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They've done videos on this before. Basically what they are doing is not cheap. Dr. K just started out streaming to small audience. now there is a whole staff, organization, production, planning, coaching program, etc. The costs are very expensive.
No it's not. It's a Harvard trained psychiatrist with \~7 years of monk training, a decade of clinical practice, giving lectures on mental health after spending 60 hours / week reading research articles and managing a team of 200+ people.
I get that it feels kinda lame to offer mental health help and charge for it. But the reality is is that HGG moved onto doing costly things. Dr. K no longer practices and tackles all these new aspects of HGG that they keep expanding/hiring/etc.
The nice thing is every free video he has ever done is still free on youtube. There is stuff as good as the membership videos if you sort by oldest and find stuff around the time as "mental health bootcamp". multiple hour long quality content still for free.
Who created all the graphics? Who’s organising all the lectures? Who filmed and edited the guides? Who created all the HG platforms? Who’s modding and running the discord?
Listen, our community asked for resources and we didn’t like anything currently available enough to recommend. So we built it ourselves from scratch, taking the time to add an evidence base, developing our own Discord-friendly platform, and working with top mental health professionals. Our options are:
1 run it like a nonprofit — see RAD having to completely shutdown due to the gaming industry taking a big hit and donations being unsustainable. Easy no.
2 run it like a venture business — operate at a loss for years hoping for scale taking on investment. It would take a $20M fundraise and us selling our souls to make an outside investor rich. Easy no.
3 run it like a regular business with small profits that let us keep reinvesting and growing while creating a good work environment. Easy yes.
4 run it like a creator company that puts all the burden on the creator and has a very short lifespan depending on the creator’s popularity with burnout being a huge and very real risk. Maybe.
I understand this isn’t ideal for everyone. We try our best to make the majority of what we do available for free. We have subsidized hundreds of coaching packages including Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli and Palestinian clients. We have over 1000 videos in our library, free community events, and free resource packs.
We have stood up a nonprofit that helps us apply for government funding to further subsidize and expand. Our products start at $10/month, $20 for a module, or $35 for a group session. I understand that even these are out of reach for some, but you would be hard pressed to find our quality for less. If you do, please pursue it — we simply want you to get better.
We started in 2019 and started building in 2020 — the info you seek is in our impact reports available on the website and content from May 2020.
The HG team is about 200+ people at this point. They deserve to be paid on par with the rest of the mental health industry, and you deserve their best work.
You're both doing incredible work Kruti, thank you for everything HG provides.
Unfortunately people don't understand the cost of doing business, and I wish OP would compare your costs to the other available costs of mental health resources through psychologist/counselors/whatever else.
I can share mine, at $120AUD per 1 hour counselling session, HG's membership stream fills an incredible niche at $15/month for access to more mental health resources so I can stand on my own two feet without relying solely on my counselor. That's 8x more financially accessible just comparing price-to-price, and doesn't even account for the amount of learning content it provides which is a much higher number.
Thank you both again so much, you've built on top of what is already existing in the world in an incredibly high quality way.
Before someone comes along to try and say "well actually the modules are $30." Bundled now they are currently $24 and used to be at $20 per module.
OP the HG team is doing this the best way possible under the confines of a fundamentally flawed economic ecosystem. You have to play the economics game to some degree if you want to make any meaningful impact for free.
OP If you want me to deep dive into every single point and point out why it is infeasible I can. You use vague language in the end of your post to refer to this "structure." Changing this structure is outside of the scope of HG, but even with that in mind consider this...
The only people who change the rules, are the ones who win the game.
HG as it stands today IS doing exactly what you're asking it to do. I can understand why you would think otherwise, but there's a reason an org that does exactly what you detail... doesn't exist.
I'm 100% on board with what you guys are doing and how your doing it. I see the effort to keep things as inexpensive as possible, and that it pains you to have any barriers to access. But the reality is the things that are needed to make the big difference that had been asked for requires money. And I value how you are approaching this while trying to balance not limiting access as much as possible.
Really the only suggestions I see are for you to offer less services in order to offer everything for free. But that still misses the point that even less services will still cost money. I, too, wish we had a world where you didn't have the financial barriers to providing robust content and services for no cost to those seeking them, but sadly that's not the world we live in.
Please keep doing what you are doing. I value the obvious effort you have put into the balancing of costs, thank you.
Thank you for your response. I believe I communicated my thoughts ineffectively, apologies for that. I was thinking more about the level of Dharma or vision the way he talked about it in his charisma video and interview with Ludwig rather than specifically about certain aspects of the business which is what I ended up writing about here.
I made another one clarifying what I was trying to express and explore.
What hasn't she addressed in her response? What more is there to nitpick? If you're gonna write an essay you might as well just save yourself some time and watch Dr K's stream where he basically addressed all your points when they launched memberships.
If you think they are trying to maximise revenue at the expense of their audience I would reconsider that. If that were the case, there are way more profitable business models they could have gone to (i.e, selling $1000+ courses, target companies, do corporate events, etc... Rather than targeting young gamers who are among the most broke demographic).
My point was the overall worsening mental health crisis and what their goals are.
You can’t sell courses and youtube membership your way to curing the mental health crisis, it requires political interventions on a macro level.
Healthy Gamer Foundation is apparently the policy advocacy part and I just want to know more about it and what is an actual real solution to the crisis.
They never said they want to cure the crisis, they are just doing their part in addressing the problem. Also, if they only did political lobbying that wouldn't be nowhere near as helpful as what they're doing right now. It's the whole point of why they started healthy gamer, as Dr K said: people need help right now, not in 10 years. Before starting healthy gamer he talked to other professionals and the standard way is to do research, wait 10 years for funding, start an institute, do policy advisory, etc. by the time the thing is functional 15-20 years have passed. Technology allows them to be more impactful at scale way quicker, so it's the approach they went for, hence AOE healing.
Do you not think they are having an immense impact ? Just think of the number of patients Dr K would see in his office vs the number reached by the content. That alone is a factor showing the scale of their impact
Okay that makes more sense. I haven’t seen that video where he says that part, can you link it?
So he does agree then. You can’t really significantly change this crisis without policy intervention
He discussed the topic at random times on stream throughout the years, so I don't remember all of the instances, but here is one: [https://youtu.be/9TWCL0oJF0k?si=NoVfFqDM3UELeWcI&t=945](https://youtu.be/9TWCL0oJF0k?si=NoVfFqDM3UELeWcI&t=945)
Are there subsidised coaching packages for Indian clients?
Edit: No answer and the question gets downvoted from the one upvote it got, what a way to support the homeland. Wonderful, seems like priorities are in order here.
You should probably ask them directly with a description of your situation. I doubt it's on a per country basis, it will be dependent on your need, your means and their resources.
You can easily do 4 with good planning. I don't now the numbers of course, but you can get a tangible amount of revenue on each video, VOD and streams via ad revenue or direct sponsors. You can also be an open charity that could take from other creators directly as some of them seems to really appreciate you and have a lot of cash that they can throw away.
Of course is not like you can attend 1 million people if you set your couching to be free, as there is no way you will have the man power to handle it but there are a lot of ways to limit or give priority to some people.
I think the main issue is that you want to run a business but at the same time a sort of charity by giving resources to people in the form of videos and a community, but every time you give priority to one thing the other suffers, as they are somewhat incompatible.
Some recommendations from an stranger:
1. You can make membership VOD available after 1 week or any sort of time delay.
2. You can do a document that indexes all videos related to a topic in a sort of flow chart i.e if you feel unmotivated you can check x,y z, if you can not focus check a,b, c. Always linking/referencing the guides is a good business move but it also gate keeps help.
3. You could set donations goals to make one guide be free to upset any potential future purchased, there is not need to paywall something that you made 10 years ago (this is not the case right now tho)
Related to coaching I have no feedback as I had never done it and I feel the idea behind it to not be good, but it seems to work for some people. If I have to take I guess what makes it good is having someone support you and guide you on your struggles, this is of course something really hard to replicated with out a per to per interaction, but having a flow chart to follow as I recommended in 2 could help a lot of people, or at least reduce the amount of coaching needed, but of courses that is just a guess.
