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YouTube is shaving off more of the smaller channels from its monetization program:
YouTube is tightening the rules around its partner program and raising the requirements that a channel/creator must meet in order to monetize videos. Effective immediately, to apply for monetization (and have ads attached to videos), creators must have tallied 4,000 hours of overall watch time on their channel within the past 12 months and have at least 1,000 subscribers. YouTube will enforce the new eligibility policy for all existing channels as of February 20th, meaning that channels that fail to meet the threshold will no longer be able to make income from ads.
Previously, the standard for joining YouTube's Partner Program was 10,000 public views — without any specific requirement for annual viewing hours. This change will no doubt make it harder for new, smaller channels to reach monetization, but YouTube says it's an important way of buying itself more time to see who's following the company's guidelines and disqualify "bad actors."
[...] The new, stricter policy comes after Logan Paul, one of YouTube's star creators and influencers, published a video that showed a dead body in Japan's Aokigahara forest. Last week, YouTube kicked Paul off its Google Preferred ad program and placed his YouTube Red original programming efforts on hold.
Anyone under 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 total hours watched annually would probably be making a pittance anyway. This change could allow YouTube to put more human eyes on the unruly but popular channels, so it can censor suicide forest vlogs (NSFW) in record time.
Today Youtube sent out the following message to a number of customers:
Today we are announcing changes to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). While our goal remains to keep the YPP open to as many channels as possible, we recognize we need more safeguards in place to protect creator revenue across the YouTube ecosystem.
Under the new eligibility requirements announced today, your YouTube channel, [Name] is no longer eligible for monetization because it doesn't meet the new threshold of 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers. As a result, your channel will lose access to all monetization tools and features associated with the YouTube Partner Program on February 20, 2018 unless you surpass this threshold in the next 30 days. Accordingly, this email serves as 30 days notice that your YouTube Partner Program terms are terminated.
Apparently niche content and low volume community channels, is not as profitable as hosting porn.
Who knew?
Previously: YouTube Changes its Partner Program -- Channels Need 10k Views for Adverts
Related: YouTube's "Ad-Friendly" Content Policy may Push one of its Biggest Stars off the Site
Google Fails to Stop Major Brands From Pulling Ads From YouTube
In Attempt to Achieve YouTube Stardom, Woman Accidentally Kills Her Boyfriend
YouTube Cracks Down on Weird Content Aimed at Kids
1600 Vine Street
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Apparition on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:46AM
... Am looking forward to seeing more "If you liked this content, please subscribe to my Drip/Hatreon/Liberapay/Patreon" blurbs at the beginning and/or end of YouTube videos.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:11AM (4 children)
The change from youtube was not in response to that clown; it was in response to all of the ElsaGate spammy channels aimed at children, so that they cant earn any money before they are discovered and shut-down. They have automated systems for reposting questionable content constantly, this gives the killer bots some time to weed them out first.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:20AM
Indeed, considering how many views he had been getting prior to showing the body and all the joking around, this rule wouldn't have applied to him anyways. He gets at least that many views in a week.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:43AM (1 child)
Yes, thank you. In fact, this current move encourages people like Mr. Paul by making them more desperate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @12:56PM
Good. Maybe somebody can film his dangling corpse.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:58PM
I'd like to mod you +1 Informative because that makes a lot more sense, but I believe in my sig so I went digging instead.
Unfortunately, both TFA and Google's top [techcrunch.com] two [theguardian.com] news results for the rule change clearly flag Logan Paul's "suicide forest" video as the reason behind these changes.
But it still makes no sense why. Google's announcement [googleblog.com] doesn't flag any specific incidents as the reason behind the change.
