Going sponsor-free

I, like probably everyone else in your audience, really appreciate this move. Importantly, I think it shows a level of healthy respect for the viewers and yourself, which per proxy puts more positive focus on what it is exactly you are trying to do. Even if it's low dimensional, I'd say a sense that the message/content is more important than cash, is an important one in the longer term at least. I would be very surprised if this does not generate more resources for your channel. Just generally, I am in awe of what you are doing and hope you have every prerequisite to keep doing that. I'll do my share. PS: the linear algebra series is just simply amazing. It pierces through the fog like no textbook I came across ever did.

Thanks so much, that means a lot to me.

3blue1brown

This is extremely well thought through, Grant! Thank you. As an illustration why I wholeheartedly agree with you (and decided to add my penny to the channel upkeep), another day Derek from Veritasium made a sponsored video that turned out to sound more like an ad than some of his regular stuff, without him intending it to be that way. I don't think he will do something like that ever again. As for "smooth segue" from the actual content to the sponsorship message, strangely enough, the audience seems to like it - I have seen many comments explicitly praising it. Kind of like in-jokes. But that probably holds for, umm, a bit less engaging content.

Dragi Raos

Nice

Oh, thanks! Do you have a link for where to learn more?

3blue1brown

Given your love for math and your statement that you find "the notion of voluntary direct payments for content, a super interesting thing to be happening to the internet," I sent you a donation in Stellar lumens via the Keybase application. Keybase lets people send financial value (via lumens) to any twitter or reddit handle. Thus, I'm guessing you will find the concept interesting on all sorts of levels. I hope to see you claim the lumens I sent. Cheers and Vires in Numeris.

Slyxof

All the code is open source at <a href="https://github.com/3b1b/manim" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://github.com/3b1b/manim</a>

3blue1brown

Thanks Grant! I am Now sending a Patreon pledge every video -I am so interested in your animations - I have lots of Psychromatric Chart data I would like to animate like you are doing for maths. I’m solving for Vapor Pressure Defict solutions to greenhouse growing of ginger and turmeric ... so inspired by your work. I know the Adobe Suite better than Mathematica and Python but I’m downloading trials and home versions and studying them because of your introduction ( courses on Lynda.com. ) I Might have to build another graphics workstation for all these high HD 4K videos I want to make. We also do SUAS (drone) photography mapping over agricultural areas and would love to add data visualizations overlayed on the hi res maps. I appreciate any sharing you would be willing to do of the code and software you are using. And if you need any Adobe After Effects or Premier Pro work I have more experience with that!

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this. On the whole, what you say resonates very well, but I might push back slightly on the side of collaborations. As a creator, I think it's all-too easy to get caught in a rut of a particular style without appropriately exploring other things. As I think of my own channel, I can imagine times in future videos where live actions shots would actually be more effective than animations at communicating what I want to, but I don't think it's worth resisting just to maintain a pristine and platonic black-background math environment. Also, many creators lead somewhat lonely working lives, so just to counteract that fact alone I'd like to encourage more collaborations.

3blue1brown

I too would say you have done a great decision! I actually prefer random popup ads to sponsored messages, because it's always clear neither the creator nor the audience are "happy" about the ad's presence. With sponsored messages though, it is the creator's job to sound enthralled to have the rooted-deeper-than-ever ad in their video. Sometimes it doesn't come off as completely disingenuous, yours really didn't at least. But you make videos about maths, it's hard to imagine you would skew the whole meaning of the video just to appease your sponsors. Many creators go quite overboard though, and like you mentioned yourself; suddenly everyone involved with a sponsor is "complicit". Brilliant was a good example, I can imagine myself enjoying their content had I found it in a different way - I haven't though, I've learned of Brilliant's existence through sponsored messages. LOTS of them. I couldn't help myself and quickly grew allergic to Brilliant, Audible and probably some others I can't name right now but my pavlov reflex would kick in the moment I would hear the name. It must be detrimental to the sponsor's own image - I certainly wouldn't want my company to be represented by these. The PBS family of channels, for example, has some very good content and the sponsored messages along with insincere cameos and collabs are very harmful to my experience and opinion on the creators. Or a different example, Kurzgesagt makes absolutely amazing, highly stylized cartoon edutainment - and they went as far as placing a real human into their 2D universe of colorful birds (if you don't know the channel, think of Pi creatures = birds) just because it was a "collab" with VSauce. It was hideous, that whole episode (Is Reality Real?) was - for me at least - unwatchable because of it and I am so glad they have never tried that again. Point is, they probably didn't mean any harm. The creator can slowly get used to the ads, sponsors and cameos, especially since "everyone" does it. Just like Android developers get used to placing intrusive ads and let in-apps clash with the gameplay itself. And so they let the world of ads creep into their work more and more, damaging the content itself and the creator's image. It must be very hard to stay disciplined and "use the ads" instead of "being used by ads". In this regard, I do believe you deserve praise. Some shiny Pie Medal of Restraint. Anyways, great decision, I've just found out but I am adding my humble contribution right now. Also, love your content, long time fan... I am making this unbearably long aren't I. One last thing then - Best of luck with your work!