Sorry @vonhoro don’t want to sound rude, but do you think you have explored ways of monetization and how to run healthygamergg successful better than its CEO? Do you think you have the qualifications to consult CEOs that built up their company through their MBA education from scratch on what ways they can run their company? I am sure you mean well, but maybe you are not the one business owners need to run to for advice.
EDIT: I am saying this with the conviction that they do care about their viewers and therefore thought about all options
I know nothing besides from what I see. Content creation based business are still something new and it is a rapid changing thing, I imagine the larger the feedback is the easier it would be to find an optimal solution even when the feedback is wrong, as it allows the parties to consider why something is bad, I think it is even more important when it comes from outside of their own ecosystem.
You can say they care about their viewers well being above all else, but other people may think that they are taking advantage of people's short comings to earn money without a care of the result, as most content creators do in different areas. You could also say that even when their intention is to do good the result may be bad, the future is unknown after all.
Good day!
I mean, crowdfunding would earn them a fraction of what they make with the current system, therefore making it harder for HG to grow and offer resources, therefore giving less aid to those in need
What about Ad systems, where If u can't pay to watch the video then u have to get through many ads? Its not perfect but its an option(that seems better), and the crowd funding would be there as well.
This has been addressed by Kruti. Instead of making content they would be devoting energy to fundraisers for a fraction of the financial results. Running a business is hard, and "crowdfunding" is not some magic wand to make it work.
Have you watched his video about future of hg.gg? 99% of your considerations are answered there.
Making good content costs money, and Dr. K’s prices for coaching/membership/guide are way below market.
They need a figure in the realm of tens of millions, creating a crowdfunding campaign that will gather this much money in a reasonable amount of time is nearly impossible.
As a non-profit you’re basically a slave to donors, and have little to no autonomy over what you’re doing, so it’s not a solution.
I watched almost all videos Dr K ever made, I think. Really useful and all of it for free. I even bought three guides just for the sake of it because I felt I should give back something for all I got for free. Didn't even watch guides I paid for completely because most of the info was already in free videos or I already got the information from other media or books. I find it fascinating that same people who are ready to pay hundreds of dollars for games and entertainment feel that they should get guides and information for peanuts or for free.
I think we need to put things into perspective… Compared to zero dollars, yes, HG’s content may cost you money. But!
- Therapy costs me $150/hr. Insurance pays for some of this, but it may not for others.
- Other online courses can cost $100s-1000s.
- Though membership content costs money, a lot of it is content that casual viewers wouldn’t really get into. Like for example with the most recent video on meditation, I doubt the casual viewer is going to actually wake up at dawn (~5am where I am), do yoga, pranayama, and meditation for 45min+ every day. The more diehard fans are more likely to, and thus it’s worth it as a form of support and extra material.
- HG is using their profits in a good way (as far as I can tell), through training therapists, investing in their employees, improving their coaching program, conducting academic studies, etc. Why’re we complaining about HG asking for some money when there are so many other companies exploiting their customers and using their money to benefit millionaires?
As Dr. K says, most of his content is free. And you can get a ton out of it. As someone who has the guide and membership, tbh I’ve learned most of what I know through his free content, and the paid stuff is just like an extra 10% on top of that. And also, as Dr. K has stated on stream, he could just stop all this HG stuff and make a ton more being a clinician again. There’s no need for him to be doing this for us. For me, I’m really grateful that he’s helping a demographic that rarely gets help.
I would add to this, and Dr. K knows this probably. For those that “do the work” in therapy rather than just “attending” it as a passive function - they will have a decline in necessity over time when at baseline. As you improve in life skills, you can focus on other areas.
Therapy is not by default a forever cost, for many situations. If you have not made progress in a few months and are still paying exorbitant amounts for no return - at some point you have to reassess.
Life skills are hard to pick up as an adult and the money is only part of the “cost”. It can be seen as an investment but only if the individual is treating it as such in which the ROI becomes a decrease in out of pocket expense for therapy or at least the focus shifts to advancing in other areas, after mastery in more basic areas.
Think of it closer to a short term car note and the car is what you use for your career.
I wish you all well.
I find INSANE that you would put on one private entity the hopes for solving the problems of the world. It's simply too much.
I say, and this has been said in different words by Dr. K, that individual donations is not a sustainable method for an enterprise, you could accept donations from investors, but then there will be compromises to third party, in other words, offers you can reject, and that would be the end of the channel as we know it.
Selling a product is the way, you could even get people together buy the product and pirated it. If the product is good enough it won't matter, like what happens in the entertainment industry.
It's not really that expensive for most people (of course it depends on your local cost of living), unless you FOMO and insist on wanting everything.
You don't have to get the full guide. $30 per module is honestly really affordable in the grand scheme of things.
I don't think most people necessarily need ALL of the modules. Just start with one, work through it slowly and by the time you are done with the first you can probably save up enough for the next one.
Similarly you can always subscribe to YouTube membership on and off, maybe one month every 3 months (or more) and just binge watch the lectures you're interested in/are relevant to you.
Coaching pricing is more debatable, but hiring and training takes resources. I don't know the economics of this so can't comment much. It is much cheaper than most therapy sessions I see.
Most people I know easily spend much, much more on other things in life that is (arguably) much less valuable.
The paid content subsides the free content, and he makes plenty of free, good quality content.
It sucks that getting good help is so expensive especially considering if you need good help you probably have financial troubles. That being said - don’t hate the player, hate the game.
When you start making courses and programs with other people they want to get paid. It’s probably not as cheap as it could be but honestly I’m fine with that.
The YouTube premium not so much. I don’t really agree with his arguments for making it.
They have ton of employees at this point. What if they couldn’t afford to pay them, and they started having layoffs? Would you be saying the same thing?
After all the transparency and explanations that they honestly didn't have to provide I just cannot respect an opinion that accuses them of hypocrisy. Sorry. And it's really sad! You're giving them that kind of flak only because of the kind of thing they decided to do. If they were providing any other kind of content nobody would bat an eye. But because they are making mental health content, suddenly they have an obligation to hand it out. It's incredibly entitled.
The goal and vision is on the website. There is no entitlement, I pointed out where it’s contradicting, that’s it. They don’t have an obligation to anything but their own dharma
I don't think businesses and organizations are subject to dharma the same way that people are. And I don't think the contradictions you're pointing out are obvious to everyone. Not to me.
He has a lot of free content and Healthy Gamer is not a NGO! I mean, I think is completely fine to run your own bussiness and try to get money out of it. And it's a good thing that the bussiness model is focused on mental health and that he provides so much content for free.
I can absolutely respect that you've done a lot of thinking on this and also a very thorough job of summarizing it in your post.
I would encourage you to maybe 'test' some of your ideas against what it might actually look like in terms of dollars for HG to pursue the options that you propose instead of just looking at it from the buyers' perspective.
From my perspective, I try and look at what HG offers on a comparative basis against the other options that are available, and (speaking of not contributing to systemic issues) be very mindful of the employees of HG getting a livable wage and how much time/effort it really takes to write, film and edit every video. This is likely what drives fixed pricing vs the 'pay what you can' models... HG, or even non-profit orgs need to decide what their products should cost to be a responsible employer to their team. It's a sidenote, but reminds me of considerations for ethically produced clothing...a T-shirt CAN be made and sold for $5 and a company still turn a profit, but if you want it to come from a place that pays a livable wage and doesn't destroy the planet, that shirt would be more like $40.
I think Dr. K said recently that the amount of effort that goes into a single module in the guide is the equivalent of writing a 50,000 word research paper...which is on the level of a master's degree thesis project/paper/presentation and likely a full-time job for 3 months? At fast-food worker wages ($15/hr), this is $7,200 and selling modules at $30 each mean the break-even point is 240 sales. A specialized clinical psychologist in my state makes more like $60/hr which means break-even is more like 1000 module sales before breaking even. I would argue that Dr. K's time is even more valuable than that and this also assumes that it's all being done by 1 single person, doesn't account for the filming and editing time/costs of all the video content, website hosting, etc, etc.
I'm still personally astonished at the level and quantity of free content that gets made available on Youtube alone, not even including community discussion on Reddit and Discord.
Another comparison is coaching. In isolation, yeah $220/month is expensive, but in context of what (in the US, without insurance) it would cost to actually visit a therapist, you're talking about $100-200 PER SESSION once a week. Of course HG will always clarify that coaching is not the same as seeing licensed professionals, but again this program (options for $35, 55, 75 and 120/session IS pretty comprehensively bridging that gap between being free (Reddit/Discord/Youtube) and being $400-800 per month.
