“YOU-COIN” is a registered trademark in Australia of YouPass Group. YouPass has no affiliation with Google™, YouTube™ or Alphabet Inc. My use of the trademark symbol in the header image and of “YouCoin” in the article are for playful and figurative purposes, so please relax. This article is satirical in nature.
I believe that Google could benefit from creating its own cryptocurrency, particularly for YouTube. They had once considered it, but rejected the idea due to obvious regulatory concerns.
Depending on how well things pan out for Facebook’s Libra, they may wish to reconsider.
YouTube Demonetizes Content Creators
Google has a history of demonetizing dissenting views on YouTube, particularly those of conservatives. They have recently begun targeting one of my favorite political commentators (according to him; unverified). He is not alone:
When YouTube demonetizes opposing political views, they are encouraging content creators to outsource funding to third-party vendors (such as Patreon, PayPal, et al). I feel like I would go all Jerri Blank if I was in one of their shareholder meetings: “I’ve got something to say!”
The Unoriginal Idea
Imagine if they created their own “currency.” They could patent an Amazon-style “One Click Donate” button that allowed supporters to use YouCoin to contribute to their favorite content creators (else a 10% “convenience fee” if you use a different payment method, of course). They could also use the donations to record additional data of user buying habits (more targeted ad revenue) and as another metric for the popularity of content (more accurate recommendations means more ad impressions).
Oh yeah, they would also make a bunch of money on all of those payment transactions.
Similar to in-game payments, it would be like crack for some… Since entering your credit card info to donate feels like spending real money, it would encourage people to carry a balance (allowing Google to make money on interest) so you could click that sweet “Donate 1 YouCoin™” button when someone says something that you agree with (I can think of a couple of other sites that use this model, but not with their own currency). The benefit of using your own currency is to avoid annoying and prohibitive fees on micropayments.
I feel like there would be no losers in this scenario, save for the Department of the Treasury, which nobody really likes anyway.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
Google could continue its current SJW agenda of demonetizing dissenting opinions and pandering to the left (in the form of ads), while still collecting transaction fees, interest on account balances and additional user data.
Saving the world, one micropayment at a time. Is there anything more American than that?
Google™, YouTube™ and many other things are registered trademarks of Google Inc.