adpocalypse [UPDATE] YouTube is tightening rules of monetization further - requires 4000 hours of annual viewing & 1000 subscribers, humans will now review videos

[Misanthrope]

15 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

I guess I should start a video series on YouTube reacting to videos of tech reviewers. I heard reaction videos are popular lately and I hope Linus won't issue a copyright strike on me.* /s 

 

*even though I think a channel about reacting to someone else's videos is one of the laziest kind of YouTube videos because it doesn't require so much effort

....Did you just came up with Tech Keemstar?....You've doomed us all!!!!

[porina]

8 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

Hey Twitch you look mighty fucking fine today

I see that as a very different target, even if Twitch and YouTube are kinda widening their scope and overlap to some degree. 

8 hours ago, DavePlays said:

It makes me lose all my drive. I've made about $50 per year that I reinvest into new gear... but now there's nothing to get out of it except disappointment.

As others have said, $50/year is basically nothing. When starting out, doing it because you want to should be the main driving force.

[captain_to_fire]

11 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

....Did you just came up with Tech Keemstar?....You've doomed us all!!!!

I didn't even know who Keemstar is until now after searching for him.

 

And no, I was thinking about a Tech Buzzfeed for Tech Fine Brothers. /s

[Misanthrope]

6 minutes ago, porina said:

I see that as a very different target, even if Twitch and YouTube are kinda widening their scope and overlap to some degree.

As of today, mostly. But Twitch has already expanded to include podcasts, tabletop gaming, music streams, etc. Plus now they have Amazon to back them up when it comes to  bandwidth.

 

So there's no technical or money-wise stopping them from just turning it into a youtube clone.

[kokakolia]

What YouTube is doing right now is disgusting. They jump on any opportunity to cut spending. 

[Thony]

1 hour ago, hey_yo_ said:

You're forgetting the 4000 hours of viewership in a year. For a starting channel, that's not low.

Didnt comment on that because I dont have the neccesary maths to calculatw how long an average video needs to be with how many views it needs to have.

[Dredgy]

This annoys me, as I have a Youtube channel that get tonnes of views, but I have no subs (well, I have ~600 subs, compared to 400k views). I don't operate the channel anymore, but it provides a kickback of $100-150 a month which is a nice bonus.

 

I just started a new channel that I was hoping to do full time, and that I will invest more into and hopefully grow my base, but its an expensive channel to operate. Only released one video, which has earned me 632 views, 4000 minutes of watch time and 17 subscribers. I have 20 videos shot, which "cost" ~$20k to produce, and I am unlikely to even get to the point where I can make any money back at all. Its the subscriber base that worries me most, I will reach 10000 views and 4000 hours (240 000 minutes) in a few months hopefully.

EDIT: And the new changes take effect on my birthday, yay!

[captain_to_fire]

12 minutes ago, Thony said:

Didnt comment on that because I dont have the neccesary maths to calculatw how long an average video needs to be with how many views it needs to have.

It doesn't matter how long the video is gonna be. As far as I know, as long as you have 4000 hours of viewership in a year and a thousand subs then you're good to go for monetization. However, it doesn't mean that creators need to pump out 1 hour or long videos just to reach that 4000 hour requirement. If a creator uploaded a 1 hour video but his 10,000 subs only watched the first five minutes then quit it afterwards, then the five minute viewership from 1000 subs is what only counts and not the entire video's duration as YT's algorithm also counts if the viewers finish it or not. Basically, the creator only garnered 833 hours out of the 4000 hour requirement of YouTube. Unlike a popular 5 minute video which got 2 million views and in those 2M views everyone finished watching it, it just reached 166,666 hours of viewership in that video alone.

 

But then I could be wrong as YouTube didn't went in detail as to how it's going to work just yet. 

[Tribalinius]

I'm running a channel for an hydroplane sport organization in an ultra niche market that will get cut in the new process (15.5k hours in 2017 / 760 subs~). I'm not exactly happy about this because while I did all the videos and livefeed voluntary for that organization (money is tight and we're doing what we can with what we have), the small 150-300$ I get during the year from advertisement is reinjected in the channel directly to buy supplies and/or pay for a wireless hotspot during the season. Money has been so tight in 2017 that I had to drop livefeed except for the season's main event partly because I did not have the funds to purchase a data plan for the hotspot where I could use one. 2018 is going to be a tough year for sure and I'll miss that extra money to keep the channel going.

 

I understand YouTube's point of view but it is certainly going to hurt channel like mine that use the advertisement money to keep it's show running.