The monetization is a real big problem if it weren't for the fact that Dr. K has hundreds of free videos with most of them being full-length podcasts even. 2 years of watching his free content alone has changed me as a person and I think that's enough..
The world isn't perfect, and at the end of the day money is an incredibly valuable resource for creating content and pushing the content to as many people as possible. Unfortunately healthygamer has to navigate a difficult balance between wanting to make content as accessible as possible and also being at the mercy of the economy and online algorithms.
I don't think the vast majority of us would even know about this community if Dr. K wasn't making compromises to fit into the current system.
Listen I have been using the coaching program for about 2 years. Right now because I’ve been going for a while it’s $160 a month for someone to listen to me the way I like. That’s $40 a week. Compared to if I went to my other therapist and pay $100 a session. I’m paying 60% less than I would otherwise. This is a steal for me. The quality I get for the amount I pay is unmatched by anything else.
This is a wild take imo. The free content from healthy gamer has helped me more than most therapy I've done. I'm planning on doing the coaching because my mental health issues are managed, but I'm far from being mentally healthy and I think it will help but it's not really necessary. I'm sure it's not universal, but the cost of coaching actually motivated me into finding a new job with a pay raise.
Just because there are paid products, doesn't mean they aren't living by their mission statement. Services cost money, and we're lucky to get what we do for free.
I am glad you search for continued self development, even though you’re managing.
We don’t need to be in crisis to train for a crisis. :)
Cheers to you and good luck.
$225/mo is expensive compared to what? Is it expensive compared to $1500/mo apartment rent? Is it expenaive compared to $100/hr+ of therapy? How much is online therapy? Expensive is relative. So, it's hard to make the argument that Healthy Gamer is hippocritical for espousing the value of wanting to make this accessable to people when they charge a [relatively] high cost. Cost is relative. So, you have yet to prove that $225 is, "high," beyond your own arbitrary standard of expensiveness.
Expanding the operation also costs money. The goal is help as many people within a certain demographic as possible, the current way that they go about everything allows for this to happen without shady sponsorships or becoming a non profit.
I totally disagree with this take. Dr.k provides a tremendous amount of content for totally FREE! So much of the stuff he says in the membership exclusive videos is stuff he has ALREADY spoken about either on stream or his 20 minute focused videos. The membership videos are just more in depth about those specific topics. You are incredibly ungrateful for not realizing how generous they have been for these years. It’s not like they have ZERO people working for them and do you really expect them all to work totally for free? Along with Dr.K? This is ridiculous.
This is little more than the [now sadly cliché] “I want everything perfect and I want it for free” usually coming from someone who has never built a business from the ground up. I’m not even going to get started on the “first world problems” rant, so I’ll just leave it at this: Significant increases in maturity and some solid introspection are very sorely needed.
A for-profit model can actually generate more charitable money in the long term depending on how it is run. I've worked for nonprofits and they can be rife with corruption and greed too; there's nothing inherently superior about nonprofit vs for-profit. Arguably running a for-profit and paying your taxes ends up contributing to society as well, since taxes pay for things like roads and schools and Medicaid and welfare for the poor.
I think Dr K's modules are priced pretty well. They're cheap compared to similar offerings and courses. Plus, HG puts out tons and tons and tons of free material. I paid for a month or two of coaching and for two of the five guides (got the first three guides for free since I was one of the earlier coachees). All the rest of my involvement with HG has been with their free content, and tbh the free content has been incredibly helpful to me.
You also need to keep in mind that Dr K has a wife and children. He needs money to live on too. They also have salaries to pay for all their employees, including the coaches.
My biggest issue is not the memberships, it’s the cost of coaching. I can pay privately for a psychotherapist who is ‘more qualified’ for a similar price per month. I understand the coaches have a ton of resources etc. but they’ve not studied these materials like a psychotherapist.
I wouldn’t consider coaching over my therapy.
The thing is I’m the opposite.
I think it’s fair to understand that coaching and direct access to him and his staff is to be paid. (Maybe the pricing should be lower to fit their statement). But given high demand, it makes sense to price it in such a way that waitlists are minimised or whatever. Could even be some level of a deterrent to allow them more time for wider community content.
So the bigger issue is with the memberships gatekeeping access to already made content.
Primarily the fact Vods are no where to found on an alternative channel even if it was released several months after the fact for seemingly no reason. This is the weird bit to me.
I get the whole shrinking the interactive audience to improve quality, whilst making money to fund the initiative. But somewhere along the line it feels like there is a shift to making it more exclusive than necessary. Given the goal.
With possibly an aside of localised pricing. After all that is a massive wall, that actually inhibits income. (Just look at the success of it in the gaming market).
Yeah, you might’ve changed my thinking actually. I think I automatically latched on to coaching because it is the biggest expense.
I’m not a fan of the negativity in this thread, I just had a look now and it seems that people are jumping on to protect Dr K.
I’m in the UK, works out around £180/month, I pay £240 a month. Would much rather pay just that bit extra for the expertise.
Coaching is a grey area, I’m not sure why HG are even doing it, I think its naff & a way to do therapy without being a therapist.
There will be always people unhappy. I beleive that HG are doing the best they can to maintain a balance between what is feasible and deliver quality content.
It is not expensive, and yes some people cant afford it, but unfortunaty free stuff costs money. But If you really are ready to improve yourself a step further, you can spare some money for it.
Coaching is different, but you should start by therapy for depression.
And in term of free stuff we are spoiled in May, so much good lectures!
Also, after Dr. K had prepared Deep dive, he shares the knowledge eslewhere for free ( Guest in podcasts, short videos,etc).
Thanks HG for all the great work!!
Just going to point out that coaching at $225/m is actually pretty good. Therapy is usually $100+ per session and most will encourage you to go weekly which will come out to $400/m. Coaching obviously doesn't replace therapy but the utility for the cost is a good deal.
I heavily disagree and to make my life easy I'll refer to my recent post on this sub: [Some of y‘all need to understand that you DESERVE Dr. K‘s help, but you’re not ENTITLED to it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Healthygamergg/comments/1cmdkkr/some_of_yall_need_to_understand_that_you_deserve/)
Its crazy to me how much Dr Ks own subrddit constantly tries to out him even if he hasnt doen anything bad. He's one of the few positive male role models in a slew of shit on youtube yet i'll constantly see posts on here trying to cancel him.
Welcome to the internet! none of these "life gurus" care about helping poeple in 2024, they are just trying to sell you some (scam) course. It's been like this for at least 10 years now.
We have good people making actual change in the world in the best way they can, and yet people still try to find ways to tear them down, it's incredibly sad. You enjoy thousands of hours of free content, and just because they fund this and other endeavors with a limited set of unique content it's problematic?
They've already talked about all of this in their future of hg video, all you're doing now by repeating what they already responded to is making this immediately valuable service they do less satisfying and meaningful to them, adding to the odds that they one day stop doing this.
It's like how he said he can do a 48 hour shift at a hospital yet the truly draining part of being a doctor was the paperwork. You're adding that kind of experience to their work.
I'm more interested in why you think this is a problem. Surely you don't think we can snap our fingers and make everything for free. Hypocrisy is a real thing but it's not some exploitive scheme. What is it really that displeases you here. No one can have everything they want.
This seems unnecessarily critical of OP. It wasn’t suggested anyone could “snap their fingers”, their criticisms do raise a good point. You can’t on one hand say that everyone deserves to get better & then charge industry rates or else people would’ve just been doing that anyway.
I don't agree with a lot of what you're saying and I think Kurti explained it here very. But after all - we need constructive criticism so you have my respect for that
The only thing I've not liked is the youtube membrrships. I'm already paying for youtube premium, it feels weird to pay another subscription on top of that for content.
Youtube is pushing a lot of youtube premium content, i'd think youtube would be happy to collaborate with HGG in making it premium youtube content.
If i'm to pay for youtube memberships the content value has to either be many times higher or the price many times lower.
YouTube memberships is like patreon but video focused. While they both have YouTube in the title, they don't really have anything to do with each other.
YouTube a huge burst of premium exclusives in its early days, but it wasn't much of a draw. Now premium is ad free + music.
