RE: Pay per view: PH Blog

[sagarich]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's a real shame.

[EricE]

sagarich said:

Beefmeister said:

Just to clarify, I would personally donate, as I love the content and want to support it.

But 99% of the plebs out there who are 'into cars' wouldn't, I guarantee it. They'd rather spend it on a 99p burger.

I think you're spot on, I'm in exactly the same camp when it comes the donation/tips model.

I would also donate even though I would not pay for the subscription even if it were available in my country.
I also donated a sizable sum to wikipedia over the years but wouldn't use it if they switched to a paid access model. I'm perfectly fine knowing that people like me pay for a service that others use just as much, as long as it keeps the thing going.
Call me irrational if you want. I just don't want to commit to a payment plan for something as trivial as /Drive but it isn't just a matter of the price. Donations and micro-transactions work much better for this type of service IMO.

[Funk]

To those who've coughed up, how frequently is new content appearing and do you feel you're getting VFM?

For those abroad who want to subscribe and can't, you must be getting frustrated by the deafening silence by now?

[HorneyMX5]

Funk said:

To those who've coughed up, how frequently is new content appearing and do you feel you're getting VFM?

For those abroad who want to subscribe and can't, you must be getting frustrated by the deafening silence by now?

Seems to be less content now it's paid for and I'm considering cancelling my sub to be honest.

[Mezzanine]

I think if they don't get the cash flow in, the videos dry up so if content is getting sparse...

I was a massive fan of most of Drive, they are a brilliant team who make a good variety of car stuff which hits my target. I would make a point of sitting down on the release days of my favourite streams just like people used to do with 'normal' TV.

However I haven't subscribed to Drive+...

The communication from Drive has been patchy and at times confusing.

The vagueness on actual content and an air of 'making it up' as they went along when joining discussion such as this thread.

It will not work on my Apple TV...how I watch my online videos and purchased in large part to enjoy Drive videos.

The videos 'we' pay for, is then packaged up and resold to a large/wealthy TV network or torrented by the mouthbreathers.

I would happily pay Drive directly for exclusive content but to negate the frustrations it would be for a quarterly DVD or something else vaguely antique to be honest. Or a private, not rippable online portal...

I did pay to download the Smoking Tire film which was a seamless experience and went straight onto my computer for me to keep and enjoy forever. Of course that film is no doubt online for free now but giving me the choice of actually having the file on my laptop gave me a small sense of value.

I was sitting on the fence at first, keen to join the party, but following these threads, seeing how badly the international debacle was handled and watching how the communications have dribbled out has made me glad I did not jump straight in.

Since Drive started drying up, I have simply got out of the habit of watching YouTube as a 'TV channel' now (so no more Evo/Autocar/Jay Leno either) and gone outside to read a book.

It was great fun whilst it lasted

[sagarich]

Funk said:

To those who've coughed up, how frequently is new content appearing and do you feel you're getting VFM?

For those abroad who want to subscribe and can't, you must be getting frustrated by the deafening silence by now?

It seems to be less at the moment, but I'm guessing that because of the crap going on behind the scenes... Saying that, a Mike Musto vid has just appeared, will give it a watch later.

[Mezzanine]

What is the actual weekly line up?

One Chris Harris, one Matt Farah, one Musto?

Drive Central? After Drive?

[tomjol]

Mezzanine said:

What is the actual weekly line up?

One Chris Harris, one Matt Farah, one Musto?

Drive Central? After Drive?

Seems we can rely on a Harris video every week.

Apart from that, it's "fingers crossed" time...

ETA: To be fair, I have enjoyed every video so far, including today's despite Musto's endless repetition of "eight grand".

Edited by tomjol on Tuesday 2nd September 21:42

[Mr Whippy]

So we were naive to think that Drive hadn't planned the end of subsidy support and a transition into a paid model... apparently.

So are we to believe that this lull in content and apparent oversight of sub issues in other countries was foreseen and planned?


