Farewell YouTube cigar videos!

VegasFrank

Don't know how many of you guys watch YouTube cigar videos, but it looks like Google has updated it's user agreement and will not allow any tobacco related content or channels to be monetized. Now a lot of these guys are dropping like flies.

Personally, I watch a wide range of them, even the ones that annoy me a little. Looks like cigar vixen and cigar obsession are going to stop posting content, and some of the other ones are migrating to other annoying platforms like patreon. 

Whether or not you watch them, it is another assault on the industry and the hobby. Disappointing to say the least...

Matt_montefan

That’s a crying shame. Used to watch Tim and Bradley when they were with TNT cigars, always got a kick out of it! So much for freedom!

Yakster

Geeze

VegasFrank

Tim and Bradley were/are my favorite.  Vixen was okay with the volume off 

0patience

Matt_montefan said:

That’s a crying shame. Used to watch Tim and Bradley when they were with TNT cigars, always got a kick out of it! So much for freedom!

Tim is at Cigars Daily now and Cigars Daily may be changing the way they do their videos. Cigars Daily will still be creating content on Youtube.
Most the others will go to Patreon for support.

Youtube has decided that they will not allow monetizing on any channel that has alcohol, tobacco or firearms, plus a long list of other things.
There are youtube channels that have been using youtube as a main source of income for years, who are now without a source of income.

Youtube channels that youtube deems as less than "authoritative" channels will be demonitized (reduced) or reduced "recommended" views. Channels that youtube's advertisers do not like, such as alcohol, tobacco and firearms, will be "un-monetized".

BKDog

I do know that Bryan at Cigar Obsession is going to keep using YouTube at least for a while and try Patreon to see if the revenues work out. He also has some other ideas in mind that he's possibly working on, but it's still the same thing on YouTube for now. I am also pretty sure Delecia is staying on YouTube as well, and as far as monetization goes, there are other ways to make money with their content than through YT. The only catch will be if they decide to not only demonitize, but remove any content with tobacco as well, and that's a far stretch although not entirely impossible. Tim at Cigars Daily said he doesn't even make YouTube videos for ad revenue, and he's more interested in just promoting the business and making great content as long as YT doesn't delete his videos, he's still going to truck along. I don't know yet about what Lee Mack has to say, but I'm pretty sure he will stick around a while at least since he wasn't really making much off any ad revenue from what I can tell.
This latest move by YouTube was sudden and obviously it's complete garbage, but many of us knew they were going to tighten the noose.

Amos_Umwhat

Turn the heat up another degree or two on that frog-boiling project, will ya?

Inch by inch, step by step, the delusion that there was once a country dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is destroyed.  First, they had to close win over their hearts and minds.

silvermouse

saw an ad on the tv last night for nic vape pens, odd since ads for tobacco are banned.

VegasFrank

They market those pens as tobacco cessation devices, which makes the ads legal. I don't think the pens have tobacco in them do they? Just nicotine...

variant2

Power mongering control over the populace is at an all time high. Freedom is never free, it's earned. Unfortunately, people have become so stupid that they're ready to give up their precious freedom for a simple Facebook like.

OldGnome

You Tube....is that some sorta Internet Web thingy?

Yakster

I'm still trying to get Google Video to work.

KenpoKnight

That stinks. I enjoy should I Smoke this, Bryan, and some others.  

Sketch6995

Screwtube has been doing this to alot of people.  Not just cigar channels but with the 1st amendment auditors channels too.  The funny this is, the ads seem to stay on the channels but who gets the cash?
Pretty crappy.

VegasFrank

^^ in the last few days, I've noticed that all of the videos now have two commercials on them to start and one at the end.  So they've taken away the revenue stream for content creators AND have increased advertising.

Land of the free or home of the slaves?

Now, Facebook and Instagram are banning all ATF sales, to include in PMs and private groups.  They are beginning to delete content starting today...

jd50ae

VegasFrank said:

^^ in the last few days, I've noticed that all of the videos now have two commercials on them to start and one at the end.  So they've taken away the revenue stream for content creators AND have increased advertising.

Land of the free or home of the slaves?

Now, Facebook and Instagram are banning all ATF sales, to include in PMs and private groups.  They are beginning to delete content starting today...

I have also noticed disappearing content.

0patience

@VegasFrank
Fakebook is removing tobacco/cigar sales too

deadman

0patience said:

@VegasFrank
Fakebook is removing tobacco/cigar sales too

And Instagram. No sales or giveaways. Must label also as 18+ to follow 

Amos_Umwhat

But, surely you don't want sheeple to decide for themselves, do you?  They might choose wrong.  Then what?  (sarcasm intentional)

What's really funny, to me anyway, is that those who are leading this very conservative approach to public speech on private enterprise are labelled "Liberals".  And those who oppose this kind of censorship, who take the philosophically liberal approach that speech should be open and free, are called "Conservatives", by themselves and others.

It's a topsy-turvy world we create for ourselves, is it not?

peter4jc

So, let's suppose that you owned youtube, or you owned facebook.  And one day you decide - for whatever reason - to not allow tobacco sales on *your privately-held* platform.  If it's a free country and freedom we want, wouldn't it follow that you should be able to do w/ your platform as you please?

CalvinAndHobo

peter4jc said:

So, let's suppose that you owned youtube, or you owned facebook.  And one day you decide - for whatever reason - to not allow tobacco sales on *your privately-held* platform.  If it's a free country and freedom we want, wouldn't it follow that you should be able to do w/ your platform as you please?

