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Friday, July 31, 2015

I made a boo-boo, and it hurted

A couple of weeks ago I celebrated the arrival of the off-season as I had finally run out of new sets to review.  I saw that another wave was coming on August 1, but I figured I had plenty of time to really focus on MOC building.  Well, things didn't go according to plan, as only a few days after that post the new Mega Bloks Halo and LEGO Scooby Doo & Minecraft sets started hitting stores and I went back into full review production mode.  Of course, all that did was shuffle time around.  August 1 is tomorrow and instead of beginning this final Summer burst of work, I'm finishing it up!  New Mega Bloks Call of Duty & Terminator sets are yet to be covered as well as 2 or 3 more LEGO sets, but that's no biggie at all.

When I was looking back at the first half of the year to collect a few surprising statistics for the aforementioned celebratory post, though, I also discovered something very troubling, almost depressing.  Though my wife & I had literally doubled productivity on reviews versus last year and added speed build videos back into the mix, doubling viewership, our income from YouTube had actually gone down.  Think about that for a second.  You work more than twice as hard, you get more than twice as much done, and you receive less in return.  Ouch?

It didn't take much investigation to get to the bottom of it.  In the first quarter of the year, I made the decision to disable non-skippable video ads across my entire account.  At the time, I was looking at the previous year's data, and I expected to lose 25-35% of my per-view ad revenue as a result of this change.  It was a calculated loss I was ready & willing to accept to save viewers like you from the annoyance of those most obtrusive ads, though in truth, nobody had complained about them since every channel has them and they're standard & commonplace.  I just really don't like contributing to known annoyance & discomfort of people, even if they don't complain about it, especially if I can just make a reasonable personal sacrifice to avoid it.

Unfortunately the personal sacrifice ended up being completely unreasonable, more than double what I expected due to general industry-wide changes in the values of different types of ads. Meanwhile, viewers didn't seem to have noticed the change at all, since again, non-skippable ads are just everywhere.

With all of this new information, though, nothing has changed in how I feel about the matter.  I still dislike non-skippable ads, and I still want to give up a reasonable portion of my income to keep some of the inconvenience away from all of you viewers, especially the biggest fans, the dedicated subscribers, the regular viewers.  Thus, for now and for as long as I can, I am going to continue to publish my videos with non-skippable ads disabled!  Yes, I'm being stubborn about it.  I'm going to keep those most aggressive ads off my videos until all of you biggest fans, dedicated subscribers, and regular viewers have consumed the content and viewership has subsided to the ambient trickle of random passers-by finding stuff in searches & related video results.

TL;DR: I'm turning non-skippable ads back on for older videos you've already seen, but keeping them off for all of the newest stuff you haven't yet seen.

21 comments:

  1. You do fantastic work, and 'Bravo!' to you, for keeping it accessible for the fans! Love and admire your work. Best regards, Kate D, New Zealand.

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  2. Have you thought of using a service like Patreon? Some other channels that I follow use this to help with costs.

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  3. I have been an avid viewer (In fact, I'm somewhat addicted to your blog/channel) since 2013, and lemme tell you. I don't care if I have to watch a 5 minute ad, I will watch your videos. Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary. Do what you have to do to continuously upgrade your channel. Thanks for being J.A.N.G. *hint hint*, Jang.
    Best Regards,
    RJ

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  4. How about put adds on the 5-6+minutes so then the vid is worthy of the add. Felix O

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  5. I must confess to not really understanding how earnings and ads on YouTube work but if a few minutes of my time watching an ad or two helps generate funds for your hours and hours of work - then so be it. In fact I shall double my viewership .... because I can. My favourite way to begin my day is with a bout of Jang reviews. Thank you Jang and Mrs Jang please know your work is much appreciated.

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  6. I'm a bit worried about your doubled workload. Fateague is my most urgent concern that could jam the pipeline. Is it really nessesary to review all sets? It has to be fun, not turning in being a slave of your own hobby. There has to be time left for social life.

    By the way. Ads or not, i wach your vids anyway because your are the best reviewer around.

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  7. Do you have an Amazon affiliate link, or would the ad to the right here help? I'm not willing to remove Adblock for all of Youtube (far, far too obnoxious) and I can't unblock a specific channel. I'm happy to give you referral revenue when I'm purchasing from Amazon. Also, I believe if you were to embed videos here rather than link them, ads would be viewed since it's your own URL which is whitelisted.

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  8. I hope you will reconsider. I hate the ads too, but you do such good work that you should be compensated appropriately. My 7 year old son is the primary viewer, but I watch too and we will not mind watching an ad that we can't skip if it means more money in your pocket. You deserve it!

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  9. Hey Jang,
    Just wanna say I'm an avid viewer of your channel and check your site daily. I loved Legos (or Lego, as they prefer to be called) as a kid and have recently gotten back into them since viewing your channel. I realize it shouldn't have been an issue in the first place, but now I don't feel so ashamed to buy Lego sets and enjoy them as an adult. If ads can help boost your income and keep you posting videos than do it, we can skip after 5 seconds anyway, or just turn to volume off and wait a minute or two. Anyway just wanna say keep doing what you do!
    Best,
    JS

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  10. Can you put in the feature where we can donate to your channel so us viewers can help You some money to buy more sets?

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  11. Ads are annoying (especially non shippable), but in case of quality videos like yours, it is completely acceptable for me to watch ads. Please reconsider your policy. Reel fans should have nothing against ads before your videos, especially that we are not paying for watching your videos. Watching ads is the only way we can support you and thank for your videos. Keep up the good work and looking forward to see more video, especially about custom made builds for your LEGO city.

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  12. jang its ok you choose what you want to do just know we the fans dont care about those ads think about it we dont care so its ok to turn it on but you dont want but you ge less income so less money for sets so you cant get more sets faster so if set reviews are slow we will get bored and eventually think of you as a unnecessary space so you will get lesser income and even more lesser and then POOF no more channel so please DO NOT IGNORE THIS IS IMPORTANT HEY JANG YES YOU heres a new technique ask us for your opinion in a special video then in the comments we will answer so the majority of votes will be the winner

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  13. Ads are a bit annoying for sure but it´s your right to screen ads in your videos because you spent money for the content you´re showing us

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  14. Sounds like a good idea to ad the non-skipable ads to older content. If it's not helping as much as you hope, here's another voice saying I won't mind those ads on new vids. In the mean time I try to watch the ads all the way through sometimes hoping you feel some small kickback! Having a donation button here wouldn't be bad either.

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  15. Please turn them on, Jang. You deserve to be paid for all your hard work!

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  16. I would rather have the ads on. You do a good job.

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  17. Jang you're an excellent role model, not driven by greed but by the love for the building products and the desire to share. Hats off to you.

    I don't have a problem with doing something else for a few minutes while the add runs. More ad revenue for Jang means more reviews means more income for Jang to quit his day job means more Lego time for Jang means more MOC's to make means more videos to watch means more income for Jang means more Lego to buy and review!

    The way I see it, it's a win-win!

    This is after all almost turning into a full-time job. In the new world we only pay for the content we want to consume. I would seriously consider paying for Jang TV.

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  18. Jang i love your stuff, and will continue to watch all of your videos no matter how long the ads! I would also definitely donate to you on Patreon!

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  19. I would continue to watch your content no matter how long the ads, and defiantly donate to you on Patreon!

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  20. Shut up and take my money.

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