Uzbek bloggers can earn millions annually on YouTube, but the path to this remains closed

Video bloggers from Uzbekistan could earn tens of millions of dollars a year by monetizing content on YouTube, and the country's economy could get an additional boost of growth. However, despite the potential, the official monetization system in the republic is still unavailable, which creates serious obstacles to the development of the creative industry. This is reported by the correspondent Podrobno.uz with reference to a study by the Center for Economic Research and Reform (CEIR).

According to the CEIR, the creative sector in Uzbekistan already includes about 9.6 thousand enterprises, which employ more than 84 thousand people. Analysts predict that over the next five years, the contribution of this sector to the country's gross domestic product will grow to 5 %. In 2024, the volume of the advertising market amounted to 2.1 trillion soums, of which almost a third came from digital advertising.

According to experts, with the annual volume of views of videos with advertising at the level of 36 billion, the total income of Uzbek video bloggers could range from 28.8 to 50.4 million dollars per year. These funds, while remaining in the country, would have a positive impact on the economy, strengthening the digital sphere and stimulating the creation of new jobs.

However, the launch of monetization faces a number of systemic obstacles. One of the key barriers remains the requirement of international platforms to host users ' personal data on servers located in the country. Currently, the infrastructure for meeting this condition in the republic is not sufficiently developed.

An additional challenge is the issue of copyright. Insufficient protection of intellectual property and the widespread distribution of pirated content-movies, music tracks, and programs-undermine the trust of original content creators and make it difficult to launch legal monetization models.

YouTube's algorithms also have difficulty recognizing Uzbek speech, especially given regional dialects and language features. This makes content moderation more difficult and may lead to erroneous restrictions on the platform's part. To overcome this barrier, you need to work with Google, develop local language models, and collect audio files.

In addition, payment systems remain one of the main unresolved problems. Despite the fact that cards of international payment systems such as Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay operate on the territory of Uzbekistan, services that provide direct payments to content authors, in particular PayPal and Stripe, do not officially work in the country.

To realize the potential of video blogging in the country and fully integrate it into the international digital economy, experts suggest modernizing legislation in the field of digital rights and data protection, developing cloud and server infrastructure, and enhancing cooperation with international technology companies. This, according to analysts, will create conditions for sustainable growth of the creative sector and give impetus to new forms of employment in the digital age.