From what I understand, this started because a few YouTube channels that had ads were saying terrible things. I think there was one that was a guy saying that pedophilia was ok or something along those lines, and then some company had an ad during his video, so people emailed the company and asked why they were supporting this guy. Obviously if I owned a company, I would pull my advertising from YouTube if there was a chance that it would be associated with something like that. This led to a lot of companies removing all their ads from youtube/facebook because they couldn't prevent it from being put up with something they didn't associate with. Youtube is trying to get that money back, so that's why they're being extreme and not letting any ATF videos make money via ads. It's not some moral stance that YouTube or Facebook is taking, it's about money, as always. 

ShawnOL

Unfortunately, there is no one out there with the means who will start a competing platform without censorship.

VegasFrank

peter4jc said:

So, let's suppose that you owned youtube, or you owned facebook.  And one day you decide - for whatever reason - to not allow tobacco sales on *your privately-held* platform.  If it's a free country and freedom we want, wouldn't it follow that you should be able to do w/ your platform as you please?

No, and I'll tell you why. 

YouTube became the biggest streaming video social media platform by luring in talent with their AdSense software. This made it possible for anyone to make money by creating content and letting the audience decide.

These content creators over the last 20 years have created such high quality content that they have attracted millions and millions of viewers to YouTube, which Google has parlayed into selling millions and millions of advertising dollars. Of course the attraction was that Google would throw a cut of the money toward the content creator. It was to be a symbiotic partnership.

But wait, Google changed or reinterpreted its existing user agreement with AdSense. This is an important fact because the content that was created originally did not violate Google's terms of service, nor did it break any laws or run into any ATF or FTC problems. Google simply cut the content creators out of the prophets and kept them all for itself.

You could even say that now that YouTube has absolutely no competition whatsoever and now that the barrier to enter this market is so great, it's imposed its on ultra liberal silicon valley political views onto its content creators by taking their monetization away. To make it worse, they have increased the number of ads that these popular channels show, and have decreased my ability to skip those ads.

The fact that ads are increasing only means that this topic and these videos are extremely popular. 

Yes Facebook is different because they are trying to avoid the problem associated with the sale of tobacco. I understand it and Mark Zuckerberg is a spineless weenie, but it makes sense.

Google's stance doesn't make sense. They are imposing their freedom of speech on to the people who made them what they are at the expense of the public

In fact we should explore that for a moment. Because Google YouTube is so pervasive and because it has such a monopoly, one could argue that it's a public trust. Even though it's privately owned, it can't play by whatever rules it wants. I know we have a couple of lawyers on the board and maybe they can weigh in on that part.

However that one aside, it's really dirty what they did, whether it's legal or not.

0patience

Fakebook, yuktube, tweaker, instaslut and all those are headed the same road as Google.
Where people use them, but no one really likes them.
They are no longer the great usable content, but force fed adverts and crap.
Just my opinion.

VegasFrank

CalvinAndHobo said:

peter4jc said:

So, let's suppose that you owned youtube, or you owned facebook.  And one day you decide - for whatever reason - to not allow tobacco sales on *your privately-held* platform.  If it's a free country and freedom we want, wouldn't it follow that you should be able to do w/ your platform as you please?

From what I understand, this started because a few YouTube channels that had ads were saying terrible things. I think there was one that was a guy saying that pedophilia was ok or something along those lines, and then some company had an ad during his video, so people emailed the company and asked why they were supporting this guy. Obviously if I owned a company, I would pull my advertising from YouTube if there was a chance that it would be associated with something like that. This led to a lot of companies removing all their ads from youtube/facebook because they couldn't prevent it from being put up with something they didn't associate with. Youtube is trying to get that money back, so that's why they're being extreme and not letting any ATF videos make money via ads. It's not some moral stance that YouTube or Facebook is taking, it's about money, as always. 

if this is true, why are there more ads on the cigar channels than there were a month ago? Why are they the same advertisers that were on these channels a month ago?

I don't know about all cases and I'm sure you're right about some of the questionable political and moral stuff, but as far as cigars go, they still run the ads and just don't pay the content creators now.

You're right, it's about the money.

CharlieHeis

Y'all need to find ad blocking software.

Amos_Umwhat

peter4jc said:

So, let's suppose that you owned youtube, or you owned facebook.  And one day you decide - for whatever reason - to not allow tobacco sales on *your privately-held* platform.  If it's a free country and freedom we want, wouldn't it follow that you should be able to do w/ your platform as you please?

I see your point, and I really have no dog in this fight, since I don't spend 2 hours a month on any platform but this one we're on right here. 

BUT,

(you knew that was coming, didn't you?)

sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  When it comes to rights, self expression, I would consider that the platform is not so much held by its owners as it was opened to the public by them. 

Certainly we should expect some sort of modicum of decency, but to persecute a legal pastime with a >500 year history in this society?  That seems unreasonable.  Doesn't it?

Now, let's imagine for a moment that they were blocking anything, anything at all that had to do with the LGBTQ movement.  How would that play out in the public arena?  

Oh my.  The outcry.  Freedom of speech and expression would certainly not be the private enterprises own domain then, would it?  Probably not.

So, why can't we have equal rights with them?  I'm not opposing them, just pointing out that the guarantee of "Life, Liberty, & the pursuit of Happiness" is supposed to apply to me, too.