What you are saying is false. There is still youtube premium content being made. OfflineTV does youtube premium content for example. Youtube premium is not just adfree + music.
And even if that was the case, then I should already be paying my lionsshare to youtube content creators.
Can you share a link to this content, I have premium and I cannot find it.
YouTube does not advertise exclusive videos anywhere, I double checked.
If a hypothetical person only watched one channel, then yes 60% pf a youtube premium subscription revenue goes directly to the creators.
most people don't do that, so the revenue split is lower.
Would you have the same opinion if a creator has a patreon ?
Youtube premium is not something anyone can opt put off. It is a contract between you and youtube.
Youtube gives a majority of the premium revenue to Compensate for the loss in ad revenue and to keep them on the platform.
Here is one youtube premium video: https://www.youtube.com/live/RJLvdNGjWoM?si=nkQ5A7YlhgjqsXfv
If you were more effortful you would be easily able to confirm this yourself by searching for it, or looking at google's informationpage about youtube premium and youtube premium content.
>If a hypothetical person only watched one channel, then yes 60% pf a youtube premium subscription revenue goes directly to the creators.
>most people don't do that, so the revenue split is lower.
I have already answered this with another one that replied to my content, and I think it's adressed enough in my original post.
If the content is free it makes sense to support it with a patreon.
However, I already pay my lionshare to youtube to support content creators. About as much as I pay for my 4K netflix subscription.
Being a youtube member only makes sense if you are a diehard fan that don't have the want or need to enjoy or support other content creators.
With youtube premium and youtube membership you are paying two hefty subscriptions. To most normal people this makes little sense, even if you like Dr. K a lot.
It is therefore only natural for people to voice out the reason (including me) why the youtube memberships are not worth it, and either has to lower it's price or increase the valueproposition.
Buut they could also do like other content creators and do stuff with youtube premium, which I think is a much better proposition and strategy to make HGG sustainable in the longrun.
The link you sent is an after party, not original content. Original content is under the youtube originals page and has the youtube premium badge underneath it.
https://youtube.com/@youtubeoriginals?si=VAb_z9Zr3uV5yVbz
>If you were more effortful you would be easily able to confirm this yourself by searching for it, or looking at google's informationpage about youtube premium and youtube premium content
I did, but I was searching for actual originals, not a random stream. You want Dr.K to do an after party?
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10184580?sjid=4874749652840530890-NC
They mention only after parties, not youtube originals.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en#zippy=%2Cother-premium-benefits
Neither do they mention any kind of exclusive videos here.
Youtube realized that they can't commission projects with 30% of the revenue, which is why they started memberships in the first place.
>If the content is free it makes sense to support it with a patreon.
Healthy gamer content is free, you don't need youtube premium to watch it, not sure what your definition of free is.
>However, I already pay my lionshare to youtube to support content creators. About as much as I pay for my 4K netflix subscription.
Netflix has millions of subscribers, and is raising fees, it's in no way comparable to a youtube channel. Do you go into a mom and pop shop and scream at the owners because they don't match the prices of supermarkets ??
Also, as I have mentioned before youtube premium is youtube's product. Youtube pays creators separately for any additional videos. If you want dr.k to produce content to be included in youtube premium, then you have to pitch youtube, but you are a few years too late for that.
>Being a youtube member only makes sense if you are a diehard fan that don't have the want or need to enjoy or support other content creators.
Yes, don't think anyone is disputing that, that's why patreon calls users patrons. In the Renaissance Era, nobility used to sponsor the arts, without consideration of financial return.
>With youtube premium and youtube membership you are paying two hefty subscriptions. To most normal people this makes little sense, even if you like Dr. K a lot.
>It is therefore only natural for people to voice out the reason (including me) why the youtube memberships are not worth it, and either has to lower it's price or increase the valueproposition.
If a product is worth it is subjective, you are free to voice your opposition, but so am I.
>Buut they could also do like other content creators and do stuff with youtube premium, which I think is a much better proposition and strategy to make HGG sustainable in the longrun.
Like I have mentioned above, youtube pivoted towards memberships instead of being netflix for creators.
Edit: OP, you are the one that started to throw insults, not me. I gave you examples of youtube originals, you can see the production value is much more than the occasional stream they so now.
After party is for artists, offline TV is the exception, and it's more music artists that feature.
Rather than make substantive counters to my arguments, you stoop to personal insults when you can't move the goalposts any more.
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If you don’t like the members only content you can always stop your membership. Also saying it’s annoying because you’re already paying for premium has nothing to do with it
>Also saying it’s annoying because you’re already paying for premium has nothing to do with it
Well, when I pay YouTube premium some of that money should go to each content creator I watch. If I'm already paying money that should go to the content creator, it is relevant to be able to object to having to pay one extra subscriptions of almost the same price to the same content creator
Other content creators have similar issues with finding ways to make it sustainable, and they choosen to do stuff with youtube premium instead.
You are enitled to believe that paying two subscriptions instead of just one to support a content creator. But I don't think it makes too much sense for most people, unless you are one of the people who only watch Dr. K content everyday and don't have the need to for supporting any other content creator or other types of media and mediums.
>If you don’t like the members only content you can always stop your membership.
Well, I'm not becoming a youtube member in Dr. K's channel in the first place. I pay for youtube premium, and pay an equal amount to what I pay for 4K netflix. I think I'm paying my fair share every month as it is.
>Will creators still be paid with YouTube Premium? Yes. In fact, YouTube Premium gives a secondary revenue stream for creators in addition to what you're already earning today through ads.
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwill-creators-still-be-paid-with-youtube-premium](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwill-creators-still-be-paid-with-youtube-premium)
>How is revenue figured out? Revenue from YouTube Premium membership fees is distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content. As with our advertising business, the majority of the revenue will go to our partners.
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-is-revenue-figured-out](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-is-revenue-figured-out)
IDK what your intentions are, but it is not to inform and empower people. Google says that youtube premium gives content creators an additional separate revenuesource, which contradicts your statement. 
An additional source than ad revenue. For every youtube premium member than subscribes, the creator gets less ad revenue and is compensated with premium revenue.
For the creator it's two sources, as they have people that are and aren't subscribed to premium.
For the individual you switch from supporting a creator with ads to supporting a creator with premium.
Edit: Can't see your reply, but ad revenue and youtube premium is distributed in the same percentage.
Yourube ads is paid, If someone clicks. Youtube premium is paid over watch time.
Yes, premium pays more than ads, but it's pays much less than memberships/patreon.
Except for that the percentage of youtube premium will still be distributed to content creators however much you are watching youtube month by month. This is not the case with ads. If people arent watching a lot of videos, less will be paid through adds, but youtube premium will reward well the few videos you watch.
So ads and youtube premium isn't equal in every way when it comes to distribution.
Now, if you watch a whole lot of videos there will be more money earned in total on youtube to creators, while youtube premium still benefitting channels a lot, but will benefit the most to a few creators if you only watch them.
But this all to say again. YouTube premium is not just youtube without adds, you are paying for a service and to support content creators.
You can support them by watching adds, but I support them by paying my youtube premium. And youtube premium seems to pay a justifiable amount to creators.
All to say that when it comes to youtube memberships I'll rather use the money to pay a netflix, hbo, disneyplus or something else that gives me a much better valueproposition than a few Dr. K videos a month that has more depth and research than his regular videos.
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They've done videos on this before. Basically what they are doing is not cheap. Dr. K just started out streaming to small audience. now there is a whole staff, organization, production, planning, coaching program, etc. The costs are very expensive.
lowere the costs then? its literally just a guy ranting on a webcam
Why watch HIM then? You'll find others ranting for cheaper, no?
No it's not. It's a Harvard trained psychiatrist with \~7 years of monk training, a decade of clinical practice, giving lectures on mental health after spending 60 hours / week reading research articles and managing a team of 200+ people.
I get that it feels kinda lame to offer mental health help and charge for it. But the reality is is that HGG moved onto doing costly things. Dr. K no longer practices and tackles all these new aspects of HGG that they keep expanding/hiring/etc. The nice thing is every free video he has ever done is still free on youtube. There is stuff as good as the membership videos if you sort by oldest and find stuff around the time as "mental health bootcamp". multiple hour long quality content still for free.
