The curious disappearance of Vid Gear Hawking Youtubers

M

mcbob

Veteran
In the odd non-driving travel mode and catching up on casual content viewing.

My Tube-o-You feed used to be filled with semi-daily updates from a wide gamut of Canadians and guys from Utah offering simple video tips and singing praises of freely-supplied Aputure products.

Most of them seem to have up and quit. 2, 5, 9 months or more since their last updates. Granted, it was a pretty overstuffed turkey of a field and many of them were pretty much making variants of the same videos with slightly different accents, but I'm curious where to pinpoint the cause of this plateau and cliff trend.

Simultaneous burnout? Falling YouTube revenues? Did they all parlay their semi-fame into well-paying client work? Chip shortage reducing the availability of freely-supplied Aputure gear and frequency of new Sony gear announcements?
 
Maybe Aputure axed them for not singing their praises loud enough

Maybe Aputure feels that they have enough brand recognition now to not mess with the YouTube reviewers anymore.

Maybe inflation undermined the sustainability of being a "professional reviewer."

Most of these "review videos" are actually thinly vailed commercials and unboxing videos, which fail to test and evaluate basic things like color temperature accuracy, wavelength reproduction, hot spots, etc.

I wish YouTube would allow users to flag miscategorized videos, as it's pretty annoying to look for a review and find nothing but unboxing videos.
I also wish YouTube would add pages to every channel's list of videos, instead of strolling down, loading a few more videos, scrolling down, loading a few more videos, rinse repeat.

Project Farm is the only review channel that I trust.

P.S. I find it amusing to watch YouTubers show off their mirrorless camera cine rigs, which make the bad ergonomics of mirrorless cameras even worse.
There must be an unwritten rule that every YouTuber:
  • Refer to their sunshade as a matte box
  • Put a V-mount battery directly behind their camera, blocking the buttons and built-in LCD
  • Mount a field monitor on the end of their camera cage's top handle, needlessly raising the center of gravity and preventing the monitor from being tilted down.
Gripper batteries or IndiPRO Tools power systems pair much better with mirrorless cameras, although I think the Griper batteries are way over priced.

The purpose of rigging a mirrorless camera is to solve problems, add features, and improver ergonomics, but all the YouTuber rigs that I see actually create more problems than they solve.
 
There's obvious comedy in adding $4K worth of power, monitor, and rig accessories to a $3.5K mirrorless camera in order to almost achieve the utility of a $7K video-specific camera... but at least it takes twice the faffing about to operate, making you appear "professional"

FWIW mirrorless cameras have lovely ergonomics for quick-shooting and b-roll... provided you use them like photo cameras and exploit the often really-damned-good EVF. A side and/or top handle and a strap is about all I need if the camera has decent IBIS. The moment I consider adding rails, I spec a different camera.
 
(Mirrorless rigs) I know we are already shaking our head now but I got to imagine what it will look like a decade from now. (The YT "reviews") I'm getting tired of it all.
 
Yes, mirrorless cameras are great for motorized gimbals, car rigs, tight spaces, etc., so I'm not decrying using them for video, just mocking the people who rig them in a counter productive irrational manner.

It makes sense for photo cameras to have a rangefinder or SLR style body, but I find Blackmagic's Mark II Pocket camera iterations baffling. Blackmagic's 4k & 6K pocket cameras aren't much better ergonomically than their original 2K camera, so I really wish they'd throw that 4K sensor in a Micro box style body that uses Sony L batteries.

P.S. I thought of one more reason for the disappearance of YouTube reviewers, perhaps they were blacklisted for prostituting themselves out to competitors like Godox and now SmallRig.
 
You gave many plausible reasons but I'm not so sure there is less of them seems like more if anything. I'd imagine during a pandemic it might make sense while you're sitting at home but when real paying jobs come back or there just churn going on, meaning older channels are rotating out and newer one are replacing them. I think the big channels take the lion share of revenue and the smaller channels if they don't get the pre release gear it's hard to get out content for the small window where people are interested. I'd get burned out trying to churn out content without pissing off manufactures.

It's pretty obvious channels who are some what critical don't get pre release gear. Camera Conspiracy, Tony Chelsea, etc

I was just on a job with a colleague shooting a commercial with BM6kpro. It's very heavy on a gimbal, the batteries don't last long, we had trouble rigging wireless focus puller,.. it's hard.
 
The DP Review/ex-Camera Store guys are still in business. Gerald Undone is around. As is Forbes. The Northrup's are around. Kai W is in the UK. The British higher end reviewers are around. A lot of guys from ~ 2013-15 are gone - Dave Dugdale, Toby and Curtis. And so has Mr. Cheesy Cam. Peter from Miami is almost gone. But there are a lot of younger guys promoting/reviewing stuff.
 
I can't speak to the proximate cause of the thinning herd, but it's entirely possible that it's simply a byproduct of changes to youtube's promotion or payment algorithms. I used to shoot and edit for a comedy youtube channel, and at one point the same thing happened to them. Their revenue halved overnight due to youtube changes that promoted their videos less and also switched the payment formula (from paying per view to paying per minute viewed, or something like that).

