I think it’s too bad, I get the need to screen channels but it seems like there would be a better way to do it. Lumping in the people with a small but dedicated fan base who have had a channel for months or years and have uploaded a lot of content along with the ones who just joined last week and are uploading someone else’s popular stolen videos is insulting and doesn’t give any recognition to the hard work that smaller creators go through.
This model would be seriously objected to in the real world. Like, I’m a nurse. Most of my full-time coworkers in our busy unit do tons of overtime and probably clock 50 or 60 hours a week. I used to too. Then we had kids and now I just fill in for lunch breaks and sick days. I average 4 to 6 hours a week. Obviously I don’t do it solely for the (very small) income, but if my boss said “we’re not going to pay you unless you start hitting 20 hours a week” you’d better believe I’d be out of there! Hard work should be compensated, no matter the quantity, especially when another person or entity is benefiting from it!
As an ecommerce business, Yt cares about the "whales" - the biggest channels. It's not different to ebay caring about their Powersellers, amazon about their top sellers, Paypal about their biggest transactions. I've seen it get worse over the years - I've been in ecommerce and internet marketing for a while, and it's getting more brutal. Paypal closes accounts at will with no explanations leaving hundreds of transactions hanging, Shopify closes online merchants when it wants, even Uber, the posterboy of the new economy, treats drivers like utter crap paying them way below minimum wage while assuming no responsibility.
It's only going to get worse over time. While in the old system it used to be 80/20, in the digital age it's closer to 99.5/0.5 - 0.5% of channels/retailers/drivers/giggers/whatever - make 99.5% of revenue to the platform. Everyone else is expendable. Yt doesn't care for the channels under their watch time hurdle, sure they'll smile at news conferences and put out polished presses releases, but as always in life, actions speak louder than words.
The only way to survive in this amazing new digital economy if either be one of the 0.5%, build something of your own and provide service to the rejected masses, or go unabomber style and get a shack in the woods.
