford University Press. generated content to professionally generated content. Media,
Colagrossi, M. (2019, August 1). American kids today dream of Culture & Society, 34(1), 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/
being vloggers, not astronauts. Big Think. https://bigthink.com/ 0163443711427199
the-present/vloggers-astronauts/ Kopf, S. (2020). “Rewarding good creators”: Corporate social
Cunningham, S., & Craig, D. (2017). Being “really real” on media discourse on monetization schemes for content cre-
YouTube: Authenticity, community and brand culture in social ators. Social Media + Society, 6(4), 1–12. https://doi.org/
media entertainment. Media International Australia, 164(1), 10.1177/2056305120969877
71–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X17709098 Kuehn, K., & Corrigan, T. F. (2013). Hope labor: The role of
Cunningham, S., & Craig, D. (2019a). Social media entertainment. employment prospects in online social production. The Political
The new intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley (1st Economy of Communication, 1(1), Article 1.
ed.). NYU Press. https://nyupress.org/9781479846894/social- Kumar, S. (2019). The algorithmic dance: YouTube’s Adpoc­
media-entertainment alypse and the gatekeeping of cultural content on digital
Cunningham, S., & Craig, D. (2019b). Creator governance in social platforms. Internet Policy Review, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.
media entertainment. Social Media + Society, 5(4), 1–11. 14763/2019.2.1417
https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119883428 Lobato, R. (2016). The cultural logic of digital intermediaries:
Duffy, B. E. (2017). (Not) getting paid to do what you love: Gender, YouTube multichannel networks. Convergence, 22(4), 348–
social media, and aspirational work. Yale University Press. 360. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856516641628
Duffy, B. E., Pinch, A., Sannon, S., & Sawey, M. (2021). The Lyons, K. (2021, August 23). YouTube says its partner program
nested precarities of creative labor on social media. Social now has 2 million members. The Verge. https://www.theverge.
Media + Society, 7(2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305 com/2021/8/23/22636827/youtube-partner-program-2-mil-
1211021368 lion-members-creators
Fuchs, C. (2015). The digital labour theory of value and Karl Marx Mathur, A., Narayanan, A., & Chetty, M. (2018). Endorsements
in the age of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Weibo. In E. on social media: An empirical study of affiliate marketing dis-
Fisher & C. Fuchs (Eds.), Reconsidering value and labour in closures on YouTube and Pinterest. Proceedings of the ACM
18 Social Media + Society

on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 119. https://doi. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-monetizing-

