Problem

Over the past few years, we have seen a lot of creators on YouTube being censored for posting content for the purpose of entertainment. Such content includes: swearing, showcasing violence even in the form of animation or cartoons, making legal but controversial political statements, or showcasing R-rated scenes. Even though such content is allowed on platforms like Netflix and sometimes even on live TV, platforms like YouTube demonetize such content (i.e. does not run ads on it, leaving the creator with negligible revenue). Creators who posted such content have utilized either of the two solutions currently available: 

• (a) change the content they post significantly to obey by YouTube’s restricting guidelines for the videos they monetize
• (b) move their content to subscriptions-based platforms like Patreon.

Both of these solutions have major drawbacks for the viewers. In solution (a), viewers will no longer have access to the content they used to enjoy from that creator. Such major changes also means that the creator will have to make content that they do not enjoy making as much, making the quality of their videos lower. This leaves the viewers disappointed. They want to be able to watch the same type of authentic content they used to before YouTube’s strict regulations. 

In solution (b), even though the viewers get access to the authentic content they enjoy, this comes at a hefty cost. In order to generate a meaningful revenue, most creators charge $5-$10 per month to access their Patreon profile. Although paying one such subscription is not a huge drawback for viewers, most users follow several such creators (on average, 5 such creators). This means that, to get access to the videos they could enjoy for free before, each user has to pay 5 such subscription fees on average. This costs on average $40 per month. This is more expensive than almost any online streaming subscription fee users have to pay. Therefore, most viewers do not pay for this. 

Solution

We believe that YouTube creators should be able to continue monetizing their content, like they used to before. At the same time, we believe users do not have to pay $40 a month to watch the content they could watch for free previously. Therefore, we propose an app, like Netflix, where viewers pay one monthly subscription and get access to videos posted by all the creators on the app. This means that one monthly subscription fee allows the user to watch videos from hundreds of creators (on platforms like Patreon, users have to pay a monthly fee for each creator separately). The monthly subscription fee for our app will be in the range of $3 to $8 per month. This is orders of magnitude cheaper than paying $10 per month for access to videos from only one creator. 

Creators will receive a revenue share based on their watch time. This means that the more watch time a creator gets, the more monthly revenue they make.