So I'm going to guess that you're probably right, and the news sites are all probably wrong. One thing is for sure: the specific reason behind the change is definitely open to interpretation.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:43AM (4 children)
This seems rather tough. As a user, I've never seen a need to subscribe to a channel and never expect to.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:50PM (3 children)
I subscribe to some channels merely as a way to "bookmark" them. I consider "subscribe" to be "bookmark". It makes it easier for me to locate certain channels. It also seems to have he effect that YouTube will put new videos from those channels in my face. But I don't consider "subscribe" to have the meaning of "like". Of course I don't know the subtleties of "like" on FaceTwit because I've never used them.
Similarly, I do "thumbs up" certain videos in order to steer YouTube to show me similar videos. I rarely "thumbs down" unless I really want YouTube to know that I don't want to see offensive political claptrap that doesn't fit into my closed mental echo chamber impenetrable to facts and logic.
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:52PM (2 children)
Why not just use "bookmarks"? That's why they put them in the browser.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:04PM
Subscribing ends up with getting notifications when that channel posts new content. I find this useful so that I don't have to go to the user pages to see if anything new came out.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:22PM
On a browser I would do that.
However I do the vast amount of my YouTube viewing on a big TV in my living room on a RoKu. It's a comfortable way to watch lectures, conferences, or just browse how-to videos. Even for just browsing junk on YouTube. Way better than on a computer. I have a nice computer, but I spend all day at work in front of a computer.
(all the TVs in the house have RoKu's attached, with several pay channels subscribed. no cable tv service. Only internet service.)
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:50AM (3 children)
Seems to me there are going be a shit load of jobs watching YouTube submissions. Wonder what Alphabet is paying?
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Thursday January 18 2018, @08:35AM (1 child)
Having in mind what youtube pays, those jobs are going to be 0.5$/month. Maybe for students in Ethiopia.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday January 18 2018, @10:21AM
I get the idea they are crowdsourcing the work.
By having US do it. You know, like Microsoft has us doing product testing. We still can't open email attachments without risk.
So, if a content creator is doing nothing but wasting all of our time with catchy clickbait, the ones so influenced may click onto the content, only to find its a load of filler, and click away, making it really hard to get someone to spend their time on the channel. This will drop the bottom out of incentives to upload clickbait crap.
I can't tell you how many times I have clicked onto something on YouTube, only to be faced with first several minutes of useless head bobbing, followed by endless waiting for little nuggets of info reminiscent of trying to watch the news on TV. Many senile old men will outdo them on a useful information transfer per hour basis.
However, given the power of JavaScript, I can see JavaScripts showing up in ads, whose sole purpose is to "watch" a YouTube content, directing the video stream to dev=null, so the content creator will get his brownie point, and will go undiscovered until the hapless user, wondering why his internet is so slow and his caps are reached so fast, discovers that his problem is that he hasn't implemented a Script blocker yet. While some script writer gets paid a fortune for use of his copyrighted and secretive work running in the background of countless machines, wasting bandwidth.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:51PM
What is the minimum wage in Elbonia these days?
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by iru on Thursday January 18 2018, @01:05PM (5 children)
The whole “top YouTuber fucks up therefore we will punish the small guys” logic makes no sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:06PM (3 children)
so who is logan paul? is he the northern equivalent of that aussie with the knife?
yeah i guess I can search for it but fuck i have no concept who this clown is and why I'd care he isnt making money anymore for a website that probably needs a login filter so that most of this shit is prevented anyway.
it is no longer what it used to be in 2008. it got googled
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:56PM
Yep. Where do these people come from? I never heard of them. I don't care about them. Yet they become big news. Thrust in front of my face. First PewDiePie now Logan Paul. They don't do anything valuable or educational. No links to GitHub. No demos. No parts lists or instructions. Nothing cool to see that makes my jaw drop in awe.
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Thursday January 18 2018, @06:40PM (1 child)
The kids know who he is.
My son (14) linked me to his "2017 year wrap" video. I got 2 seconds in and closed the tab with a big NOPE!
Twats like that are not aimed at you, they are aimed at kids. Which makes even less sense as kids don't have money... so how the fuck does the advertising pay off?
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday January 18 2018, @07:57PM
Kids have parents. And parents have money.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:47PM
It makes sense. Or it makes cents.
