Unless you are already famous or want to put in hundreds of unpaid hours, there is no way you can make money on YouTube after February 2018. Worse, if you are already a YouTube Partner that does not meet the new minimums, you will be shut down in February 2018. The minimums are odious:
- Your channel needs 4000 HOURS watched every year
- Your channel needs 10,000 subscribers
YouTube is doing this so that they can reduce the number of video’s that their human staff need to review before adverts are shown. This is because they had a few high profile situations in which major advertisers had their content associated with ugly content like racists and terrorists.
We understand YouTube’s need protect their advertisers from negative associations so when we heard of this change we thought they would be setting up a two tier system:
- Premium ads (Coke, GM, …) on human verified videos
- Secondary ads (your name here) on all videos of existing channel partners
In this way, current YouTube “Partners” that have proven they post no questionable videos over a long term (say 1 year or more) would be grandfathered in. Those video producers that do not meet the new minimum would likely (and fairly) be paid at lower rates.
It came as a great surprise to us at URTech that YouTube decided on a single verified tier only and that we along with tens of thousands of others are out on our ear with just 1 months notice.
This change has angered many YouTubers and will likely drive small content providers out of business. Beyond fixing YouTube’s very serious advertising issues, the only positive we could come up with is that it will likely drive some competitors to enter the market or expand… but who wants to try and compete with Google.
As you can see on the right, our video’s have been watched near two MILLION times. We double the number of hours required to meet their new minimum. In the last month alone, we were paid a mere $54 for it for bringing in 500 hours of viewing to YouTube. We are fine with the $54; in fact we would be fine with $40, but YouTube needs to provide of something real value in exchange for our content.
We are perplexed as to how Chanel Subscribers are a critical metric for YouTube; surely all that counts (beyond the content not being too aggressive) is the number of hours watched.
Watch this interesting YouTube video from DTNS for more details.
If you want more details, like to join an angry mob or just need to know the current status, check the responses to the YouTube Blog post explaining these changes.
2 Comments
Lars · April 17, 2018 at 6:35 pm
Way to miss the point, George. not everyone who was earning revenue on youtube was doing it as their primary source of income. Now they essentially get no revenue for their efforts UNLESS they are willing to commit many more hours to providing content. Additionally, the system hurts the normal progression of providing content and as you build subscribers and earn revenue you grow it into a full time vocation. Now it is binary. Finally, the algorithm is extremely destructive to content providers that comment on politics or social issues. Unlike the media space where companies can advertise on specific new and politics shows that suit their target demographic Youtube will demonitize anyone that has any content that might upset any companies customers. So informative content providers risk being demonetized meaning the only content that can expect to earn a steady revenue is meaningless content.
George · January 23, 2018 at 7:01 am
Well, if you can’t gather at least 10.000 subs, then maybe you’re not ready to live as a Youtuber anyway.