Demonetization: YouTube’s Blunder
YouTube has been demonetizing videos for years. It’s their solution to keep edgy content from becoming the face of YouTube and scaring away the advertisers. This strategy is flawed, it’s created a rift between creators and the YouTube higher-ups. YouTube needs to help their creators; they are the backbone of the platform.
YouTube is simply trying too hard to appease the advertisers, they have abandoned their roots. YouTube was once a haven for creativity to thrive no matter what form it took. Even edgy content was fair game, and creators had full creative freedom without worrying about losing their income. Now YouTube only focuses on making the advertisers happy. Family friendly content is the only viable option for a new creator and small channels.
The approach of YouTube resembles that of a totalitarian regime. In September of 2016 they launched the YouTube Heroes feature. This feature rewarded channels for ratting on their fellow content creators, if you demonetize videos you get points rewarded to you which can be used to claim rewards. Instead of trying to fix their relationship with their creators they tried to turn them against each other.
YouTube now demonetizes entire channels, and sometimes they accidentally shut down completely innocent creators. In a business insider article titled “Like you’ve been fired from your job…” they discuss two creators who had their entire channels demonetized for weeks. Jake Sandt had his channel down for weeks because YouTube’s algorithm thought he was reuploading unoriginal content. It also talks about Hoffman and elderly man that lived off his ad revenue. When he was on the phone with YouTube support, they couldn’t tell him why his channel was demonetized because they themselves don’t even know how the YouTube algorithm works. YouTube also doesn’t refund creators for time they were mistakenly demonetized. (https://www.businessinsider.com/youtubers-entire-channels-can-get-mistakenly-demonetized-for-months-2019-8)
This all-started years ago when the apocalypse hit YouTube. After the platform’s biggest creator at the time PewDiePie uploaded a controversial video in which he paid fiver creators to do various things for him for 5 dollars. One of the groups he hired held up a sign that said, “death to all Jews”. It was a joke in bad taste, but it sparked the biggest advertiser pullout in YouTube history. Since then, PewDiePie has been surpassed in subscribers by T-series a music company based in India. YouTube was once a haven for individuals but now it has been taken over by large corporations.
If YouTube, simply stood beside their creators rather than selling out to advertisers they would be in better shape. YouTube is THE video streaming platform, even if huge companies like Sony pull their ads, YouTube will survive. There will always be companies willing to advertise on YouTube. If YouTube higher ups continue to prioritize their own wealth over their creators YouTube will eventually crumble, YouTubers are already switching to twitch. It’s clear as day that YouTube has drifted apart from their audience and creators, the last few YouTube rewinds have been received very negatively. The 2019 rewind being the most disliked video on their own platform. If they give the finger to advertisers and give creators their freedom back, they will struggle at first but when they recover, they will no longer be at the mercy of advertisers.