ElDoRado1239

Thank you so much!

3blue1brown

I am grateful for your videos. I am a senior engineer, and there are many concepts I didn't "understand" in college. I am very impressed by your explanations. I am pledging to support your creations for a long time.

You are doing great work and I commend you for going ad-free. Ads are a form of propaganda and incompatible with the goals and methods of rational thinking, which IMHO is a shared progress towards the truth. But ... I don't watch every video and I am wary of accumulating yet another subscription which I then forget and becomes a permanent drain of money. Is there a way to make a one-time contribution? I thought of buying merchandise, but it seems a highly suboptimal way to get money to your wallet, where it belongs.

Respect!

Respect! I am moved by the material and the presentation, its literally ART. I end up with tears with the beauty of MATH every-time I watch your videos. I will become your patreon, its not much, but I dont want you to stop.

😞😞🤦‍♀️

Hello heroes, I wish you luck and success ... I am sad because no one wants to help me I do not speak English but use google for translation ... Help me there is a mistake in my page and thank you for your attention heroes

Thanks so much, but definitely feel no pressure. To me, one of the biggest benefits of Patreon is that it means those with disposable income can keep content free and available for those without.

3blue1brown

I just recently got a debit card and thought "Man, I should rea'lly be a patron of 3b1b". Definitely gonna be donating more when I get more hours with my job!

As of now I am a patron. I want you to know that I really enjoy your videos (especially the physics ones). Hopefully when I am no longer a broke college student I will be able to give more. Good luck Grant.

Big hug to you to, I have such an unbounded respect for teachers and what they do.

3blue1brown

What a touching story, I'm glad you found a good place with AoPS! I still could imagine doing something on the recruiting side, just not embedded into a video itself. For example, maybe having a section on the site of companies I'd feel comfortable referring people to.

3blue1brown

Quite possibly. There are quite a few things on the list, though.

3blue1brown

<a href="https://github.com/3b1b/manim" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://github.com/3b1b/manim</a>

3blue1brown

Agreed, I also use YouTube premium for this reason. Unless you watch an ungodly amount of content per month, this is actually way better for creators.

3blue1brown

Really appreciate it.

3blue1brown

Thanks so much!

3blue1brown

+1 to Smarter Every Day always handling this very well. I certainly don't think this will result in a slow-down of content, expect insofar as the incentive is purely to bring people deeper experiences, which sometimes means videos that take longer. Presumably the aggregate quality-per-time rate will stay constant, if that makes any sense.

3blue1brown

Thanks so much!

3blue1brown

You're nice to say that. Perhaps if not for your experience, then for the experience of others.

3blue1brown

Interesting points! I was just talking about this with someone at VidCon, and how the thought of just reading ad-copy would strangely feel more aligned than giving a sincere recommendation.

3blue1brown

I'm not opposed to other routes for well-aligned brand associations, say if I choose to do more with the 3blue1brown.com site. But for the videos themselves, for all the motivations I listed in the post above I think there is a qualitative difference between some and none.

3blue1brown

I do try to keep my eye out for whether a shifting to other platforms makes sense. Personally, I think YouTube is actually way more open, helpful and creator-aligned than a lot of people give them credit for. More often than not, a creator complaining about YouTube is just one who audience size is diminishing because of lower-quality content, and who needs someone to blame.

3blue1brown

I appreciate it! Feel no pressure though, this is more of a thank you to existing patrons than it is a request for more.

3blue1brown

Luckily, I think a viewer of YouTube education these days will have no trouble discovering Brilliant :)

3blue1brown

I don't expect everyone to agree, and I certainly feel no judgement on other channels that choose to do things differently. If ads don't bother you, great! It just means this is something targeted more at other viewers who do find it an intrusion. Plus, independent of whether or not they are annoying, the slightly misaligned incentive is a very real thing.

