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As one of the people whose channel is affected by this policy change, I have to say I am not happy. There are a few issues I have with their new policy: 1) The

As one of the people whose channel is affected by this policy change, I have to say I am not happy. There are a few issues I have with their new policy: 1) They should not have made this change retroactive to channels. If you already met the criteria you should be grandfathered into the new program. To terminate monetization entirely gives me no incentive to continue with YouTube. 2) For niche channels, like my own, it can be easy to have the views but difficult to have the subscribers. These two should not be tied together for purposes of monetization. 3) The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. 4) Finally, their email to me says that they made this decision based on discussions with creators like me. I would be hardpressed to find a creator "like me" that suggested this. Instead, I suspect, they reached out to the creators with the biggest say and decided to squash the little guys for greater visibility. I am curious if they will continue to monetize my videos while not sharing the revenue with me or if they will remove ads entirely from my videos.

jakebasile 9y ago
> The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. This is a great observation. They're punishing the small, niche channels for the terrible shit pulled by the huge channels, with Logan Paul just being the most recent and which is probably the precipitating event here.
- anonytrary 9y ago
  I knew someone would mention Logan Paul, that one guy that faked colorblindness to get views, and ultimately ended up tubing around a dead guy. If Google is doing this with a "let's try and make it harder for idiots like Logan Paul to become successful" motivation, then shame on Google. The only other reason I can think of is that smaller players have been abusing the system, and we see tons of tiny low-quality popups that film inappropriate stuff and get reported. I think this is more likely, than because of anything Logan Paul did.
- notatoad 9y ago
  They're not punishing small channels for logan paul. he's an incredibly easy problem to deal with, and they already solved that problem by kicking him off YPP. This is to deal with the much larger problem of small channels posting awful content in such huge volumes that it's difficult to police, and causing headlines like this one: https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/youtubers-made-hundreds-of-thousands-off-of-bizarre-and?utm_term=.pfD30D18R#.ip38zpYEm https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/youtubers-made-hundre...
rmrfrmrf 9y ago
> 3) The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. Not quite: * Paying for views/subs is a huge issue. The lifetime view count makes it so that you only need to pay once to reap the benefits of YPP. Making the requirement continuous gives less financial incentive. * Elsagate and content aimed at children was a smaller but frequent controversy last year. I’m guessing they need more time/resources to vet that content and slow down the rate that spammers and low-effort content providers try to game the system.
mc32 9y ago
>) For niche channels, like my own, it can be easy to have the views but difficult to have the subscribers. These two should not be tied together for purposes of monetization. I completely agree. I've saved hundreds of dollars [and time] on car maintenance/repairs and plumbing by watching some guy or gal on youtube with very specific information (for a given make/model/year) for example. I hope these kinds of instructional videos get a reprieve because many many people use them and save tons of money and time [finding manuals and reading them is arduous]. This could be a terrible loss for some audiences as well as the creators who get compensated, slim as it may be.
- Nition 9y ago
  Honestly I think people will keep making those sorts of videos anyway. We never get paid anything for posting on Stack Overflow or Hacker News yet here we are. And YouTube had lots of good videos before it had monetisation.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Perhaps. I think there are people in places [even in the US] where money goes further for whom a dozen dollars here, a dozen dollars there from different uploads made it worthwhile for them. I hope you are right, but I fear we might lose some great contributors.
  - Scoundreller 9y ago
    I guess Google will have the data to know for sure. But will they backtrack if they’re wrong, or just accept it as collateral damage?
  - eqtn 9y ago
    If they do, then that is great. Since there is no compensation from youtube, these creators should upload the content to a bunch of online streaming platforms.
  - yAnonymous 9y ago
    >We never get paid anything for posting on Stack Overflow or Hacker News yet here we are. Speak for yourself.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
YouTube doesn't understand or care about the true underlying value of its platform, let alone its potential. And they continue to make bad choices to steer it in entirely the wrong direction. It could be a powerhouse but they keep screwing it up. This is all part and parcel of google/alphabet being horrendously bad at product management and customer interactions.
paulsutter 9y ago
What’s your channel? I found a Jeff Mould but it was just junk video of burning houses. If you post a link we can see the sort of content they’re cutting out.
dingo_bat 9y ago
I don't get the views/subscriber criteria at all. If the changes are to "protect the community", why worry about number of views or number of subs? And not only they made it important, they made it the first pre-requisite to even consider your channel!
- mnx 9y ago
  It allows them to review those channels more carefully, since theres less of them.
exDM69 9y ago
> 3) The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. You're probably referring to the recent events where well-known youtubers have published questionable content and causing an outrage. But I think this is about the low-quality spammers and copycat content farms that create videos automatically or semi-automatically or just otherwise with low effort, and aggressively optimize using analytics. To make matters worse, a lot of these target children and some of these have even been approved to the "for children" category. Even though the outrage hasn't been as loud in the media (but there has been some discussion about it), I think it's a much bigger issue for them than a few high profile makers publishing questionable content. From their point of view, the spam accounts are impossible to distinguish from individuals who have just a few videos or are just getting started. If they allow monetization with no barrier to entry, there will be spam content. I'm not sure what other alternatives they would have, apart from manually vetting each and every account eligible for monetization. I do understand that this is a pain in the ass for niche content production. I've been considering starting some niche video production too (I enjoy activities that others enjoy watching) but now it looks like it would take 6-12 months (at least) to get to the point where you could make a dime. For me, this would mean non-trivial time and money investment in equipment. I wouldn't do it to make money, but I don't want to be spending money with not hope of getting any back either.
baud147258 9y ago
Have you seen the comments on the blog post? The firsts are all about asking people to suscribe to their channel, possibly with subing back. Edit: Well, all the comments are asking for suscribers.
ashelmire 9y ago
Leave youtube, start your own business? Do Patreon or something. Seriously, we need to cut down our dependence on big tech. They've been taking advantage of us for too long.

