Weird Sponsorships (Patreon)

Something not often talked about in YouTube-land is sponsorships.

Even YouTubers rarely talk about sponsors and deals with other YouTubers. Not sure why - probably because discussing money is kind of taboo.

I sometimes get really odd sponsorship requests and I thought you guys might find it entertaining to see what's happening behind the scenes.

I briefly discussed sponsorships in the previous post but one reason why I've decided to put a hold on doing sponsored videos is that many sponsorships are predatory, especially to smaller YouTubers.

Let's take Hostinger's deal as an example.

Their marketing person contacted me in September about doing a rather complex video with super unrealistic deadlines.

We went back and forth before settling on the video about their website builder. The offer was some cash along with a bunch of credit for their platform, including any costs related to the video.

You already know where this is going - they rejected my invoice and didn't credit me anything. To date, I still haven't received any credits. They kept dodging me and claiming my invoice was invalid. It was a dumpster fire:

I know that I'm kind of "outing" them right now but, you guys are my Patrons and I feel like you guys & I have a more special relationship than I do with my followers on Twitter.

So Hostinger eventually paid the invoice and I published the video. They never did credit me on their services but I never paid them for anything either.

Anyway, you get the idea - sponsorships can be super sketchy. Check out some of these sponsorship requests:

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Linode, on the other hand, has been a phenomenal sponsor. They don't really ask for much and they always follow through without needing me to message them. Linode is just really great to work with.

Like I said in the previous post, I don't plan to do any more sponsorships in the near future. I even turned Linode down in January because I just want to focus on Distro Delves and I can't reasonably shoe-horn in footage of Linode without it looking really disingenuous.

I care about my reputation & making sure you guys enjoy my content without feeling like I'm trying to sell you something.

I hope you enjoy this somewhat candid post!