3blue1brown

Thanks!

3blue1brown

Much appreciated. I'm glad you liked the div/curl video, I'm having fun working on its follow-on now.

3blue1brown

Thank *you* for being a part of this.

3blue1brown

Thanks!

3blue1brown

I agree with you. You were the one that made me decide to become a Patron for de first time! If I could I would give you much more money, some day perhaps. Continue with your great work please. I'm 43 and teach Physics. Some of your videos made me understand maths in a new, fascinating and visual way. I was deeply amazed with some videos and show them to students. Big hug for you!

Jorge Sinde

No please don't go sponsor free! An ad that I saw on your channel has practically changed my life. It was of AoPS(artofproblemsolving) looking for graders on their site. Luckily, I got selected as a grader. Now, their pay rates are like 5 times the maximum I can get at my level of skill set here in India and I've already accumulated enough in three months to securely skate by for at least a year thanks to the currency exchange rates. Grant, trust me, I can't thank you enough for the value your videos have added to my life - and in a very direct way due to that sponsorship. Tldr; don't do away with sponsors altogether as a rule, instead if you can use your position and time to find sponsorships that really add value for your audience then that would be great.

As I know you were a data scientist, don't you have think about making more videos focused on that area? I think there are some people mostly engineers and grad students that won't search for basic math on more advanced topics like SVM, deep learning, Cepstrum, fractal dimension, and there are topics poorly explained on youtube, maybe that topics will allow you to reach a broader audience in a meaningful way

Alignment of incentives is the issue that people miss the most when discussing ethical choices like this one. It is not about advertisement being right or wrong, it's about where it leads you and where do you want to go. I think you made an excellent decision, guided by a deep insight, and it confirms the overall impression I got of you really caring about both the audience and the topics you touch that I got from watching your content. As I wrote in a YouTube comment, after hearing your reasoning in the video I went ahead and increased my pledge right away. I hope this strategy works well for you, and if so, that it can set a positive example of what can work, so that other creators also concerned about their control over the content they create can take this seriously as a viable alternative.

Thank you for your beautiful and pedagogical work and now also for your sponsor-free move which motivated me to give you at least a symbolic amount of money. Aside from that, I was wondering, do you release your source code somewhere under a free/open software license to let others learn how to make such great visualizations, and play with them?

Lots of respect. If it works so far, then why not? AvE who is utterly different to your channel but similarly reliant on goodwill from a relatively small audience, is doing well with that model. You should do well. I'm sure you will.

PeetieGonzalez

No need to apologise for this write up, au contraire. As a fellow business man, I'm always intrigued to learn about the background of such important decisions. So, thanks for sharing!

Thanks for taking the time to type this up. This (i.e. the role of advertising in culture) is one of those areas where I like to familiarize myself with as many points of view as I can.

I’d rather pay for videos than seeing an ad (similar to how youtube red works) but disabling sponsored messages for just patrons is not really an option when they are baked into a video itself. This has led me to stop being a patron for many creators (because why should I support them if a third party is already doing that for me?) So I’m glad you made this decision :)

Jesper the End

I studied physics, so I'm quite familiar with most of the content of your videos, but your way of presenting it is so fascinating and often gives me a new angle of understanding. In support of you going sponsor free, I just doubled my pledge (ok, it's just from 1 to 2, I admit). And don't worry: your audience will always value quality over quantity!

Going sponsor free was the final push for me to set up an account and help support you. I haven't really done anything with math since college. I love your videos and they kindle my affection for math.

I really appreciate what you are doing here, and I have to say, you put your thoughts out there eloquently and quite precisely. I agree with the idea that sponsorships can often "ruin" the content of the video—it leaves the viewer with a different thought than what the core content sought to achieve. As a result you have gained so much more respect from me (although I am really no one of value so my respect does not mean much). However, there are times where the idea from the content never leaves me anyway since the sponsor segment is divided well enough from the content (eg. SmarterEveryDay does this really well) that it sticks and the sponsorship becomes filler. I would like to add that the way you always handled sponsors anyway were brilliant (pun definitely intended). You seemed to only allow sponsors that relate to your content and would often tie the sponsor's goal with the idea behind the video's content—see the Putnam video. In general, your decision to leave out sponsors is quite a bold move. I never really minded sponsors on many of my favourite creator's videos (especially yours) because I knew it allowed them to expand their opportunities to create better (and sometime more) content. I feel a bit worried that this decision might result in less frequent output of videos, but I know you will always create some of the best content of YouTube. I also do want to make this abundantly clear: I (and many others I presume) would never resent you if you were to go back to sponsorships for extra funding. The society we live demands money, and the arts are no exception. PS: If you read this far, thank you! - Just a fan.

