[BTW: TLDR is at the bottom] First…my relationship with Google is not the best. So let me start by saying I have a YouTube account where me and some friends used to just throw up some gaming montages and highlighs for shits and giggles. My very first upload was November 7th, 2012. While I did it to learn video editing and compression (and mess with ffmpeg), it also gave me as a programmer a way to analyze what types of statistics YouTube utilizes.

The prospect of earning some money…legitimately…from my work sounded awesome, so I decided to monetize my YouTube account and applied for an AdSense account. Yay! Make money off of gaming and video editing, sounds cool. So as my video hits churned along and of course, my first material sucked and was amateur, the potential was exciting.

First mistake — hoping on Fiverr.com to get hits for our videos. While I can’t remember my login, the gig I paid for was for something like real views to my video. I did this with a couple videos, which had a guarantee of about 200 hits. This didn’t result in anyhing that a simple javascript refresh script or a php curl request could do….so I didn’t try it again. Interesting that alot of the stats were overseas, like Ukraine, Russia, and China…prob some vpn or proxy.

What worked? Since I played with friends on Xbox Live, in one of my previous jobs I was a Marketing analyst, I decided to “tag,” people in my videos. So I’d message them on XBL that they’ve been tagged. Simple Greasemonkey script to message the users on xbox.com. This is where I got a shitload of hits, friend requests, and where my subscribers came from (while I understand 200+ subs is nothing, for a beginner in under a month…made me happy). So, guess taking the “personal,” aspect to make my videos led to likes…even if some of the videos were at me and my friends’ expense (death montages).

AdSense banned! After 15days, my adsense account got banned due to “Invalid Activity.” While of course I wanted to go to the thought that Google just hated me (if you still don’t know me….ehhh, google me). Obviously, this had to be from the fiverr gig. So I accepted it. I understood that it was the result of my own decision, so I had no right to bitch.

Appeal Request Denied! I decided (cause you know it was Christmas time) maybe just shooting an email to Adsense for an appeal would work. Bah Humbug! My appeal request was denied. No worries, I only had $50 dollars in my adsense that I earned…but I cherish every FREAKING penny! So I gave up for now.

Screw YouTube, I’m going to Bitcoin. So I officially gave up on the appeal and editing videos…course, I didn’t give up on playing games, but just stopped recording. It was around April now that I was cleaning my Gmail inbox, when I saw my adsense rejection. It irked me thinking money just sitting in there….especially when my little bitcoin mining wasn’t really paying back yet. So, I sent another request into Adsense…why not try the truth again? I explained that I fucked up and that I paid for a fiverr gig for 2 of my videos. The key difference in this email….I said “I’m sorry.”

AdSense Reinstated! I didn’t look up how to get reinstated. I wasn’t that invested in YouTube to care. Looks like sincerity paid off with getting my Adsense reinstated. I was happy. Even more so when I actually told my friends and they were shocked saying Google never reinstates accounts. Now my balance was $40. Still was happy.

Video Monitization Disabled! So now a year later, and I haven’t done any uploads to youtube. Programming, parenting, and projects became my focus again. But then I started getting the emails from YouTube. My videos were getting disabled for monitization. While I had no intention of uploading anymore to YouTube, I was hoping that the balance would just accrue to the freaking AdSense $100 threshld to get a payout. Yes, I could have closed my Adsense account to get the money out immediately, but shit, I had a miracle getting it reinstated.

AdSense Balance Debited $30? SO, this is where all my rage comes from. While I was intent on being patient and letting the balance accrue. As YouTube disabled my monitzation, I notice they debited my earnings. I submitted appeals on my content, citing Fair Use for comical intent, but they get reviewed and rejected. So why is YouTube a scam. Advertisers are still charged for the exposure that YouTube presented on my videos. Publishers lose their earnings, and in my case will never hit the AdSense threshold for a payout.