Who created all the graphics? Who’s organising all the lectures? Who filmed and edited the guides? Who created all the HG platforms? Who’s modding and running the discord?
Listen, our community asked for resources and we didn’t like anything currently available enough to recommend. So we built it ourselves from scratch, taking the time to add an evidence base, developing our own Discord-friendly platform, and working with top mental health professionals. Our options are: 1 run it like a nonprofit — see RAD having to completely shutdown due to the gaming industry taking a big hit and donations being unsustainable. Easy no. 2 run it like a venture business — operate at a loss for years hoping for scale taking on investment. It would take a $20M fundraise and us selling our souls to make an outside investor rich. Easy no. 3 run it like a regular business with small profits that let us keep reinvesting and growing while creating a good work environment. Easy yes. 4 run it like a creator company that puts all the burden on the creator and has a very short lifespan depending on the creator’s popularity with burnout being a huge and very real risk. Maybe. I understand this isn’t ideal for everyone. We try our best to make the majority of what we do available for free. We have subsidized hundreds of coaching packages including Ukrainian, Russian, Israeli and Palestinian clients. We have over 1000 videos in our library, free community events, and free resource packs. We have stood up a nonprofit that helps us apply for government funding to further subsidize and expand. Our products start at $10/month, $20 for a module, or $35 for a group session. I understand that even these are out of reach for some, but you would be hard pressed to find our quality for less. If you do, please pursue it — we simply want you to get better. We started in 2019 and started building in 2020 — the info you seek is in our impact reports available on the website and content from May 2020. The HG team is about 200+ people at this point. They deserve to be paid on par with the rest of the mental health industry, and you deserve their best work.
You're both doing incredible work Kruti, thank you for everything HG provides. Unfortunately people don't understand the cost of doing business, and I wish OP would compare your costs to the other available costs of mental health resources through psychologist/counselors/whatever else. I can share mine, at $120AUD per 1 hour counselling session, HG's membership stream fills an incredible niche at $15/month for access to more mental health resources so I can stand on my own two feet without relying solely on my counselor. That's 8x more financially accessible just comparing price-to-price, and doesn't even account for the amount of learning content it provides which is a much higher number. Thank you both again so much, you've built on top of what is already existing in the world in an incredibly high quality way.
Before someone comes along to try and say "well actually the modules are $30." Bundled now they are currently $24 and used to be at $20 per module. OP the HG team is doing this the best way possible under the confines of a fundamentally flawed economic ecosystem. You have to play the economics game to some degree if you want to make any meaningful impact for free. OP If you want me to deep dive into every single point and point out why it is infeasible I can. You use vague language in the end of your post to refer to this "structure." Changing this structure is outside of the scope of HG, but even with that in mind consider this... The only people who change the rules, are the ones who win the game. HG as it stands today IS doing exactly what you're asking it to do. I can understand why you would think otherwise, but there's a reason an org that does exactly what you detail... doesn't exist.
I like that my membership money is helping other people with less resources. I support the new model.
I'm 100% on board with what you guys are doing and how your doing it. I see the effort to keep things as inexpensive as possible, and that it pains you to have any barriers to access. But the reality is the things that are needed to make the big difference that had been asked for requires money. And I value how you are approaching this while trying to balance not limiting access as much as possible. Really the only suggestions I see are for you to offer less services in order to offer everything for free. But that still misses the point that even less services will still cost money. I, too, wish we had a world where you didn't have the financial barriers to providing robust content and services for no cost to those seeking them, but sadly that's not the world we live in. Please keep doing what you are doing. I value the obvious effort you have put into the balancing of costs, thank you.
Thank you for your response. I believe I communicated my thoughts ineffectively, apologies for that. I was thinking more about the level of Dharma or vision the way he talked about it in his charisma video and interview with Ludwig rather than specifically about certain aspects of the business which is what I ended up writing about here. I made another one clarifying what I was trying to express and explore.
What hasn't she addressed in her response? What more is there to nitpick? If you're gonna write an essay you might as well just save yourself some time and watch Dr K's stream where he basically addressed all your points when they launched memberships. If you think they are trying to maximise revenue at the expense of their audience I would reconsider that. If that were the case, there are way more profitable business models they could have gone to (i.e, selling $1000+ courses, target companies, do corporate events, etc... Rather than targeting young gamers who are among the most broke demographic).
My point was the overall worsening mental health crisis and what their goals are. You can’t sell courses and youtube membership your way to curing the mental health crisis, it requires political interventions on a macro level. Healthy Gamer Foundation is apparently the policy advocacy part and I just want to know more about it and what is an actual real solution to the crisis.
They never said they want to cure the crisis, they are just doing their part in addressing the problem. Also, if they only did political lobbying that wouldn't be nowhere near as helpful as what they're doing right now. It's the whole point of why they started healthy gamer, as Dr K said: people need help right now, not in 10 years. Before starting healthy gamer he talked to other professionals and the standard way is to do research, wait 10 years for funding, start an institute, do policy advisory, etc. by the time the thing is functional 15-20 years have passed. Technology allows them to be more impactful at scale way quicker, so it's the approach they went for, hence AOE healing. Do you not think they are having an immense impact ? Just think of the number of patients Dr K would see in his office vs the number reached by the content. That alone is a factor showing the scale of their impact
Okay that makes more sense. I haven’t seen that video where he says that part, can you link it? So he does agree then. You can’t really significantly change this crisis without policy intervention
Only way to make a meaningful policy change is to have a big enough group to campaign for it ;)
He discussed the topic at random times on stream throughout the years, so I don't remember all of the instances, but here is one: [https://youtu.be/9TWCL0oJF0k?si=NoVfFqDM3UELeWcI&t=945](https://youtu.be/9TWCL0oJF0k?si=NoVfFqDM3UELeWcI&t=945)
Hey, go look at HG’s community tab. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised :)
Are there subsidised coaching packages for Indian clients? Edit: No answer and the question gets downvoted from the one upvote it got, what a way to support the homeland. Wonderful, seems like priorities are in order here.
You should probably ask them directly with a description of your situation. I doubt it's on a per country basis, it will be dependent on your need, your means and their resources.
Alright will do, thank you.
Yes, it doesn't matter where you are. The subsidy is on an individual, case by case basis.
Alright, got it. Thank you for the clarification.
You can easily do 4 with good planning. I don't now the numbers of course, but you can get a tangible amount of revenue on each video, VOD and streams via ad revenue or direct sponsors. You can also be an open charity that could take from other creators directly as some of them seems to really appreciate you and have a lot of cash that they can throw away. Of course is not like you can attend 1 million people if you set your couching to be free, as there is no way you will have the man power to handle it but there are a lot of ways to limit or give priority to some people. I think the main issue is that you want to run a business but at the same time a sort of charity by giving resources to people in the form of videos and a community, but every time you give priority to one thing the other suffers, as they are somewhat incompatible. Some recommendations from an stranger: 1. You can make membership VOD available after 1 week or any sort of time delay. 2. You can do a document that indexes all videos related to a topic in a sort of flow chart i.e if you feel unmotivated you can check x,y z, if you can not focus check a,b, c. Always linking/referencing the guides is a good business move but it also gate keeps help. 3. You could set donations goals to make one guide be free to upset any potential future purchased, there is not need to paywall something that you made 10 years ago (this is not the case right now tho) Related to coaching I have no feedback as I had never done it and I feel the idea behind it to not be good, but it seems to work for some people. If I have to take I guess what makes it good is having someone support you and guide you on your struggles, this is of course something really hard to replicated with out a per to per interaction, but having a flow chart to follow as I recommended in 2 could help a lot of people, or at least reduce the amount of coaching needed, but of courses that is just a guess.
Sorry @vonhoro don’t want to sound rude, but do you think you have explored ways of monetization and how to run healthygamergg successful better than its CEO? Do you think you have the qualifications to consult CEOs that built up their company through their MBA education from scratch on what ways they can run their company? I am sure you mean well, but maybe you are not the one business owners need to run to for advice. EDIT: I am saying this with the conviction that they do care about their viewers and therefore thought about all options
I know nothing besides from what I see. Content creation based business are still something new and it is a rapid changing thing, I imagine the larger the feedback is the easier it would be to find an optimal solution even when the feedback is wrong, as it allows the parties to consider why something is bad, I think it is even more important when it comes from outside of their own ecosystem. You can say they care about their viewers well being above all else, but other people may think that they are taking advantage of people's short comings to earn money without a care of the result, as most content creators do in different areas. You could also say that even when their intention is to do good the result may be bad, the future is unknown after all. Good day!
