Not only do other conservative media companies pull this crap, but it's standard in the entertainment industry in general. Machinima had such blatantly awful contracts that I don't feel sympathy for talent that negligently took shitty offers, but it's depressing how much Machinima hamstrung the golden age of Youtube content.

This sad state of affairs happened because hardware infrastructure costs were astronomical in the mid aughts, forcing the founders to take venture capital and/or get acquired. Once the non-founder MBA types are in charge, there was no hope for a back-boned owner to call the advertising hacks on their bluff, and get a better deal for Youtube and the content creators.

Edit: Examples from RTvee about other political media.

Not only do other conservative media companies pull this crap, but it's standard in the entertainment industry in general. Machinima had such blatantly awful contracts that I don't feel sympathy for talent that negligently took shitty offers, but it's depressing how much Machinima hamstrung the golden age of Youtube content.

This sad state of affairs happened because hardware infrastructure costs were astronomical in the mid aughts, forcing the founders to take venture capital and/or get acquired. Once the non-founder MBA types are in charge, there was no hope for a back-boned owner to call the advertising hacks on their bluff, and get a better deal for Youtube and the content creators.