This is a bitter lesson for the Drive team, and for other YT channels thinking of doing the same. Get your act together BEFORE you need to get your act together.
Trying to save the sinking ship when it's already under the water isn't going to work for most I'd say.

Dave

[DonkeyApple]

EricE said:

Well, well... look what we have here. If that isn’t Google admitting that paid subscriptions on Youtube won't work then I don't know what it is. Seems to me that /Drive was the unfortunate test-balloon for paid subscriptions.

http://gizmodo.com/fan-funding-lets-you-directly-d...

gizmodo said:

Very, very few YouTube video creators make any real money off of those pre-roll ads, but that might soon change. Google has launched Fan Funding, a new way to tip your favorite YouTube stars directly from the video.

Here's how it works: when you play a video from a channel that accepts donations, you'll see a little icon in the top left corner of the video. Hovering over it will reveal a banner, in some cases, like the image below.

Or you might see a pop-up directly on top of the video where you will be asked how much money you wish to donate.

The donation system would also fix the whole international content right problem because the content itself is still free.

more info:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/09/01/youtube-no...

androidpolice said:

If you do offer up a donation, YouTube will take a small cut to handle the transaction. Just how much the company takes varies by country. In the US, it keeps 5% plus 21 cents. In Japan, it's 5% plus ¥22.
So if an American makes a donation of $10, YouTube will pocket 71 cents of that for its effort. Fortunately, the vast majority goes straight to the content creator. Donations are processed using Google Wallet.

much better. The only problem for /Drive is that they have knowingly and willingly pissed off a large percentage of their fanbase and this might come back to haunt them.
It seems unlikely that they will continue the subscription model with all the trouble (piracy, international legal problems, youtube taking 40%, etc.)

Edited by EricE on Tuesday 2nd September 09:12

Probably find the average donation is 21p.

[DonkeyApple]

Shmee said:

Wouldn't you 'kickstart' each annual season, just like a TV show goes out for annual or seasonal commissioning?

Also I'm in the camp of it being similar to Wikipedia, internet enjoys something for free and a small minority make a donation to show their appreciation.

This would be the logical way to use fund crowding. Easy to create a package tier also for investors, very easy.

If CH were to go out on his own then this would be a good mechanism to investigate as it gives you your annual budget in advance, you can create your package tiers from the basic signed DVD of the season to joining CH on a shoot, to even being the subject of a video (ie CH thrashes your car etc). Even include a DVD revenue share.

Then in top of this forward funding you still get the crappy YT ad revenue and Christmas DVD sales.

[KarlMac]

DonkeyApple said:

Shmee said:

Wouldn't you 'kickstart' each annual season, just like a TV show goes out for annual or seasonal commissioning?

Also I'm in the camp of it being similar to Wikipedia, internet enjoys something for free and a small minority make a donation to show their appreciation.

This would be the logical way to use fund crowding. Easy to create a package tier also for investors, very easy.

If CH were to go out on his own then this would be a good mechanism to investigate as it gives you your annual budget in advance, you can create your package tiers from the basic signed DVD of the season to joining CH on a shoot, to even being the subject of a video (ie CH thrashes your car etc). Even include a DVD revenue share.

Then in top of this forward funding you still get the crappy YT ad revenue and Christmas DVD sales.

Theres so much common sense here I'm staggered no one at Drive has considered it.

[DonkeyApple]

KarlMac said:

DonkeyApple said:

Shmee said:

Wouldn't you 'kickstart' each annual season, just like a TV show goes out for annual or seasonal commissioning?

Also I'm in the camp of it being similar to Wikipedia, internet enjoys something for free and a small minority make a donation to show their appreciation.

This would be the logical way to use fund crowding. Easy to create a package tier also for investors, very easy.

If CH were to go out on his own then this would be a good mechanism to investigate as it gives you your annual budget in advance, you can create your package tiers from the basic signed DVD of the season to joining CH on a shoot, to even being the subject of a video (ie CH thrashes your car etc). Even include a DVD revenue share.