Thanks for the tip, I'll keep you in mind. Any core findings so far you'd want to share?

3blue1brown

Hi Grant, keep up the amazing work!I am also interested to hear that you will be making more non-video content. If you ever want to bounce ideas off someone RE how to help people learn stuff let me know. One of my core research interests (currently doing a PhD) is in the sciences of learning. I am more than happy to give you my opinion on any ideas around supplementing your videos with other things to help people understand the content.

Yes, I can easily imagine something like this in the future. Especially if I do more to host different types of content on the 3blue1brown website itself, having a distinct section of sponsored companies I recommend (for consumption or recruiting) is something I remain open to.

3blue1brown

I will likely still try to do more with recruiting in the future, because I think there's good value for all parties there. It's just that I don't think the post-roll message embedded in the video forever is necessarily the way to go.

3blue1brown

I prefer the videos not to have sponsorship, so have become a supporter to help achieve that. Thanks for the great videos Grant and keep it up!

Toby Archer

hey grant - I truly appreciate the depth of thought you put into your content and the manner in which it's consumed. I believe it's rare to find such raw passion for a project the way you have for 3blue1brown. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (something rare in and of itself) to know you're striving for the kind of direct connection you describe. It's because of that feeling of connection that I take whatever opportunity I can to turn math-oriented friends of mine onto your work. Much respect on both a technical level, and a principled one. Keep up the fantastic work!

Dillon Strichman

It's clear that you deeply care about the quality of your content, and to support your decision I just doubled my pledge. Good luck going forward!

Lock

Thanks a lot, Grant. I found those ads quite jarring. Just upped my pledge. 👍

Alexey Badalov

Hi Grant. As a devoted viewer and contributor of your work, I really appreciate the thought you put into the business model of what you produce, not just from a bottom-line perspective, but also form a ethical perspective. It's stuff like this that moves me from being a satisfied consumer of your material, to being outright proud to support the work you do. One recommendation I would have is that though I definitely agree with the approach you're taking to sponsorship, I've found the sponsorships you've done to be very well-aligned with my interests, and I'd be sad to see them vanish completely. Perhaps a 'third-party resources' list somewhere? Where you write up a quick description about the service provided by whomever you're sponsoring, and include a snippet on what aspects of your content that the service can supplement? I think that would stay in integrity with the business model you're aiming for, while still leveraging the possible benefits of well-aligned sponsorships.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the great stuff you produce. I like your decision to stop accepting sponsorships and actually thinking about what you do instead of following the money. I doubled my patronage (so it's 2€ now) as a sign of support.

Dear Grant, I've always been fascinated by math and I've derived great pleasure from doing what I could to try to spread my interest to others. From when I discovered your channel, I've been enchanted with your presentation of topics and examples in ways that I hadn't thought of previously. As far as I'm concerned, your ad placement has never taken anything away from your videos, but has at times brought resources to the attention of your viewers. Whether or not you change your mind about completely removing your sponsors, I will continue to view the videos posted by the channel and will continue teaching the students I tutor with a greater visual appreciation of the topic. Thank you for creating such wonderful content.

Indeed. I think you have summed up the problems with YT and funding for content providers in a neat and succinct manner, and one that goes pretty much along my feelings on the subject. Have made a small pledge level now, and will see how my funds go. Will try to up the level as and when i can.

Dear Grant, I think you are very right. Good luck and we will support you.

Thank you for writing this, while I never felt your ads were particularly intrusive I have been getting increasingly uncomfortable with the 'seamless transitions' you described, to the point where I've stopped viewing some channels. Instead of a proper ending to a video you get 'tricked' into an ad, and you suddenly start to question the entire content, it's unclear where the video ends and where the ad begins. And you're right, though I hadn't thought about it, that somewhere I associate channels that do this with channels like yours that do the same thing more reasonably. I think my view on ads goes against a lot of people today: If you're gonna do ads I believe separating it as much as possible from the content is key - in the best case (imo) you'd have ads about unrelated things controlled by a different person or entity in clearly marked places (such as standard youtube ads). When it gets closer to the content it increasingly blurs the lines. This of course runs entirely counter to the interests of the ad agency, who want the product embedded in highly-relevant content 'natively'. In a way I find the more well-aligned ads more problematic, more difficult to tell apart from genuine opinions - when you recommend brilliant for instance it can be difficult to separate your 'professional opinion' about how you think people learn math effectively and your sponsorship. While if you were to recommend a pair of boots I wouldn't find that problematic - I know it's just a sponsorship. I'm probably in the minority here, looking online most people seem to think that well aligned ads with seamless transitions are entertaining and interesting, whereas unrelated ads that break with the content are more jarring. But imo it's precisely this jarring break from the content that makes me feel comfortable with the advertisement.