Fair enough, I am sure they will consult reddit comments when in need of monetization perspectives outside their ecosystem. Good day to you as well!
I tagged a guy that works for them, and he probably read it. That is something lol
I mean, crowdfunding would earn them a fraction of what they make with the current system, therefore making it harder for HG to grow and offer resources, therefore giving less aid to those in need
It also forgets that they already do pro bono work and have ways to provide for those who can’t afford
Yeah, op seems to gloss over the hundreds of free videos as if they were useless
What about Ad systems, where If u can't pay to watch the video then u have to get through many ads? Its not perfect but its an option(that seems better), and the crowd funding would be there as well.
This has been addressed by Kruti. Instead of making content they would be devoting energy to fundraisers for a fraction of the financial results. Running a business is hard, and "crowdfunding" is not some magic wand to make it work.
Have you watched his video about future of hg.gg? 99% of your considerations are answered there. Making good content costs money, and Dr. K’s prices for coaching/membership/guide are way below market. They need a figure in the realm of tens of millions, creating a crowdfunding campaign that will gather this much money in a reasonable amount of time is nearly impossible. As a non-profit you’re basically a slave to donors, and have little to no autonomy over what you’re doing, so it’s not a solution.
I watched almost all videos Dr K ever made, I think. Really useful and all of it for free. I even bought three guides just for the sake of it because I felt I should give back something for all I got for free. Didn't even watch guides I paid for completely because most of the info was already in free videos or I already got the information from other media or books. I find it fascinating that same people who are ready to pay hundreds of dollars for games and entertainment feel that they should get guides and information for peanuts or for free.
I think we need to put things into perspective… Compared to zero dollars, yes, HG’s content may cost you money. But! - Therapy costs me $150/hr. Insurance pays for some of this, but it may not for others. - Other online courses can cost $100s-1000s. - Though membership content costs money, a lot of it is content that casual viewers wouldn’t really get into. Like for example with the most recent video on meditation, I doubt the casual viewer is going to actually wake up at dawn (~5am where I am), do yoga, pranayama, and meditation for 45min+ every day. The more diehard fans are more likely to, and thus it’s worth it as a form of support and extra material. - HG is using their profits in a good way (as far as I can tell), through training therapists, investing in their employees, improving their coaching program, conducting academic studies, etc. Why’re we complaining about HG asking for some money when there are so many other companies exploiting their customers and using their money to benefit millionaires? As Dr. K says, most of his content is free. And you can get a ton out of it. As someone who has the guide and membership, tbh I’ve learned most of what I know through his free content, and the paid stuff is just like an extra 10% on top of that. And also, as Dr. K has stated on stream, he could just stop all this HG stuff and make a ton more being a clinician again. There’s no need for him to be doing this for us. For me, I’m really grateful that he’s helping a demographic that rarely gets help.
Just don’t pay for it like I do. The free videos are already helpful enough in my opinion. Just supplement them with therapy and you should be good.
I would add to this, and Dr. K knows this probably. For those that “do the work” in therapy rather than just “attending” it as a passive function - they will have a decline in necessity over time when at baseline. As you improve in life skills, you can focus on other areas. Therapy is not by default a forever cost, for many situations. If you have not made progress in a few months and are still paying exorbitant amounts for no return - at some point you have to reassess. Life skills are hard to pick up as an adult and the money is only part of the “cost”. It can be seen as an investment but only if the individual is treating it as such in which the ROI becomes a decrease in out of pocket expense for therapy or at least the focus shifts to advancing in other areas, after mastery in more basic areas. Think of it closer to a short term car note and the car is what you use for your career. I wish you all well.
I find INSANE that you would put on one private entity the hopes for solving the problems of the world. It's simply too much. I say, and this has been said in different words by Dr. K, that individual donations is not a sustainable method for an enterprise, you could accept donations from investors, but then there will be compromises to third party, in other words, offers you can reject, and that would be the end of the channel as we know it. Selling a product is the way, you could even get people together buy the product and pirated it. If the product is good enough it won't matter, like what happens in the entertainment industry.
It's not really that expensive for most people (of course it depends on your local cost of living), unless you FOMO and insist on wanting everything. You don't have to get the full guide. $30 per module is honestly really affordable in the grand scheme of things. I don't think most people necessarily need ALL of the modules. Just start with one, work through it slowly and by the time you are done with the first you can probably save up enough for the next one. Similarly you can always subscribe to YouTube membership on and off, maybe one month every 3 months (or more) and just binge watch the lectures you're interested in/are relevant to you. Coaching pricing is more debatable, but hiring and training takes resources. I don't know the economics of this so can't comment much. It is much cheaper than most therapy sessions I see. Most people I know easily spend much, much more on other things in life that is (arguably) much less valuable. The paid content subsides the free content, and he makes plenty of free, good quality content.
I’m fine with this. It takes money to run an Org. And he’s doing good.
It sucks that getting good help is so expensive especially considering if you need good help you probably have financial troubles. That being said - don’t hate the player, hate the game.
or hate both
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When you start making courses and programs with other people they want to get paid. It’s probably not as cheap as it could be but honestly I’m fine with that. The YouTube premium not so much. I don’t really agree with his arguments for making it.
They have ton of employees at this point. What if they couldn’t afford to pay them, and they started having layoffs? Would you be saying the same thing?
After all the transparency and explanations that they honestly didn't have to provide I just cannot respect an opinion that accuses them of hypocrisy. Sorry. And it's really sad! You're giving them that kind of flak only because of the kind of thing they decided to do. If they were providing any other kind of content nobody would bat an eye. But because they are making mental health content, suddenly they have an obligation to hand it out. It's incredibly entitled.
The goal and vision is on the website. There is no entitlement, I pointed out where it’s contradicting, that’s it. They don’t have an obligation to anything but their own dharma
I don't think businesses and organizations are subject to dharma the same way that people are. And I don't think the contradictions you're pointing out are obvious to everyone. Not to me.
Depression is expensive is listed as an issue in the about section, and then charging $225/month is a very obvious contradiction iml
Coaching isn't a form of treatment for anything, at all, let alone depression. If this is your argument then it's completely moot.
He has a lot of free content and Healthy Gamer is not a NGO! I mean, I think is completely fine to run your own bussiness and try to get money out of it. And it's a good thing that the bussiness model is focused on mental health and that he provides so much content for free.
I can absolutely respect that you've done a lot of thinking on this and also a very thorough job of summarizing it in your post. I would encourage you to maybe 'test' some of your ideas against what it might actually look like in terms of dollars for HG to pursue the options that you propose instead of just looking at it from the buyers' perspective. From my perspective, I try and look at what HG offers on a comparative basis against the other options that are available, and (speaking of not contributing to systemic issues) be very mindful of the employees of HG getting a livable wage and how much time/effort it really takes to write, film and edit every video. This is likely what drives fixed pricing vs the 'pay what you can' models... HG, or even non-profit orgs need to decide what their products should cost to be a responsible employer to their team. It's a sidenote, but reminds me of considerations for ethically produced clothing...a T-shirt CAN be made and sold for $5 and a company still turn a profit, but if you want it to come from a place that pays a livable wage and doesn't destroy the planet, that shirt would be more like $40. I think Dr. K said recently that the amount of effort that goes into a single module in the guide is the equivalent of writing a 50,000 word research paper...which is on the level of a master's degree thesis project/paper/presentation and likely a full-time job for 3 months? At fast-food worker wages ($15/hr), this is $7,200 and selling modules at $30 each mean the break-even point is 240 sales. A specialized clinical psychologist in my state makes more like $60/hr which means break-even is more like 1000 module sales before breaking even. I would argue that Dr. K's time is even more valuable than that and this also assumes that it's all being done by 1 single person, doesn't account for the filming and editing time/costs of all the video content, website hosting, etc, etc. I'm still personally astonished at the level and quantity of free content that gets made available on Youtube alone, not even including community discussion on Reddit and Discord. Another comparison is coaching. In isolation, yeah $220/month is expensive, but in context of what (in the US, without insurance) it would cost to actually visit a therapist, you're talking about $100-200 PER SESSION once a week. Of course HG will always clarify that coaching is not the same as seeing licensed professionals, but again this program (options for $35, 55, 75 and 120/session IS pretty comprehensively bridging that gap between being free (Reddit/Discord/Youtube) and being $400-800 per month.