Over on Instagram, one type of video I make for Christie's used to consistently score in the top 4 videos on their channel for views per month. (Specifically, the single-take 20-minute+ gallery tours.) Then, after Instagram retooled its approach to video recently (allowing longer videos and also reformatting how and where they're shown in the feed), this type of video has consistently performed barely above average for their channel. I don't know if there were also changes in how they promote videos, but it seems unlikely to me that the tastes of the audience would collectively turn on a dime.

So, if you work for a social media channel (as "content creators" do), you are woefully at the mercy of their vagaries. I don't know if that's the story here, but it may have become suddenly unprofitable for the channels you followed to keep producing.
 
DLD said:
A lot of guys from ~ 2013-15 are gone - Dave Dugdale, Toby and Curtis.
Click to expand...

Are you referring to Curtis Judd here? If so he is definitely still around, although his focus has shifted primarily to audio (and some lighting gear).
 
drboffa said:
Are you referring to Curtis Judd here? If so he is definitely still around, although his focus has shifted primarily to audio (and some lighting gear).
Click to expand...

Yes. He's sort of around but sort of not. Sort of like sort of Peter and sort of Gregg.
 
He's around; 3-4-5 videos a month is good enough for that content because of the natural detail & depth that is required for those videos (and millions of others around YouTube).

I always thought that if I wanted to be a YouTuber it would be something easy that I can control (not rely on others like for products) and not be too complex (like ASMR).

As far as everything else (and someone probably mentioned it above), it's all saturated. Way too much going on, way too many people doing it.

A constant hustle and grind against the system. Unsustainable long-term for most (but the ones with full-time jobs doing it for their employers, and only doing that, are in good positions).
 
The most successful channels have a likeable personality with a team producing, editing and developing ideas for content. I would run out of things to talk about in a short time.
 
ahalpert said:
I can't speak to the proximate cause of the thinning herd, but it's entirely possible that it's simply a byproduct of changes to youtube's promotion or payment algorithms. I used to shoot and edit for a comedy youtube channel, and at one point the same thing happened to them. Their revenue halved overnight due to youtube changes that promoted their videos less and also switched the payment formula (from paying per view to paying per minute viewed, or something like that).

Over on Instagram, one type of video I make for Christie's used to consistently score in the top 4 videos on their channel for views per month. (Specifically, the single-take 20-minute+ gallery tours.) Then, after Instagram retooled its approach to video recently (allowing longer videos and also reformatting how and where they're shown in the feed), this type of video has consistently performed barely above average for their channel. I don't know if there were also changes in how they promote videos, but it seems unlikely to me that the tastes of the audience would collectively turn on a dime.

So, if you work for a social media channel (as "content creators" do), you are woefully at the mercy of their vagaries. I don't know if that's the story here, but it may have become suddenly unprofitable for the channels you followed to keep producing.
Click to expand...

In that kind of unstable environment, it would be difficult to commit to a pursuing channel for profit in the first place. It seems the house will always be moving the goal posts if you start making too much.

I must say, while the market is saturated, it is very helpful when you are researching a purchase to have these different insights available to watch. Evidence that YouTube's & Google's initial mission is being fulfilled.
 
Besides some of the obvious things like electricity and planes and modern medicine, etc. Google/YouTube along with the Internet is one of the best inventions in the world.

Those available pipelines of immediate information about, literally, anything has evolved the world in ways nothing else ever will.
 
Totally agree. I call Google the benevolent overlord. They are controlling more and more of the world's attention but they have had a humanistic mission so far. Overall, their presence has really helped populations all based on the free to use business model.
 
In the old Sears Roebuck days, the MO was to lure a business - Kenmore, Craftsman - into the clutches of the retailer to the point that Sears was responsible for over 50% of a company sales ... and then made it an offer they couldn't refuse.
 
Bassman2003 said:
Totally agree. I call Google the benevolent overlord.
Click to expand...

You at least have that half correct :D

The last few years is seeing a definite tilt towards utilizing the vast accumulation and dissemination of information for all-reaching authoritarianism unlike any the world has ever known. Any marvelous invention has its inevitable abuse cases... and the more marvelous, the more potentially abusive.

I don't think it's too late, but we'll see (although we'll never hear if it happened).
 
mcbob said:
You at least have that half correct :D

The last few years is seeing a definite tilt towards utilizing the vast accumulation and dissemination of information for all-reaching authoritarianism unlike any the world has ever known. Any marvelous invention has its inevitable abuse cases... and the more marvelous, the more potentially abusive.

I don't think it's too late, but we'll see (although we'll never hear if it happened).
Click to expand...

I don't feel strongly either way. No doubt Google is the biggest and most powerful but every company is in the business of tracking you and selling or using your data. Banks, Credit card companies, Software companies, any social media platform, even when you buy hardware like a camera, what do you think the registration card is for. I bought a wifi router recently in order to set up the router you needed install their app and register, I think either dji or gopro you can't run the device with registering it online. Those are instances I know of I'm sure there are countless I'm not aware of. Unless you are planning live off the grid you don't have much of a choice.
 
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