YouTube wants to look like a "good" space for advertisers to promote their junk. Advertisers, at least their marketdroids are sometimes more conservative about what kind of advertising space looks like a good place to invest money to get eyeballs. Or are those eyeballs worth getting?
Wot!?!?!? This place is full of people watching video gamers, skateboarders, hikers and related low life criminal activities? Cat videos. Urban exploders. Making metal castings of ant colonies by pouring in molten metal.
But when you look at what dreck is on cable tv (last I checked which was years ago) that probably doesn't look like such a great advertising space either.
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @02:55PM
The stated problem was some bad folks put up some evil videos.
The solution was to lower the compensation YouTube pays to less viewed content.
The 2 seem only minimally related.
YouTube needed all the content it could get to start so it left cash on the table.
Now that it is running well, it can pull back some cash.
Not unexpected.
Result, YouTube makes more profit and there is a less diverse collection of stuff to view.
Nice to have this fig leaf of an 'evil' problem to fix.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:19PM (4 children)
I've got 1400 subscribers, but very esoteric scientific content. I don't see a lot of traffic, because uber nerds are my primary consumer.
So people who are already least rewarded in society proportional to their contributions, are being punished by this decision. And it will directly result in less scientific and engineering content, because that content requires a lot more work per video, and generally sees a disproportionately low turnout.
IOW, because of dumb content, Youtube wants more dumb content. I have a nice video on an atmospheric condenser design I'd like to put up. But hey, puppies and kittens it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:49PM
And pink, fluffy unicorns, too! Don't forget them, or I will not watch.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:49PM
Dumb content sells. Or did you think that a multi-million dollar enterprise was going to somehow behave differently than the previous players in the multi-million dollar industry it "disrupted"?
"X, but on the internet with social media" is a great formula for starting a business that is more efficient than existing businesses in the same space. It is not at all effective at changing the fundamental realities of X.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:17PM
Most people don't care about stuff like that, and want to watch mindless drivel instead, so the mindless drivel is what's profitable. Therefore, trying to buck this trend is really being anti-democratic and elitist, not to mention unproductive; you should instead try to find ways of maximizing your profitability, even if that means producing more mindless drivel and not bothering with science and engineering. Society will be better off with less (or even no) science and engineering, and more mindless drivel, because that's what society wants.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:53PM
Actually there is plenty of smart content on YouTube. It is overwhelmingly drowned out by dumb content. But it is there. Lots of it. You have to search for it. You need to know what you are looking for. But without knowing what you are looking for, YouTube is going to pitch all of the most popular junk content. Just start searching for specific words. And uncommon words. Arduino. Raspberry Pi. C compiler. Microcontroller. Java. Eclipse. Node.js. Python. Fractal. SpaceX. Kubernetes. Clojure.
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)
His numbers only prove there's no accounting for taste. If youtube really wants to help, they need to ban people who can't frame and hold a steady shot, or who spend 30 minutes leading to a half second anti-climax, or cut the video just before, or who point the camera at the ground while filming a car/plane/train wreck.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:46PM
Actually, that kind of video is exactly what YouTube's video suggestion and monetization algorithms are favoring. The degradation of YouTube content isn't the fault of the video creators on the service. It's the fault of YouTube for rewarding longer, more click-baity videos at the expense of quality.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday January 18 2018, @09:59PM
I have a species of peeve that is suitable for domestication.
The title and / or image of your video attracted me to watch it. If you can't start getting near a point within 10 seconds, you're already wasting my time!
First I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. Then I'm going to tell you something about how I'm going to tell you. Then I'm going to play a logo / musical lead in that looks pretty but is too long and only wastes time. But it makes me look cool, in my own mind!
Sort of like speakers at conferences. Sure, tell me who you are, what you've done, who you work for. But then start heading towards a point. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to be enlightened about your new library for graph data structure manipulation, or whatever topic.
Infinity is clearly an even number since the next higher number is odd.