org/10.1145/3274388 shorts//#close465139
Morreale, J. (2014). From homemade to store bought: Annoying Vallas, S., & Schor, J. B. (2020). What do platforms do? Under­
Orange and the professionalization of YouTube. Journal of standing the gig economy. Annual Review of Sociology,
Consumer Culture, 14(1), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 46(1), 273–294. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-
1469540513505608 054857
Nieborg, D. B., & Poell, T. (2018). The platformization of cul- van Dijck, J. (2020). Governing digital societies: Private platforms,
tural production: Theorizing the contingent cultural commod- public values. Computer Law & Security Review, 36, 1–4.
ity. New Media & Society, 20(11), 4275–4292. https://doi. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2019.105377
org/10.1177/1461444818769694 Vrontis, D., Makrides, A., Christofi, M., & Thrassou, A. (2021).
Ørmen, J., & Gregersen, A. (2022). Institutional polymorphism: Social media influencer marketing: A systematic review, inte-
Diversification of content and monetization strategies on grative framework and future research agenda. International
YouTube. Television & New Media, 24(4), 1–20. https://doi. Journal of Consumer Studies, 45(4), 617–644. https://doi.
org/10.1177/15274764221110198 org/10.1111/ijcs.12647
Patel, N. (2021, August 3). YouTube chief product officer Neal YouTube. (n.d.-a). Add paid product placements, sponsorships
Mohan on the algorithm, monetization, and the future for cre- & endorsements—YouTube Help. https://support.google.
ators. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/22606296/you- com/youtube/answer/154235?hl=en&ref_topic=9257989#
tube-shorts-fund-neal-mohan-decoder-interview zippy=%2Cwhat-happens-when-i-check-the-my-video-con-
Patreon. (n.d). Patron payments in India. Patreon Help Center. tains-paid-promotion-like-a-product-placement-sponsorship-
https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/4412670870925- or-endorsement-box
Patron-payments-in-India YouTube. (n.d.-b). Advertiser-friendly content guidelines—
Poell, T., Nieborg, D. B., & Duffy, B. E. (2022). Spaces of negotia- YouTube Help. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer
tion: Analyzing platform power in the news industry. Digital /6162278
Journalism. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.10 YouTube. (n.d.-c). Best practices for kids & family content. https://
80/21670811.2022.2103011 support.google.com/youtube/answer/10774223?hl=en
Rev. (2021, October 5). Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen YouTube. (n.d.-d). External links policy—YouTube Help. https://
testifies on children & social media use: Full senate hearing support.google.com/youtube/answer/9054257?hl=en
transcript. Rev. https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/facebook- YouTube. (n.d.-e). What is YPP? https://web.archive.org/web/
whistleblower-frances-haugen-testifies-on-children-social- 20200612002610/https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/
media-use-full-senate-hearing-transcript lesson/ypp_what-is-ypp_video
Rieder, B., Coromina, Ò., & Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2020).
Mapping YouTube. First Monday, 25(8). https://doi.org/10. Author Biographies
5210/fm.v25i8.10667 Bernhard Rieder is an associate professor of new media and digital
Rochet, J.-C., & Tirole, J. (2006). Two-sided markets: A progress culture at the University of Amsterdam. His research interests
report. The RAND Journal of Economics, 37(3), 645–667. include the history and theory of algorithmic techniques and the
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-2171.2006.tb00036.x development of digital methods for the study of large online
Schwemmer, C., & Ziewiecki, S. (2018). Social media sellout: platforms.
The increasing role of product promotion on YouTube.
Social Media + Society, 4(3), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/ Erik Borra is an assistant professor in journalism and new media at
2056305118786720 the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on digital meth-
Scolere, L., Pruchniewska, U., & Duffy, B. E. (2018). Constructing ods, controversy mapping, artificial intelligence and the develop-
the platform-specific self-brand: The labor of social media ment of new digital research instruments.
promotion. Social Media + Society, 4(3), 1–11. https://doi.
Òscar Coromina is a senior lecturer in media technology at Malmö
org/10.1177/2056305118784768
University and Serra Húnter fellow at the Autonomous University
Shapiro, R., & Aneja, S. (2019). Taking root: The growth of
of Barcelona. His research is focused on Digital Methods and
America’s new creative economy (p. 99). Recreate. https://
Digital Marketing and, more broadly, on the consequences of plat-
www.recreatecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/
formization in different areas of our everyday life.
ReCreate-2017-New-Creative-Economy-Study.pdf
Smythe, D. W. (1977). Communications: Blindspot of Western Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández is a senior lecturer in digital media
Marxism. CTheory, 1(3), 1–27. in the School of Communication at the Queensland University of
Southern, M. G. (2022, September 21). YouTube is monetiz- Technology. Her research explores social media cultures and plat-
ing shorts with 45% revenue split. Search Engine Journal. form governance.
Rieder et al. 19

Appendix A. Explanation of the Categories in Our Coding Scheme.

Cross-platform This category allows us to investigate networking to build social capital, reflecting the pressure to diversify
mentioned further up. We assigned the label to domains corresponding to (social media) platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, and Instagram, understanding them with Burgess et al. (2018, p. 1) as “services and apps
built around the convergence of content sharing, public communication and interpersonal connection.” According
to this definition, digital platforms such as Spotify, Amazon, or Dropbox are not part of this category. Social media
platforms like Facebook have their own monetization options for content creators, indicating that the separation
between social capital building and monetization is porous.
Intra-platform This category points to similar attempts to build social capital and direct traffic, but this time within YouTube itself.
These linking strategies might be interpreted as a means to give more visibility to other content made by the same
creator or to collaborations between different YouTubers and media channels.
Marketplace Signals websites that offer direct income streams to creators, for example, through the sale of goods (e.g.,
spreadshirt.com), through affiliate and referral programs (e.g., amazon.com), or through revenues from streaming
(e.g., spotify.com). Affiliate programs offer a commission for every sale attributed to a link present in content
creators’ video descriptions allowing for effective tracking of the sales and attribution to specific creators. In
contrast to Hua et al. (2022), we decided to forgo a separation between sales by a channel and affiliate marketing
since we found that these categories were often ambiguous, for example, for Etsy, but also for Amazon, iTunes,
and Google Play, where monetization can happen through affiliate programs as well as direct sales, for example of
ebooks or music.
Crowdfunding We identified crowdfunding as a separate category since this form of monetization signals an attempt to forge a
particularly close relationship with viewers. Although there are differences between direct donations, subscriptions,
and product preorders, we included services like Patreon, GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and PayPal in this category.
Other Any domain whose purpose was not clearly linked to the above categories. For example, links to personal or
corporate websites are resources that channels might add in their video descriptions to drive traffic to external
sites, very common, for example, for news channels. Of course, driving traffic to websites can lead to monetization
via users clicking on ads displayed on sites or buying products from custom web stores. Some examples of websites
coded as “other” are news websites such as france24.com and euronews.com, broadcast networks such as ruptly.
tv, qazaqstan.tv, and bj.afreecatv.com, and sectorial websites such as unionforgamers.com. This group also covers a
small percentage of URLs that could not be resolved or domains on sale that denote discontinued service.
20 Social Media + Society

Appendix B. Relationship between video categories and linking over time.