Your advertising never felt intrusive and the firms you advertised were quite aligned with the spirit of your channel. But, having said that, I think that going sponsor-free is a good decision, and being able to do it, a proof of how well your channel is doing. And reading your note above, one can realize that the reason for it is not the maths, or the animations (even if they are great), but the values underneath.

Daniel Armesto

The reason that brand shows up all the time is because it's relevant to them. We don't always know what's out there or what we need. I think ads are a good outlet for that kind of thing, and this kind of targeting is precise enough for me. If you were to phase it out altogether, please consider the hybrid half-measure

It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing choice. I think the sponsorship deals can go in less-production-heavy videos. So your "main" content would be ad-free, like your linear algebra series, but your extras-videos and making-of, lessons, etc can have more ads. I know Brilliant.org is a great resource for me. I think you should continue to shill for what you believe in. For me, the Brilliant sponsorship (but only that one) is a great resource to go to when I run out of videos, but still want to learn. And your jobs posting ad really reminds me to get back on track to apply for that sort of thing. Brand synergy is a legitimate reason besides the financial one to have sponsorship

Thanks for the comments. Your description of ads blending into content reminds me of old days of radio and television, with folks routinely writing promotions into content. Paul Harvey, whose name you may not know, was a master at that. I personally feel a lot better when ads are separate from content. “And now a word from our sponsor” is a lot cleaner and respectful to the audience, but advertisers want to buy pitchmen not just ad space, if they can get it, and with thousands of content producers out there, it is a buyers market. I am glad you are going another route. If you need ads, so be it. You have a product that is worth getting out to people. But I think the world needs to know that there can be alternate funding methods of enjoyable and worthwhile besides commercialisation. Perhaps you can also explore alternate platforms, as YouTube is becoming less open and more controlling. You probably don’t feel it, but a lot of other excellent creators do.

If you decide to go sponsor free I'll double to $2 to help cover the revenue losses.

Sachin Shukla

I became a patreon supporter partly because of your decision to go sponsor free. (However, I would not stop if you were to reverse that decision.)

André Roberge

I don't think placing ads at the end does any harm to your videos. You don't have to go sponsor-free. It's pretty good as it is.

Alexander

Sponsor section could become recommendation section. For me, finding out about brilliant.org was helpful.

Thanks for creating all these amazing videos. I agree with your thoughts on "Direct, optional support really is the best incentive alignment I can see for content creation". Unfortunately the present Patreon model only incentivizes creation of new content. This does not ensure any earnings from past creations. Ads provide a way to monetize existing content. Without ads, you might have to resort to other ways. Anyways, continue to make amazing videos. The pi-creatures will find a way to feed themselves :)

Bigyan Bhar

I honestly like many of the sponsorship ads you put on your videos. Especially those that involve hiring people may actually be useful.

Chenfeng Bao

I accept content creators doing sponsorship deals, because they need to earn a living to continue doing what they do. Of the points you mentioned, the one which connects the most is that there's no proper place in the video to put an ad, without distracting people from the main topic, disrupting the flow, or having the viewers leave with their mind on something else.

Magnasium

I disagree with the decision. 1st, doing clear ads at end or beginning is a nice supplement of support dollars. 2nd, there were ads for things/places/channels that I was not aware of and would have likely remained ignorant of.

seerpea

I've increased my pledge to $4 - keep doing great work!

What you are doing with your unique talents is incredibly important and incredibly well done. I'm going to increase my pledge. Great work. (P.S., loved the Div, Curl video).

Thank you for taking the time to communicate your thoughts about the channel in such an insightful and transparent manner.

Thanks for the thoughtful and honest writeup!

Thanks for being awesome!

Jonathan Fuzaro Alencar

Increased my pledge to show my appreciation.

Doug Fort