Staying for discovery, monetizing elsewhere: Platform governance and complementor bypassing

Raphaela Andres, Ambre Elsas-Nicolle, Michelangelo Rossi and Mark J. Tremblay

No 26-033, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Digital platforms govern not only how ecosystem value is created, but also how complementors capture it. In this paper, we study how content creators respond when a dominant platform restricts monetization while remaining essential for audience discovery. Our setting is YouTube's revision of its monetization regime, implemented in the aftermath of the 2017 advertiser boycott known as the "Adpocalypse". Under the new regime, YouTube tightened content moderation and monetization rules, reducing the level and predictability of creators' advertising revenues. Creators could partially bypass YouTube's monetization layer through Patreon, a membership platform enabling recurring direct payments from users. Using monthly panel data on approximately 8,400 video creators active on Patreon between August 2017 and August 2018, we compare creators with a pre-shock YouTube link to creators without an observed link in a matched difference-in-differences design. Following the policy change, exposed creators increased their production of member-only Patreon content without reducing freely accessible posts. They also accumulated paying patrons and recurring membership revenue at a significantly faster monthly rate, with a differential increase of approximately 9%. The increase in paid content was strongest among creators whose content faced greater pre-existing monetization risk. The findings suggest that platform governance can reallocate complementor effort and value capture across platforms: creators can shift monetization toward an auxiliary channel while continuing to rely on the dominant platform for audience discovery.

Keywords: Platform governance; Complementors; Platform bypassing; Creator economy; Monetization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L10 L22 L82 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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