In the past few days, blogs all over the internet have exploded with sensationalist headlines claiming that YouTube is killing off small channels and stifling the growth of new channels, because of their new rules for monetizing videos on YouTube. Only a few sites have claimed these changes are a good thing. So what are these changes and how do they really affect YouTubers big and small? Let me explain and also give my mustard on the topic (Senf dazu geben).
What's new:
YouTube announced that they are changing the threshold that a channel has to pass before they can put advertising on their videos. Before the requirement was that the channel had to have 10,000 total lifetime views. Now a channel must have 4,000 hours of watchtime in the past 12 months and over 1000 subscribers. Channels who have not reached this milestone will be ineligible for monetization until they have surpassed this goal. Channels who had reached the previous milestone of 10,000 lifetime views, but haven't reached the new ones (1000 subscribers and 4,000 watchtime hours in 12 months) will lose their monetization effective February 20 and can earn it back after they have reached the new requirement.
Why people are upset:
Monetization is viewed by many creators as a way to validate their efforts on YouTube. Even if they are making a small amount each month, the fact that they are receiving anything at all and making progress towards becoming a YouTube star is encouraging. Raising the bar to 1000 subscribers is a huge jump for some smaller YouTube channels. Adding in the requirement that a channel has 4000 hours of watchtime in the past 12 months is also sometimes seen as a large hurdle for smaller channels. If each video you upload is 1 minute or less, your potential watchtime is much lower than channels that upload hour long videos. For those of you who are bad at math, 4000 hours of watchtime would be 240,000 views on a video that is only 1 minute long. To put that into perspective, my most popular video to date just passed 200,000 views. Over the entire lifetime of that video (uploaded in May of 2013) it has accrued just over 6000 watchtime hours.
How this would have affected me when my channel was smaller:
I started my YouTube channel in January of 2011. I reached 1000 subscribers in October of 2013, almost 2 full years later. I didn't enable the monetization option until May of 2013. Between May and October (6 months) I earned $43.82 in ad revenue. The payout threshold for AdSense is $100, which means I wouldn't have even been paid once by the time I reached 1000 subscribers. In the entire year of 2014, I made $329. That is a much more respectable amount and definitely something that I would miss from my budget if I lost it, but the $43 over 6 months would have caused zero strain on my budget. Keep in mind, however, that my subscriber count reached 7,000 by the end of 2014. I had 125,000 more views in 2014 than in 2013.
When I looked back at my watchtime stats from 2011 and 2012, I realized that those stats don't exist, as YouTube didn't start tracking watchtime until September of 2012. Even then, I still wouldn't have reached the 4,000 watchtime hours in 12 months until 2014. If I overestimate the revenue I would have missed out on due to this change, I would have lost out on less than $1000 of revenue. While that seems like a lot, it is nothing in comparison to what I have made on this channel since then.
Let's be honest, if you were hoping that your YouTube channel would be self sustaining with the timeline listed above, you would not only be naive, you would also be homeless. At this stage a YouTube channel, it is a hobby. It is not a profession. It is not a make it or break it kind of situation. You are going to have to have another job on top of your YouTube channel in order to make this work. I still consider my YouTube channel to be a hobby with 42,000 subscribers and over 2,000 watchtime hours in the last month. I can't live off of the ad revenue from YouTube. I can't afford to quit my teaching job and do YouTube full time. This is why realistic creators choose Patreon as an extra source of income. AdSense will never pay me enough to quit my job.
How I would see this as a small creator now:
Yes, YouTube moved the goalpost. No, you will not make any money off of YouTube. I would see this as a challenge issued by YouTube. Rise to that challenge. If you really believe that you are going to make it big or at least sustainable on YouTube, you should see this as a small stepping stone on the road to success. This is not a stumbling block. This is an opportunity.
How this affects the medium-sized channels like mine:
I think this change will actually help me make more money from advertising on YouTube. Currently, the percentage of views on which an advertisement is shown on my channel is very small. While this is partially due to people like Logan Paul doing stupid things on their channel and bringing down the integrity of the platform as a whole, this is also due to the overwhelming number of channels that have monetization enabled on their channels. When fewer channels have monetization, there will be more advertisements for those of us who do have monetization. This new threshold for channels will also serve to vet those channels before the earn the right to have advertisements on their videos, ultimately leading to the platform gaining some integrity back.
What about the big channels? Isn't this their fault?:
This mess started with big channels getting called out for making videos that made advertisers cringe when presented with the fact that their ads were placed on or near the offending videos. These are the people who make headlines for hurting the platform as a whole. YouTube will now manually check each video that is on their "preferred" advertising list. This means that there shouldn't be another Logan Paul issue. Realistically, I assume that there will be another issue that will "fall through the cracks" in a few months that will set us back another step, but at least this is a step in the right direction.
Now let me make you mad
If you are one of the channels that lost monetization due to this change, there are really only two categories you can fall into; channels that are too new to meet the requirements, but will take off soon and be making big bucks in no time or channels that are ultimately going to fail. If believe you are in the first category, be patient. This change will ultimately lead to you making more money in the long run than if the tiny channels had monetization. If you are in the second category, you have two choices; re-evaluate your channel and your content and make adjustments to make your channel more successful and meet the requirements or quit and cut your losses.
The vast majority of YouTube channels are in the second category. If they are hoping to become famous and make tons of money from their YouTube channel, they are delusional and wasting their time. It is this kind of "get rich quick" attitude that erodes economies and leads to disillusioned workers, who wish they had someone else's life. Will this move kill some small YouTube channels? Probably. Will this force some people to give up their aspirations of internet stardom? Hopefully. These kinds of changes are for the good of the ecosystem. If YouTube doesn't get out in front of the issues they are facing, the entire platform will crash into Myspace territory. Then no one will make money on YouTube. Which outcome do you think is worse?
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