Hot Topic New monetization changes: 4k hours & 1k subs (**discussion here only**)

[Michael]

Just because you think this, does not make it fact.
I have actual data that suggests what you think is wrong.

Yeah I probably shouldn't have stated it as if it were a fact there, it could mislead others but I have never in my own experience had a video without monetisation on my own channel perform well, all I have seen is them sink after turning it off. There's too many variables to make a fair judgement, I am aware of that.

It would be good to see some of the data you have if you are willing or able to share it here.

 

[TYTD]

I'll be totally honest; I wasnt clambouring to activate mine either for much of the same reasons as yourself...I dont want to put a potential audience off right off the bat by putting an ad in there face. But equally at the same time I am upset that the option for me to do that or not has been taken out of my hands for considerably longer than I'd have liked...personally I'd have probably activated monetisation around 300-400 subs mark because at that point I'd be offsetting the potential audience leaving with adword promotion subsidised by the monetisation...Over the last 7-8 months I've learned that my channel is able to attain reasonably high views but really struggles to gain subs. I put it down to my channel being used more for reference than permanent viewership...and for the views im getting I cant really complain about that...but Its going to probably take me months if not years to break 1000 subs considering I've been doing this now for 8 months and only have about 20ish subscribers currently (Bearing in mind I upload weekly and sometimes post up to 4 videos a week)

So yeh...Im not quite as angry as some of the people around here...but Im still miffed they've chosen to move the goal posts...

 

[AceOfBats]

I'm mildly disappointed, but your post hardly makes me dislike you at all.

It's a pity when you put all the work into it, but the reality is... yeah you don't make much money on a small channel. I've probably been monetized for 5 months and still haven't gotten my first check. So it's probably a better idea realistically. My big goal was making it to a thousand subs this year anyway, so now i can worry about growth instead of money.

 

[jessegreathouse]

Tim Poole had some interesting looks on this during his vlog yesterday. One thing that kept jumping out at me, was that this is intended to increase the value of marketing on their platform by essentially eliminating 95% of the supply.

One of the myths that we should dispel is that creators, who are... let's say... less established provided ads that were lesser in value than that of the 5% that remained. Well the viewer still saw your toothpaste and saw your jingle. I don't think there can be any doubt that the experience of watching your commercial is equally s****y across the platform. Whether the person is watching a reaction of someone getting their first car or learning how to make pasta, they all use toothpaste... well most of them. There's no distillation of effectiveness for your ad when it runs on Jake Paul's channel.

So YouTube has eliminated 95 percent of the supply of ad space on their network, but it's extremely unlikely that the distribution of monetizable content will be optimal for positive cash flow. I actually think YouTube is going to lose a lot of money on this. Probably more than they did for apocalypse 1.0. What do I mean by this? I mean YouTube will have reversed the situation on supply so significantly that YouTube cannot possibly sustain (at least at first) as good of net revenue than they were doing anti bellum.

The amount of monetizable videos available will be so low it will drive the cost of adds extremely high. So now the advertisers will have to bid very high for premium content, but the relative level of content that their adds play on will not justify the cost Increase in terms of value. It's like as an advertiser you're paying the kind of money to get you extremely good placement before the change, but after the change this amount only seems to get you modest placement and engagement. As much as it's ruffling feathers with small creators, I reckon it's going to play really bad with advertisers.

Advertisers want that mystical, mythical engaged high value viewer and YouTube is trying to give them that, but in actuality they're just raising the floor and providing the same value without the available bottom tier, because that ugly bottom tier seemed to mask the value from the remaining partners, however now instead of paying the price for that tier of the 5% remaining partners, that tier will naturally elevate through bidding until the value is still skewed badly, at a much higher cost.

 

[Jamie]

I totally agree with you. in the end it comes down to just about a couple of dollars per month and if someone is upset about losing that, then maybe they should ask themselves why they are doing youtube in the first place. it takes a lot of effort and devotion to make a living out of youtube and if you really are willing to do it, 1000 subs and 4000h of watchtime should be no match for you, imo

 

[George Hudson]

the whole thing is ridiculous, I totally agree with you whilst your growing don't even think about the money. You should be doing it because you want to and if and when you get paid for it that's just a bonus. Don't put people off by plastering ad's all over your videos. I think this move will help a lot with the quality of content we will start seeing.

 

[Farley Productions]

I don't hate or disagree with you at all. I actually had the same mindset. I didn't want to activate monetization until my numbers grew to a certain point. Wanted my fans to know that I wouldn't put ads in there faces until I thought it was big enough to become necessary.

I think many agree with your decisions and opinions. Including myself. =] So just keep at it.
Plus....for the ones who are only in it for the money and find themselves quitting....where was I going with this.....oh yeah....it will help keep higher quality content for coming into the site and those that are passionate about content creation and film making/animation will be seen a lot more. Granted I feel bad for some of the smaller channels that were making money to help upgrade their equipment for their channel. No matter how small the amount was. =\

 

[TheSwedishTraveler]

Everyone has their opinions, I respect you for sharing it.
My take on it would be that it´s only the past year (i´ve been doing youtube for over 3 years) I have noticed i´m getting an increase in revenue, even though it hasn´t been high to begin with, and it´s sad that when it´s finally getting some traction, it gets taken away.
But at the same time I understand why Youtube is doing what it does. It has to do something to be a viable source of income for the business itself.

 

[Imagination Playtimes]

I think these new rules are fantastic. There is nothing wrong with a small bar to reach before you enable monetization. Youtube wants to push people to make excellent content. When we started our kids channel we only really knew and respected about 5-6 other kids channels. These are people that make good quality content for kids to watch that involve good roll models and not try to shock factor kids to death with toys and bad editing and bright colors. We were flooded at first with sub for sub requests.

We avoided all of that. Every sub we get we want it to be a genuine find and hopefully a return view because they want to watch our material. The new 1,000 sub rule helps that, but the 4,000 hours helps it even more. Why? I've seen channels with 15k subs because of sub for sub and bots and spam and they have under 200 hours of view time. These channels hurt the search engine algorithms and mess everything up.

If you are serious about your channel and your content, 1k subs and 4,000 hours is a small hurdle to hit. After all, if you can't stick with your channel for that benchmark, you never would have made 1 million subs anyway.

 

[Shakycow]

Bad news for small creators or people wanting to start a new channel. Good news for those already established.

How so? They'll have the same chance to grow a fanbase now as they did before. The only difference is that they'll have to wait a tad longer to join Adsense, but, since the vast majority of those effected have yet to reach the $100 threshold, waiting longer shouldn't change anything.

What the new requirements will do is hinder channels who steal/ repost videos for a quick buck and encourage channels that may have gotten lucky with a single viral video to make more and build a following.