jakebasile 9y ago

> The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. This is a great observation. They're punishing the small, niche channels for the terrible shit pulled by the huge channels, with Logan Paul just being the most recent and which is probably the precipitating event here.

anonytrary 9y ago
I knew someone would mention Logan Paul, that one guy that faked colorblindness to get views, and ultimately ended up tubing around a dead guy. If Google is doing this with a "let's try and make it harder for idiots like Logan Paul to become successful" motivation, then shame on Google. The only other reason I can think of is that smaller players have been abusing the system, and we see tons of tiny low-quality popups that film inappropriate stuff and get reported. I think this is more likely, than because of anything Logan Paul did.
notatoad 9y ago
They're not punishing small channels for logan paul. he's an incredibly easy problem to deal with, and they already solved that problem by kicking him off YPP. This is to deal with the much larger problem of small channels posting awful content in such huge volumes that it's difficult to police, and causing headlines like this one: https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/youtubers-made-hundreds-of-thousands-off-of-bizarre-and?utm_term=.pfD30D18R#.ip38zpYEm https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/youtubers-made-hundre...

rmrfrmrf 9y ago

> 3) The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. Not quite: * Paying for views/subs is a huge issue. The lifetime view count makes it so that you only need to pay once to reap the benefits of YPP. Making the requirement continuous gives less financial incentive. * Elsagate and content aimed at children was a smaller but frequent controversy last year. I’m guessing they need more time/resources to vet that content and slow down the rate that spammers and low-effort content providers try to game the system.

mc32 9y ago

>) For niche channels, like my own, it can be easy to have the views but difficult to have the subscribers. These two should not be tied together for purposes of monetization. I completely agree. I've saved hundreds of dollars [and time] on car maintenance/repairs and plumbing by watching some guy or gal on youtube with very specific information (for a given make/model/year) for example. I hope these kinds of instructional videos get a reprieve because many many people use them and save tons of money and time [finding manuals and reading them is arduous]. This could be a terrible loss for some audiences as well as the creators who get compensated, slim as it may be.

Nition 9y ago
Honestly I think people will keep making those sorts of videos anyway. We never get paid anything for posting on Stack Overflow or Hacker News yet here we are. And YouTube had lots of good videos before it had monetisation.
- mc32 9y ago
  Perhaps. I think there are people in places [even in the US] where money goes further for whom a dozen dollars here, a dozen dollars there from different uploads made it worthwhile for them. I hope you are right, but I fear we might lose some great contributors.
- Scoundreller 9y ago
  I guess Google will have the data to know for sure. But will they backtrack if they’re wrong, or just accept it as collateral damage?
- eqtn 9y ago
  If they do, then that is great. Since there is no compensation from youtube, these creators should upload the content to a bunch of online streaming platforms.
- yAnonymous 9y ago
  >We never get paid anything for posting on Stack Overflow or Hacker News yet here we are. Speak for yourself.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

YouTube doesn't understand or care about the true underlying value of its platform, let alone its potential. And they continue to make bad choices to steer it in entirely the wrong direction. It could be a powerhouse but they keep screwing it up. This is all part and parcel of google/alphabet being horrendously bad at product management and customer interactions.

paulsutter 9y ago

What’s your channel? I found a Jeff Mould but it was just junk video of burning houses. If you post a link we can see the sort of content they’re cutting out.

dingo_bat 9y ago

I don't get the views/subscriber criteria at all. If the changes are to "protect the community", why worry about number of views or number of subs? And not only they made it important, they made it the first pre-requisite to even consider your channel!

mnx 9y ago
It allows them to review those channels more carefully, since theres less of them.

exDM69 9y ago

> 3) The ones that seem to be causing the biggest headaches on YouTube lately are the bigger creators. You're probably referring to the recent events where well-known youtubers have published questionable content and causing an outrage. But I think this is about the low-quality spammers and copycat content farms that create videos automatically or semi-automatically or just otherwise with low effort, and aggressively optimize using analytics. To make matters worse, a lot of these target children and some of these have even been approved to the "for children" category. Even though the outrage hasn't been as loud in the media (but there has been some discussion about it), I think it's a much bigger issue for them than a few high profile makers publishing questionable content. From their point of view, the spam accounts are impossible to distinguish from individuals who have just a few videos or are just getting started. If they allow monetization with no barrier to entry, there will be spam content. I'm not sure what other alternatives they would have, apart from manually vetting each and every account eligible for monetization. I do understand that this is a pain in the ass for niche content production. I've been considering starting some niche video production too (I enjoy activities that others enjoy watching) but now it looks like it would take 6-12 months (at least) to get to the point where you could make a dime. For me, this would mean non-trivial time and money investment in equipment. I wouldn't do it to make money, but I don't want to be spending money with not hope of getting any back either.

baud147258 9y ago

Have you seen the comments on the blog post? The firsts are all about asking people to suscribe to their channel, possibly with subing back. Edit: Well, all the comments are asking for suscribers.

ashelmire 9y ago

Leave youtube, start your own business? Do Patreon or something. Seriously, we need to cut down our dependence on big tech. They've been taking advantage of us for too long.