For those curious: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-S07uQyszg8-ee9G1shbYA

[DanielMDA]

13 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

Source: YouTube Creator Blog via The Verge

 

I don't know how this effort from YouTube would affect existing channels that have received so much bad rap lately for the shit they're doing like the plagiarizing Logan Paul. Just look at Social Blade, his channel is still growing despite the lack of new videos which makes me think that his fans are spoiled, young pre-teens with computers and smartphones without parental controls.

 

(Dear Parents in the forum. Please be on lookout on what your kids watch and play on the phones and computers you bought. Enable parental controls and restrict your kid's access to these gadgets. Remember that it is your house, your money, hence your rules. If your kid/s starts crying. Just tell them "Cry me a river kid" because no one dies from crying)

 

 

 

Not that I agree with those people who want to burn the planet to start over again, but given the hypocrisy of YouTube lately like demonetizing political commentary channels (both liberal and conservative) and censoring videos that are relevant to world affairs (which I cannot talk in detail without violating the CS) immediately just few minutes after uploading whereas YouTube would allow these kinds of videos go unnoticed, get some adsense money before demonetizing or even deleting them.

 

 

Shitty people aside, YouTube is basically punishing smaller creators that aren't making crazy shit like the Paul Brothers. Some of them are talented people like musicians (which I listen to a lot) or artists who showcase their paintings and other crafts. Why do the rest have to suffer for the sins of one person? Given how saturated YouTube is at the moment, the only chance smaller creators to gain some income is to have their videos monetized. Ten thousand views is a lot of work for a starting YouTube channel already, what makes YouTube think 4,000 hours of annual viewing is easy, much less the 1000 subs?

 

Edit: But if there's something good about the new YouTube restrictions is to curb the talentless YouTube channels like stupid reaction channels where they react on almost everything on the internet. Sorry to say this but I think most reaction channels are the laziest and talentless form of content on YouTube. Just saying.

 

But it also shows that YouTube is by no means a viable source of income unless you have a large following. To all the kids and pre-teens aspiring to be full time YouTubers, please don't. Finish school, get a real job and perhaps just make YouTube more of a part time hobby. And please, don't get mad if your parents took away your gadgets because they bought that and it's their money.

This just FUCKS small channels in the ass. There are part time streamers that use ads not for income but as a way of upgrading the channel and getting new graphics cards/games/microphones/capture cards to make their viewers feel more comfortable. The money goes back directly into the channel to make it better, which creates more views and in turn makes YouTube more money, and this just screws it over.

[Centurius]

4 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

You're forgetting the 4000 hours of viewership in a year. For a starting channel, that's not low.

That's 24 10-minute videos at an average of 1000 views.

[captain_to_fire]

4 minutes ago, Centurius said:

That's 24 10-minute videos at an average of 1000 views.

Not to mention editing a 10 minute video can take hours to edit and most of these starting YouTubers don’t have a powerful hardware other than their laptops so post processing and exporting alone can take time. 

[Centurius]

6 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Not to mention editing a 10 minute video can take hours to edit and most of these starting YouTubers don’t have a powerful hardware other than their laptops so post processing and exporting alone can take time. 

Ehm my point actually was the opposite, sure it can take a lot of time but it's a lot easier than getting 1000 subs. Usually once you get to that point you'll have quite a bit more than 4000 hours watched.

[f5alcon]

I am a small youtuber, under 30 subs, but went from 5 subs a year ago. Monetization was more in case of some video going viral, I don't care about the money or time I spend doing it and not getting paid, it is more of the principal of a fair system where everyone has a chance to get started.

[TacoSenpai]

Ok here's the thing.  Youtube was never built around making a living off of in the first place.  I mean seriously go back for a minute to videos from 2006 to about 2010 anything pre-google/alphabet take over.  People were literally just doing videos for fun on their spare time as a hobby youtube was just a means to share them.  Ironically back then I find most of the stuff more creative and enjoyable than most of the shit today and yes that includes the youtube poops.  Once monetization entered the equation well now guess what all those clips, soundbites, or topics you might have done are now shit canned because of copyright claims and "non-ad friendly" content which is subjective as shit.  So as a result you get a bunch of vloggers, talking heads in thumbnails because more or less that is what Google and Youtube have restricted it down to.  Oh and god forbid you disagree with their views in any way.  But I'll leave that out as thats another can of worms. 

[PocketNerd]

Obe Luke Kenobi, you're our only hope! (Translation: The Floatplane window of opportunity is widening!)

