Popular video blogger Stas, Ai How Simple (Stanislav Vasiliev) announced his farewell to his media career. According to him, after switching from YouTube to domestic analogues, the views of his videos fell, and he practically lost his earnings.
“Since I am one of the first bloggers who switched to domestic platforms after being removed from YouTube, I consider it necessary to talk about my experience so that you are ready. My verdict is unambiguous – it's death, ”Vasiliev wrote. He called VKontakte and Rutube technically imperfect, outdated and inconvenient resources for the user, and Zen, according to the blogger, "simply does not have an audience." Vasiliev noted that he understands those who stopped watching it after switching to these platforms.
The blogger claims that VKontakte does not allow monetization of political content. According to him, with millions of views, he received five to seven thousand rubles a month from the service, while YouTube videos brought him $7–8 thousand. He didn’t manage to connect monetization in Zen at all, says Vasiliev. He believes that the leadership of the platforms is not engaged in their development. “They stir up Gazprom’s money, engage in internal party struggle and don’t want to create anything, distributing millions to bloggers whom no one knows for kickbacks,” wrote Stas, Ai How Simple.
“VK, Rutube, Zen are shit, not platforms,” Vasiliev concluded. The blogger believes that he "has another six months left – a maximum of a year." During this time, he plans to accumulate a financial "cushion" in order to continue to engage in creativity.
In December last year, Vasilyev reported that YouTube had blocked his main channel, "Oh, How Simple!" and that it will be removed because the resource has rejected all appeals. The blocking was preceded by three warnings issued for videos about Ukraine, including the documentary "Donbas Diary". Judging by the screenshot posted by the blogger, these videos violated the YouTube rule on the inadmissibility of discriminatory statements. Later, Vasiliev's second channel was also removed .
The Donbass Diary, for which the blogger traveled to the occupied territories of Donbass, was published in 2022. The film said, in particular, that "the Armed Forces of Ukraine are purposefully hitting playgrounds."
Earlier in January, Alexander Zharov, CEO of Gazprom-Media, who oversees the development of Rutube and earned about 300 million rubles from it in 2020 alone, said in an interview that the Russian platform would not be able to replace YouTube. “Rutube is not a replacement for YouTube. YouTube is a worldwide video search engine,” Zharov admitted, noting that even if the platform is blocked in Russia, Russians will continue to use it via VPN.