YouTube’s new monetization rules are controversial, painful and necessary

YouTube’s new monetization rules are controversial, painful and necessary

YouTube has been subject to relentless feedback from well-known creators following the company’s decision to change how monetization works on the platform, but it’s important to note that these changes were inevitable and necessary.

YouTube’s new monetization rules will affect the youngest creator the most. The updated rules state that in order to be eligible for creators in the Partner Program, a collective whose channels can be monetized through Google AdSense, they must have the last 12 months of 4,000 hours and a minimum of 1,000 subscriber viewing times.

This is a major departure from the program’s previous policy, which only requires that the channel have 10,000 lifetime views. In a blog post, YouTube executives acknowledged that a significant number of channels will change lives under the new setup. The company tried to defend the decision by pointing out that “99 percent of the victims made less than $ 100 per year last year, 90% earned less than $ 2.50 last month.”

The response from the younger YouTubers was immediate and unforgiving. Criticism among creators is varied: while some were concerned about their channel’s revenue being dried up, others felt they were being expelled from the wider YouTube community. YouTube will show just how upset people are about Reddit, Twitter, and of course, the YouTube Partner Program’s YouTube management.

I also understand why YouTube needs to make such drastic changes when I empathize with these little creators on the platform their way and their legitimate criticism.

YOUTUBE HAS SUFFERED CRITICAL BLOWS FOR MONTHS

YouTube has been struggling to swim and breathe on the surface for more than a year.

Controversies come month after month, criticizing the organization from every angle. Towards the end of 2017, it seemed like advertisers couldn’t trust YouTube to properly filter which creator was getting ads on their videos; Creators could not trust YouTube to solve the monetization issues in a timely manner; And media outlets are spending the field day with mischief by some of the company’s notorious faces.

I told YouTube earlier this month the biggest disappointment of 2017:

… If YouTube doesn’t want to spread the hellish edge of despair in 2018, the company needs to put us, its viewers, and its best creators first again. Working to fix everything that is broken may seem like an impossible task, but it is the only way to continue.

While the company’s recent operations seem to be working against it, it is the smartest move the company has taken to protect both itself and the platform. Advertisers are at the forefront of ecosystem, not creators, paying YouTube creators, supporting YouTube Red projects (with paid subscriptions), and the platform relies on advertising revenue to pay for engineers and coders. YouTube is not a video service; This is an advertising platform. It’s much easier to find content creators than it is for new advertisers.

And advertisers will eventually stop spending money on YouTube if they think they can’t trust the platform. The top manufacturers who use YouTube as their primary source of revenue will then be forced to leave the platform for competitors with the presence of more powerful ads or reduce their output. With no top creator — which means no affiliation with the brand, and no ads coming — YouTube becomes a platform and archive of video content that people can use, but nobody can create a career.

The term “professional youtube” is someone who is known by their status on the platform and their respective channels, effectively dies in this scenario. As YouTube we know it will look completely different. This may even be analogous to the simpler times, when YouTube first launched and focused on site videos, not the personality of those who made those videos

EVERYTHING IN MODERATION

YouTube has been trying to do what it needs to do for years: moderate. While the company will not be able to check every single video uploaded to the platform, it will begin to introduce powerful moderating tools that will help advertisers feel secure about where their ads are located.

Any video that goes through Google Preferred, a classification that combines top-level ads with videos from major manufacturers, will now be viewed by anyone before the ad is approved. This screening process should prevent monetization of objectionable content such as footage of a dead body such as Logan Paul’s controversial video.

By cutting off a sea of ​​channels that YouTube may not have been tracking, the company will also ensure that advertisers can try to measure what content is getting in place. The move is merely a rebuke; It won’t solve the problem forever, but it will hurt the body enough to keep the body afloat while investigating better solutions.

YouTube is giving advertisers more control over which channels will place specific ads. This allows the company to better monitor content before promoting it with two creators and advertisers in the partner program.

Trying to save the manufacturer as much as possible while working to fix the larger picture overall: Security: The company is patching holes as quickly and effectively as possible. YouTube is not safe for advertisers and even for some users. Introducing some moderation to the platform, a more extended testing process, is the only viable step right now. This is bad news for a lot of content creators, but if YouTube wants to survive and make a profit from advertising, advertisers need to look after it.

But this is not where things end.

YOUTUBE NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT ITS VIEWERS

This is the most important part of the equation: the viewer. Millions of videos are worth every day on YouTube — there are billions of viewers around the world tuning in to watch one type of video.

In the past year, YouTube has had to fight the bad press as a result of terrorist videos being targeted by the site, targeted disruptions of children and violent and sometimes deadly scary videos. These videos are the titles, but have been watched by millions of children, including children before them. Logan Paul, one of YouTube’s most popular creators, uploaded a video that recently included footage of a man who seems to have taken his own life, all of which comes in early January.

Here the agency’s golden boy is promoting sensitive, unsettling, and shocking content — after all the steps that YouTube promised to implement — at the end of 2017, to advertisers, parent surveillance teams, journalists and critics.

It looked like YouTube was all over again. The company will allow its platform to place anything unhealthy, non-violent, into anything. More important, it was becoming an unhealthy, unwanted place where bad actors were paying for their work.

But these new rules will give YouTube viewers room to clear what it has to offer. With an acclaimed group of 10,000 people, more control over the videos being promoted and more people watching over the top creator videos, it has begun to care about its broader audience, such as YouTube. Niche Channels will still rely on search and recommended algorithms, but YouTube’s trending page and first page may be a bit clearer than in recent months.

STOPPING THE IMPLOSION

YouTube’s recent decisions regarding monetization are very stringent and are bound to affect many creators. Creators who have uploaded videos for decades do not sympathize with their plight on some long-term YouTube. They note that for the first few years they were on the platform they were not paid at all. Other critics have noted that while YouTube was never meant to be a viable career option for people, it has only become one in recent years.

All of these points are valid, but they have avoided key concerns among new creators who are concerned that they no longer feel part of the YouTube community because they feel that they are included. YouTube is also aware of this. The company is working on ways to allow the new creator to link to external projects or websites in the last slate of videos. There is no reason to believe that YouTube will not adjust how monetization will work in the future, once things are settled and the parties gain a better understanding of how to fix their very broken platform. This is especially true for animators and other creators who upload fewer videos because they are more complex, and do not meet YouTube’s demand for viewing time.

Small youtubers who create content on a constant basis should be paid for their work and should not worry about what trends (for example) YouTube is currently focusing on. But I also support the decision to step back on YouTube and say that we are in a crisis and we need to think about how to work with advertisers and creators, so we have been closing the door for a while.

YouTube has been on the verge of lodging for months, learning how to work with the faces of the platform — or distance yourself from those in need — and with advertisers, who help keep YouTube and its community afloat. No more time for exams. Advertisers will not stand for it, nor will critics stand for it, even as top manufacturers are searching for other places.

YouTube is undoubtedly selfish in protecting its advertisers, trying to clear its content, and preventing another scandalous screw-up from being created worldwide by one of its creators. Right now, YouTube needs to be selfish.

Not only does YouTube need to survive, but it must also thrive in this growing market of competitive, emerging services that surrounds YouTube’s bleeding wounds like hungry sharks. The company is in self-healing mode, and we need to take some time to figure everything out — to improve our YouTube as a company, as a platform, and as a space creator.