Then in top of this forward funding you still get the crappy YT ad revenue and Christmas DVD sales.

Theres so much common sense here I'm staggered no one at Drive has considered it.

I wonder if Drive is too big and cumbersome and also lacking in the personal support that is needed for crowd funding altruism to work? I've seen on here that while many would support CH, few would also want to support others involved.

It's a model that could work well for CH doing his own thing. For example, I like what CH does. I enjoy his talking style. I prefer his technical videos and classic stuff but also as he is a Brit doing something interesting I would be happy to over invest in his enterprise with a negligible form of return or in reality total write off of investment. But I also might be tempted to pay bigger bucks for CH to do a vid of one of my cars or even pay for the chance of earning DVD sales income.

The other benefit is that all the people who chuck money at each season, whether £50 for just the signed DVD to a couple of K for a review of their car will be active in their social promotion of CH's business.

I think crowd funding is an extremely interesting tool and we have looked at it several times for raising funds to develop new products within the business. I'll probably pull the pun on a test in the next 12 months. The issue for us is that unlike CH we don't have a large audience to promote the funding to and the audience located on the crowd funding sites tend to be militant fking hippies who have been programmed to denounce everything that people like myself do as evil incarnate.

[SpeedBall]

Seems odd that the new DRIVE video is Porsche's own 991 GT3 promo with Andreas Preuninger - from over a year ago? Mike Spinelli's 'review' of the 918 followed a similar path using 99% of Porsche's own videos (although he did stand next to it in a pitlane at one point...).

[andyp79]

My enthusiasm is reducing daily with the new Drive setup.

I was hardcore in favour of paying them for top level content as I've loved what I've seen from them over the past year or two, but the lack of regularity and (seemingly) disorganised way it is being released isn't working for me so far. Some communication about what the plan is would be good and probably resolve a lot of the punters' queries / concerns but there's just nothing. They seem to have gone from extremely professional to a disaster in a matter of weeks.

All it needs is some sort of communication so we know where we are... Twitter / Facebook / a clip on the YT channel... anything!

[Truckosaurus]

andyp79 said:

...They seem to have gone from extremely professional to a disaster in a matter of weeks...

I think that is the main problem, there used to be the weekly 'Drive Central' show which previewed the week ahead, with a new show everyday at their peak, whereas now there is just shows appearing at random.

[camshafted]

Drive has uploaded an eight-minute video on the 250 TDF in this week's Chris Harris on Cars/Ferraris.

Very straightforward, but very interesting and informative. And free! A really enjoyable video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1m_v6FFTq0&li...

[andyp79]

Truckosaurus said:

I think that is the main problem, there used to be the weekly 'Drive Central' show which previewed the week ahead, with a new show everyday at their peak, whereas now there is just shows appearing at random.

Yip. I'm not really after daily videos even - just some sort of structure to the thing. One a week from Harris, Farah and Musto and I'd be delighted... even one a fortnight from each of them. Right now, from a punter's point of view it's just a mess. I feel sorry for them getting all this criticism, but to me a simple communication update would work wonders. There really is no excuse for poor communication in any industry... and especially in a media based outfit.

[andyps]

camshafted said:

Drive has uploaded an eight-minute video on the 250 TDF in this week's Chris Harris on Cars/Ferraris.

Very straightforward, but very interesting and informative. And free! A really enjoyable video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1m_v6FFTq0&li...

A good video, but in fairness it should be free as it is essentially an advert for RM Auctions and the current owner of the car.

[SpeedBall]

andyps said:

A good video, but in fairness it should be free as it is essentially an advert for RM Auctions and the current owner of the car.

Also - this week, evo did a 30 minute video from RM Auctions - with Harry Metcalfe. It's a fantastic piece of film that eclipses the DRIVE offering. Harry's knowledge is pretty astounding. I miss his diaries.