Comment is free: Why YouTube's paid Super Chat feature is a misstep
The beleaguered YouTube comments field, where consistent, terrible misuse of the English language is just about the best thing about it, took a sharp turn for the worse this week with the announcement that fans can now pay to pin a comment at the top of a creator’s live stream. Let’s be clear about this: there is not a single positive here for the user.
Speak to any creator worth their salt and they all say the same thing: the comments field is a horrible place, a cesspool of hate, sexism and racism. The act of engaging with the user base is like going elbow deep in muck for the sake of interacting with the few genuine fans who have something positive to say. One can only guess what frequent exposure to these often highly personal and brutal comments does for the self-esteem of young YouTubers.
Some high profile cases, such as PewDiePie’s hate/hate relationship with comments has highlighted the problem facing the platform. YouTube has responded by evolving the comments algorithm to upweight contributions that are liked by the community and giving creators more control.
But treating comments as a revenue opportunity is a massive misstep and smacks of desperation – please keep comments enabled, we’ll pay you to do so. A positive contribution deserves to rise to the top because of its value to the community, not because someone has a financial advantage.
Paid comments perpetuates the existing social media sickness of shameless self-promotion and opens the door to numerous ethical questions around the value of the comment to the creator, versus the content of that contribution for the community.
Then think of the impact on younger fans, the unnecessary added peer pressure and upward pressure on parents to fund paid comments. This system unfairly favours those with disposable income over those without and insinuates that fans have to show their allegiance in monetary terms.
If YouTube is looking for ward to promote fan funding, then a better revenue share deal would be a better place to start.
Digby Lewis is head of platforms and distribution at iris