According to Bloomberg, these features include subscriptions and enhanced charts. The goal of the video company is to prove to its top stars that YouTube is far more than an advertising business.
The company’s rivals such as Facebook and Instagram have tried to take the big names away from them, but YouTube has a history of using monetary incentives to keep its stars. Instagram’s IGTV could challenge YouTube’s dominance, as well as Snapchat’s popularity.
In an effort to keep their top creators satisfied, the company has added new ways for them to earn revenue such as a merch program, which allows users to pin comments to the top of a live chat, as well as making Twitch-style paid memberships available. Twitch-style feature allows for YouTube to earn a cut as well.
By paying its top creators to use the new Twitch-style features, YouTube hopes to keep them around for a long time, as well as develop additional revenue streams for YouTubers, in a mutual relationship, where everybody benefits.
At the same time, YouTube is reported to not require the stars to keep their content exclusive to the video service. They are also to post the same video content elsewhere, as long as they upload their video clips to YouTube first. They only prohibit them from posting on YouTube’s competitor sites.
In other YouTube news, the company has launched a series in Spanish, starring Golden Globe-winning actor Gael Garcia Bernal.
