Content behind paywalls

I meant to write this post months ago, but the second half of 2024 has been way busier than the first half. So, here we are.

Earlier this year, a YouTube channel I’m very fond of called Watcher made a big decision. They announced that they were going to pull all of their content off of YouTube and put it on their own streaming platform, Watcher.com. It would cost $7 a month to view any of their shows.

The Watcher fan base, many of which had followed Shane, Ryan and Steven from Buzzfeed, lost their minds. Within twenty-four hours, the guys put out an apology and rethought the whole situation. Instead of yanking all of their old content from YouTube, they would leave it up. They would also continue to post new content, though they would do so only a month after they posted it on their own site.

This whole situation got me thinking about how much we’re paying for entertainment. And how much we as creators should be expecting to be paid for our work.

First off, I want to say that I probably would have paid for the Watcher site if that was the only way to get new episodes of Ghost Files and Are You Scared. Those shows are fire.

Selling your creative work is a tricky thing. On the one hand, creatives don’t generally create to get paid. I certainly don’t. If all I wanted was to make money, there are faster and easier ways to do that. What I want more than anything is to share what I make with other people.

That being said, I need to eat. And publishing books cost money. I pay to have PBW on WordPress. I pay for my cover art. I pay to print copies of my book. All of this cost money. Then there’s the fact that if I want time to write, I need to not be at my day job so much. So I need to make enough money to justify not working overtime. Eventually, I’d like to make enough to justify going down to part-time and then quitting altogether.

What I’m saying is, on the one hand, I understand where the Watcher team was coming from. Their content costs a lot more money to create than mine does. And if they want to keep making that content, they need to have the money to do it. That isn’t going to come if they’re beholden to the ever-changing rules and algorithms on YouTube. I don’t blame them at all for making what they thought was a sound business decision.

I also don’t fault them for stepping way back when their community reacted the way they did. I applaud them for listening and considering the points of view of their audience. I think that holding some content back for pay and delaying the release of free content, is probably a pretty good way to go.

I mean, it’s what I do.

I post here on PBW every week for free. I hope I’m giving you content that’s worth something, even though I don’t ask for money. I share some short stories and chapters of my books for free. I even post all of Station 86 for free, for a limited time.

I, however, have novels that are not free. I have short stories for fifty cents on my Ko-fi page. I, like most online creatives, have to walk the line between giving away what we can and charging for what we think is the most valuable.

All of this to say, it’s incredibly challenging to be creative, balancing our desire for eyes on our work and our need to survive in a capitalist society. None of us, I’m sure, forget that people buy our work with hard-earned money. Money that has to go farther and farther as inflation and housing costs get way out of hand.

But I sure am glad you’re here, whether you buy my books or read my content here for free. I’m glad you’re here if you never pay me a dime. I’m just glad you like what I write. And if you do donate, or buy a book or short story, thank you. It means so much more than the financial amount itself. It means, to me, that my work helped someone enough that they were willing to pay money to have it.

So yes, I probably will eventually subscribe to Watcher. I’ll continue to subscribe to some of my favorite creators on Patreon. I’ll buy their books, stickers, and T-shirts. Because I want to. Because I want the content they put out. And because I want them to know that their work is something that I value.

It doesn’t have to be me, but if you can, please consider supporting a creative today. It means the world to us.

If you love the story and want to support Paper Beats World, you can do so on Ko-fi.

Broken Patterns is now live! You can get it right now on Amazon.