[Sniperfox47]

7 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

I doubt he'd had good chances at that: Patreon doesn't has any build in way to grow an audience. It's just a tool for people with already large audiences.

 

Monetization it's not only about how much money you get but how much are your videos are pushed in front of more eyes and how much you grow which is usually exponential. Without monetization there's just no way you'd be able to sustain a Patreon audience imo. Big channels try this because their drop off is slow enough that occasional drama helps them but trust me take even a million sub channel and remove all monetization and have that creator rely on Patreon: you will very slowly but very surely kill that channel.

 

There needs to be a solution and incentive for small content creators to be able to eventually break through beyond dumb luck. Because what this will encourage is a lot more annoying people pestering celebrities for retweets, doing more "I've found a dead body!" style videos, anything that with get eyes on them: more of the worst possible kind of videos and youtubers will become the norm.

Except your video doesn't have to be monitized or have ads at all to be added to recommended watch lists or similar video lists. In fact a number of the creators I've been suggested to the past few months don't monitize on YouTube at all.

 

You can just run your YouTube channel as is with these changes and literally nothing changes for you other than you don't get the piddly little payout you'd have been getting from Adsense.

 

And you can totally combine Patreon with YouTube anyways. A ton of creators do.

 

If your yearly payout from Adsense was about $50 you can replace that by getting a measly 5 people to donate miniscule $1 a month on Patreon. 1$ per month per person * 0.85 for the Patreon(5%) and Third Party(2-10%) processing fees worst case scenario = 85¢ per month per person * 5 people = $4.25 per month * 12 months = $51

[alphaproject]

Trust me as a gaming channel for War Thunder, it's not worth it. The popular guys take off and you just sit slowly getting subs..... AND it's slow. I had to reboot in 2016 and I'm only at 350+ as of right now. I had 700 when I got axed and would easily be over 1000 now. This is really frustrating because I made content for fun... then realized eventually there could be money to make.... but now.... that's not even true. Not every one even needs to money but it's noce to know you are making "something" even if it's 50 or 100 bucks a year. Then maybe you get it to 1000 a year. Now YT just poops on those with even low hopes for no reason at all.

[Misanthrope]

9 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Except your video doesn't have to be monitized or have ads at all to be added to recommended watch lists or similar video lists. In fact a number of the creators I've been suggested to the past few months don't monitize on YouTube at all.

 

You can just run your YouTube channel as is with these changes and literally nothing changes for you other than you don't get the piddly little payout you'd have been getting from Adsense.

You might get some traction but no: youtube wants content they can monetize to be pushed to the front, I am fairly certain most of those creators are either not starting from scratch of attaching themselves to other relevant content or topics.

 

So just because you can doesn't means the deck is not stacked against you.

[TacoSenpai]

Speaking again about content saturation just think of how easy it is to get relatively decent editing software like Vegas or Premiere Pro legit or even cracked versions.  You also have things like audacity and xsplit and suddenly everyone and their mother can edit video and post the same thing x1000. I mean back in the ye olde days you pretty much had windows movie maker if that and few people had the capability to transfer footage from their home camcorders to their PC to upload at least easily.  Its alot easier now to record, transfer, and edit content.

[Mattson]

I have no problem with this at all.  It is their company and they are free to do with it as they please.

[ItsMitch]

26 minutes ago, Mattson said:

I have no problem with this at all.  It is their company and they are free to do with it as they please.

When it comes to fucking over 60% ish of their userbase it's really not ok

[Mattson]

1 minute ago, SC2Mitch said:

When it comes to fucking over 60% ish of their userbase it's really not ok

Not my pig, not my farm.

Put your money where your mouth is and stop using YouTube or adapt.

[ItsMitch]

28 minutes ago, Mattson said:

Put your money where your mouth is and stop using YouTube or adapt

Ah yes, the "Get good or shut the fuck up" classic response. I've used YT in the past and I've earned some nice pocket change from it, hell, my video from the CoD champs, I earned about 200 bucks from this video alone, sure it took a shit load of time but who cares, money is money and rejecting people because they're new to the scene is a massive fuck you and don't even bother.

Jim Sterling did an excellent video on the matter.

 

[Mattson]

2 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

money is money and rejecting people because they're new to the scene is a massive fuck you and don't even bother.

We have something called the free market.  YouTube is free to do whatever they damn well please with their platform and you are free to use it or not use it.  You are also free to express your disdain as you are doing.  But at the end of the day it is YouTube's platform and not yours... you can either wallow in self pity or do something about it.