YouTube is about to get a lot spammier as changes to the YouTube Partner Program are set to reward channels that can produce a regular stream of click bait trash at the expense of niche channels producing videos of lasting value.
Channels currently in the program will need to meet new thresholds of 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours watched over the past year as of February 20 or get kicked out. This affects my channel as well. I started that in 2010 and have mainly posted coffee related videos such as How to Develop a Roast Profile. In the years since then I've heard from people who have used what they've learned in my videos to advance their careers in coffee, to improve their businesses, and to make their coffee better. I can't go to trade events, even ones on the other side of the globe, without being recognized from my channel.
Still, that doesn't always translate to view time. Last year I put together a weekly series of 1 minute videos. I got a lot of positive email response to the series, but it tanked my average view duration with the result that total view time for the months last year correlated negatively with new videos uploaded. The result is that I'm suddenly expected to drum up double the view time for a good month without much warning to avoid getting kicked out of YPP.
While I'm certainly concerned about my own channel, this is hitting a lot of niche educational channels that either have the view time but not the subscriber count or the subscribers without the view time. It's hitting animators who put in a huge amount of work for short pieces. It is leaving untouched the real "bad actors" at the root of YouTube's PR problems. And it is showing that YouTube does not value the huge number of small channels that make YouTube a site worth visiting on the Internet.
Big Names Act Badly, YouTube Kicks Small Channels
YouTube is about to get a lot spammier as changes to the YouTube Partner Program are set to reward channels that can produce a regular stream of click bait trash at the expense of niche channels producing videos of lasting value.
Channels currently in the program will need to meet new thresholds of 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours watched over the past year as of February 20 or get kicked out. This affects my channel as well. I started that in 2010 and have mainly posted coffee related videos such as How to Develop a Roast Profile. In the years since then I've heard from people who have used what they've learned in my videos to advance their careers in coffee, to improve their businesses, and to make their coffee better. I can't go to trade events, even ones on the other side of the globe, without being recognized from my channel.
Still, that doesn't always translate to view time. Last year I put together a weekly series of 1 minute videos. I got a lot of positive email response to the series, but it tanked my average view duration with the result that total view time for the months last year correlated negatively with new videos uploaded. The result is that I'm suddenly expected to drum up double the view time for a good month without much warning to avoid getting kicked out of YPP.
While I'm certainly concerned about my own channel, this is hitting a lot of niche educational channels that either have the view time but not the subscriber count or the subscribers without the view time. It's hitting animators who put in a huge amount of work for short pieces. It is leaving untouched the real "bad actors" at the root of YouTube's PR problems. And it is showing that YouTube does not value the huge number of small channels that make YouTube a site worth visiting on the Internet.
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