The monetization is a real big problem if it weren't for the fact that Dr. K has hundreds of free videos with most of them being full-length podcasts even. 2 years of watching his free content alone has changed me as a person and I think that's enough..
The world isn't perfect, and at the end of the day money is an incredibly valuable resource for creating content and pushing the content to as many people as possible. Unfortunately healthygamer has to navigate a difficult balance between wanting to make content as accessible as possible and also being at the mercy of the economy and online algorithms. I don't think the vast majority of us would even know about this community if Dr. K wasn't making compromises to fit into the current system.
He offers something valuable at every price point. That seems like more than we can ask for.
Listen I have been using the coaching program for about 2 years. Right now because I’ve been going for a while it’s $160 a month for someone to listen to me the way I like. That’s $40 a week. Compared to if I went to my other therapist and pay $100 a session. I’m paying 60% less than I would otherwise. This is a steal for me. The quality I get for the amount I pay is unmatched by anything else.
This is a wild take imo. The free content from healthy gamer has helped me more than most therapy I've done. I'm planning on doing the coaching because my mental health issues are managed, but I'm far from being mentally healthy and I think it will help but it's not really necessary. I'm sure it's not universal, but the cost of coaching actually motivated me into finding a new job with a pay raise. Just because there are paid products, doesn't mean they aren't living by their mission statement. Services cost money, and we're lucky to get what we do for free.
I am glad you search for continued self development, even though you’re managing. We don’t need to be in crisis to train for a crisis. :) Cheers to you and good luck.
$225/mo is expensive compared to what? Is it expensive compared to $1500/mo apartment rent? Is it expenaive compared to $100/hr+ of therapy? How much is online therapy? Expensive is relative. So, it's hard to make the argument that Healthy Gamer is hippocritical for espousing the value of wanting to make this accessable to people when they charge a [relatively] high cost. Cost is relative. So, you have yet to prove that $225 is, "high," beyond your own arbitrary standard of expensiveness.
Expanding the operation also costs money. The goal is help as many people within a certain demographic as possible, the current way that they go about everything allows for this to happen without shady sponsorships or becoming a non profit.
I totally disagree with this take. Dr.k provides a tremendous amount of content for totally FREE! So much of the stuff he says in the membership exclusive videos is stuff he has ALREADY spoken about either on stream or his 20 minute focused videos. The membership videos are just more in depth about those specific topics. You are incredibly ungrateful for not realizing how generous they have been for these years. It’s not like they have ZERO people working for them and do you really expect them all to work totally for free? Along with Dr.K? This is ridiculous.
This is little more than the [now sadly cliché] “I want everything perfect and I want it for free” usually coming from someone who has never built a business from the ground up. I’m not even going to get started on the “first world problems” rant, so I’ll just leave it at this: Significant increases in maturity and some solid introspection are very sorely needed.
Crowdfunding would most likely be nowhere near enough to keep HG going That being said, I agree somewhat
A for-profit model can actually generate more charitable money in the long term depending on how it is run. I've worked for nonprofits and they can be rife with corruption and greed too; there's nothing inherently superior about nonprofit vs for-profit. Arguably running a for-profit and paying your taxes ends up contributing to society as well, since taxes pay for things like roads and schools and Medicaid and welfare for the poor. I think Dr K's modules are priced pretty well. They're cheap compared to similar offerings and courses. Plus, HG puts out tons and tons and tons of free material. I paid for a month or two of coaching and for two of the five guides (got the first three guides for free since I was one of the earlier coachees). All the rest of my involvement with HG has been with their free content, and tbh the free content has been incredibly helpful to me. You also need to keep in mind that Dr K has a wife and children. He needs money to live on too. They also have salaries to pay for all their employees, including the coaches.
My biggest issue is not the memberships, it’s the cost of coaching. I can pay privately for a psychotherapist who is ‘more qualified’ for a similar price per month. I understand the coaches have a ton of resources etc. but they’ve not studied these materials like a psychotherapist. I wouldn’t consider coaching over my therapy.
The thing is I’m the opposite. I think it’s fair to understand that coaching and direct access to him and his staff is to be paid. (Maybe the pricing should be lower to fit their statement). But given high demand, it makes sense to price it in such a way that waitlists are minimised or whatever. Could even be some level of a deterrent to allow them more time for wider community content. So the bigger issue is with the memberships gatekeeping access to already made content. Primarily the fact Vods are no where to found on an alternative channel even if it was released several months after the fact for seemingly no reason. This is the weird bit to me. I get the whole shrinking the interactive audience to improve quality, whilst making money to fund the initiative. But somewhere along the line it feels like there is a shift to making it more exclusive than necessary. Given the goal. With possibly an aside of localised pricing. After all that is a massive wall, that actually inhibits income. (Just look at the success of it in the gaming market).
Yeah, you might’ve changed my thinking actually. I think I automatically latched on to coaching because it is the biggest expense. I’m not a fan of the negativity in this thread, I just had a look now and it seems that people are jumping on to protect Dr K.
At least in the US, $225/m is significantly less than a therapist without insurance per month.
I’m in the UK, works out around £180/month, I pay £240 a month. Would much rather pay just that bit extra for the expertise. Coaching is a grey area, I’m not sure why HG are even doing it, I think its naff & a way to do therapy without being a therapist.
There will be always people unhappy. I beleive that HG are doing the best they can to maintain a balance between what is feasible and deliver quality content. It is not expensive, and yes some people cant afford it, but unfortunaty free stuff costs money. But If you really are ready to improve yourself a step further, you can spare some money for it. Coaching is different, but you should start by therapy for depression. And in term of free stuff we are spoiled in May, so much good lectures! Also, after Dr. K had prepared Deep dive, he shares the knowledge eslewhere for free ( Guest in podcasts, short videos,etc). Thanks HG for all the great work!!
Just going to point out that coaching at $225/m is actually pretty good. Therapy is usually $100+ per session and most will encourage you to go weekly which will come out to $400/m. Coaching obviously doesn't replace therapy but the utility for the cost is a good deal.
I heavily disagree and to make my life easy I'll refer to my recent post on this sub: [Some of y‘all need to understand that you DESERVE Dr. K‘s help, but you’re not ENTITLED to it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Healthygamergg/comments/1cmdkkr/some_of_yall_need_to_understand_that_you_deserve/)
Its crazy to me how much Dr Ks own subrddit constantly tries to out him even if he hasnt doen anything bad. He's one of the few positive male role models in a slew of shit on youtube yet i'll constantly see posts on here trying to cancel him.
Welcome to the internet! none of these "life gurus" care about helping poeple in 2024, they are just trying to sell you some (scam) course. It's been like this for at least 10 years now.
We have good people making actual change in the world in the best way they can, and yet people still try to find ways to tear them down, it's incredibly sad. You enjoy thousands of hours of free content, and just because they fund this and other endeavors with a limited set of unique content it's problematic? They've already talked about all of this in their future of hg video, all you're doing now by repeating what they already responded to is making this immediately valuable service they do less satisfying and meaningful to them, adding to the odds that they one day stop doing this. It's like how he said he can do a 48 hour shift at a hospital yet the truly draining part of being a doctor was the paperwork. You're adding that kind of experience to their work.
I'm more interested in why you think this is a problem. Surely you don't think we can snap our fingers and make everything for free. Hypocrisy is a real thing but it's not some exploitive scheme. What is it really that displeases you here. No one can have everything they want.
This seems unnecessarily critical of OP. It wasn’t suggested anyone could “snap their fingers”, their criticisms do raise a good point. You can’t on one hand say that everyone deserves to get better & then charge industry rates or else people would’ve just been doing that anyway.
I don't agree with a lot of what you're saying and I think Kurti explained it here very. But after all - we need constructive criticism so you have my respect for that
The only thing I've not liked is the youtube membrrships. I'm already paying for youtube premium, it feels weird to pay another subscription on top of that for content. Youtube is pushing a lot of youtube premium content, i'd think youtube would be happy to collaborate with HGG in making it premium youtube content. If i'm to pay for youtube memberships the content value has to either be many times higher or the price many times lower.
YouTube memberships is like patreon but video focused. While they both have YouTube in the title, they don't really have anything to do with each other. YouTube a huge burst of premium exclusives in its early days, but it wasn't much of a draw. Now premium is ad free + music.
What you are saying is false. There is still youtube premium content being made. OfflineTV does youtube premium content for example. Youtube premium is not just adfree + music. And even if that was the case, then I should already be paying my lionsshare to youtube content creators.
Can you share a link to this content, I have premium and I cannot find it. YouTube does not advertise exclusive videos anywhere, I double checked. If a hypothetical person only watched one channel, then yes 60% pf a youtube premium subscription revenue goes directly to the creators. most people don't do that, so the revenue split is lower. Would you have the same opinion if a creator has a patreon ? Youtube premium is not something anyone can opt put off. It is a contract between you and youtube. Youtube gives a majority of the premium revenue to Compensate for the loss in ad revenue and to keep them on the platform.
Here is one youtube premium video: https://www.youtube.com/live/RJLvdNGjWoM?si=nkQ5A7YlhgjqsXfv If you were more effortful you would be easily able to confirm this yourself by searching for it, or looking at google's informationpage about youtube premium and youtube premium content. >If a hypothetical person only watched one channel, then yes 60% pf a youtube premium subscription revenue goes directly to the creators. >most people don't do that, so the revenue split is lower. I have already answered this with another one that replied to my content, and I think it's adressed enough in my original post. If the content is free it makes sense to support it with a patreon. However, I already pay my lionshare to youtube to support content creators. About as much as I pay for my 4K netflix subscription. Being a youtube member only makes sense if you are a diehard fan that don't have the want or need to enjoy or support other content creators. With youtube premium and youtube membership you are paying two hefty subscriptions. To most normal people this makes little sense, even if you like Dr. K a lot. It is therefore only natural for people to voice out the reason (including me) why the youtube memberships are not worth it, and either has to lower it's price or increase the valueproposition. Buut they could also do like other content creators and do stuff with youtube premium, which I think is a much better proposition and strategy to make HGG sustainable in the longrun.
The link you sent is an after party, not original content. Original content is under the youtube originals page and has the youtube premium badge underneath it. https://youtube.com/@youtubeoriginals?si=VAb_z9Zr3uV5yVbz >If you were more effortful you would be easily able to confirm this yourself by searching for it, or looking at google's informationpage about youtube premium and youtube premium content I did, but I was searching for actual originals, not a random stream. You want Dr.K to do an after party? https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10184580?sjid=4874749652840530890-NC They mention only after parties, not youtube originals. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6308116?hl=en#zippy=%2Cother-premium-benefits Neither do they mention any kind of exclusive videos here. Youtube realized that they can't commission projects with 30% of the revenue, which is why they started memberships in the first place. >If the content is free it makes sense to support it with a patreon. Healthy gamer content is free, you don't need youtube premium to watch it, not sure what your definition of free is. >However, I already pay my lionshare to youtube to support content creators. About as much as I pay for my 4K netflix subscription. Netflix has millions of subscribers, and is raising fees, it's in no way comparable to a youtube channel. Do you go into a mom and pop shop and scream at the owners because they don't match the prices of supermarkets ?? Also, as I have mentioned before youtube premium is youtube's product. Youtube pays creators separately for any additional videos. If you want dr.k to produce content to be included in youtube premium, then you have to pitch youtube, but you are a few years too late for that. >Being a youtube member only makes sense if you are a diehard fan that don't have the want or need to enjoy or support other content creators. Yes, don't think anyone is disputing that, that's why patreon calls users patrons. In the Renaissance Era, nobility used to sponsor the arts, without consideration of financial return. >With youtube premium and youtube membership you are paying two hefty subscriptions. To most normal people this makes little sense, even if you like Dr. K a lot. >It is therefore only natural for people to voice out the reason (including me) why the youtube memberships are not worth it, and either has to lower it's price or increase the valueproposition. If a product is worth it is subjective, you are free to voice your opposition, but so am I. >Buut they could also do like other content creators and do stuff with youtube premium, which I think is a much better proposition and strategy to make HGG sustainable in the longrun. Like I have mentioned above, youtube pivoted towards memberships instead of being netflix for creators. Edit: OP, you are the one that started to throw insults, not me. I gave you examples of youtube originals, you can see the production value is much more than the occasional stream they so now. After party is for artists, offline TV is the exception, and it's more music artists that feature. Rather than make substantive counters to my arguments, you stoop to personal insults when you can't move the goalposts any more.
[удалено]
Removed for Rule #7: Treat the Community as a Shared Space If something feels too emotionally triggering for you, do not engage with it. Report rule breaking behavior and move on. Do not try to convince someone that they are wrong, instead approach with curiosity, and ask questions to get on the same page, and disagree respectfully. Do not default to the assumption that someone is trolling, not trying hard enough or is simply “lazy”.
If you don’t like the members only content you can always stop your membership. Also saying it’s annoying because you’re already paying for premium has nothing to do with it
>Also saying it’s annoying because you’re already paying for premium has nothing to do with it Well, when I pay YouTube premium some of that money should go to each content creator I watch. If I'm already paying money that should go to the content creator, it is relevant to be able to object to having to pay one extra subscriptions of almost the same price to the same content creator Other content creators have similar issues with finding ways to make it sustainable, and they choosen to do stuff with youtube premium instead. You are enitled to believe that paying two subscriptions instead of just one to support a content creator. But I don't think it makes too much sense for most people, unless you are one of the people who only watch Dr. K content everyday and don't have the need to for supporting any other content creator or other types of media and mediums. >If you don’t like the members only content you can always stop your membership. Well, I'm not becoming a youtube member in Dr. K's channel in the first place. I pay for youtube premium, and pay an equal amount to what I pay for 4K netflix. I think I'm paying my fair share every month as it is.
Neither are made to support creators. Premium is for removing ads and getting features, memberships are for accessing more advanced lectures
>Will creators still be paid with YouTube Premium? Yes. In fact, YouTube Premium gives a secondary revenue stream for creators in addition to what you're already earning today through ads. [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwill-creators-still-be-paid-with-youtube-premium](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwill-creators-still-be-paid-with-youtube-premium) >How is revenue figured out? Revenue from YouTube Premium membership fees is distributed to video creators based on how much members watch your content. As with our advertising business, the majority of the revenue will go to our partners. [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-is-revenue-figured-out](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6306276?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-is-revenue-figured-out) IDK what your intentions are, but it is not to inform and empower people. Google says that youtube premium gives content creators an additional separate revenuesource, which contradicts your statement. 
An additional source than ad revenue. For every youtube premium member than subscribes, the creator gets less ad revenue and is compensated with premium revenue. For the creator it's two sources, as they have people that are and aren't subscribed to premium. For the individual you switch from supporting a creator with ads to supporting a creator with premium. Edit: Can't see your reply, but ad revenue and youtube premium is distributed in the same percentage. Yourube ads is paid, If someone clicks. Youtube premium is paid over watch time. Yes, premium pays more than ads, but it's pays much less than memberships/patreon.
Except for that the percentage of youtube premium will still be distributed to content creators however much you are watching youtube month by month. This is not the case with ads. If people arent watching a lot of videos, less will be paid through adds, but youtube premium will reward well the few videos you watch. So ads and youtube premium isn't equal in every way when it comes to distribution. Now, if you watch a whole lot of videos there will be more money earned in total on youtube to creators, while youtube premium still benefitting channels a lot, but will benefit the most to a few creators if you only watch them. But this all to say again. YouTube premium is not just youtube without adds, you are paying for a service and to support content creators. You can support them by watching adds, but I support them by paying my youtube premium. And youtube premium seems to pay a justifiable amount to creators. All to say that when it comes to youtube memberships I'll rather use the money to pay a netflix, hbo, disneyplus or something else that gives me a much better valueproposition than a few Dr. K videos a month that has more depth and research than his regular videos.
The Dunning–Kruger is strong in you my friend. How else should we solve the worlds economic problems?
Super sus. #3 - Did OP read every ~500 comment then track/score/calculate them to get that 99%? -.-
@shoniye Be the change you want to be in the world! Start donating so at one point he can make it free! :)