END OF XINITII [Feb. 20, 2018]
5Long Rant About YouTube and Their Partnership Program:
YouTube used to be an amazing outlet for young, talented, and experimental people to create content and actually have their voice heard across the world. You used to be able to make very creative and different content than what you would usually see in more popular types of media and still be seen by lots of people with similar interests. It was a place where anyone could go to post a quick rant, watch a funny video, or just something that was genuinely strange yet creative.
As YouTube got bigger and earned more money, they started something wonderful. The YouTube Partnership Program would allowed their content creators to earn money off their videos by monetizing them with ads (which the creator could choose what kinds of ads played on their videos), and allowed the viewers to support the content creators simply by watching and liking the video. It seemed like a great deal.
Over the years, YouTube has gotten really weird with their algorithm, trying different ways to actually limit the amount of money content creators were receiving. It began with how many likes and views a video had and then changed to watch time. Watch time is how long a person spent viewing the video, meaning the longer the video and the longer people watched, the more money you could get as a creator. This almost killed the animation side of YouTube (which was a large part of early YouTube as most animators came over from the site NewGrounds) as animation takes a long time and their efforts usually resulted in 0:30-1:00 minute videos. Now animators could barely make pennies off their hard work just because the video wasn't long enough.
When I was a kid I used to watch people play and voice commentary over video game footage and I loved it. Everyone was able to play games in a different and expressive way and I wanted to do that to. I have a few failed attempts at starting my channel, but finally on September 8, 2015 I created something I was proud enough to share with the word. I posted some videos of my playing a gamed called Metroid on my YouTube channel and I've been uploading ever since.
Recently I have been taking greater and greater efforts to better my video. I bought a new $160 mic, a $40 video editing software, and spent tons of time using a free version of Photoshop to try and make thumbnails for my videos. I was so proud of myself and how far I've come in making videos since I first started. I was only making a few pennies per video, but it was something. Seeing a few more pennies every video was enough to keep me going knowing that I'll get better with time and my viewer base will grow. In fact, I was streaming a video game yesterday for my channel when I got an email from YouTube about their new Partnership Program policy. Keeping in mind that YouTube has been degenerating over the past few years, I knew the email wasn't going to be good.
I checked the email and of course, it was bad. In order to "protect creator revenue across the YouTube ecosystem," YouTube decided to demonetize my channel since I didn't have enough views or subscribers. I had just reached my personal goal of 100 subs and I was so happy, now this email tells me that I need at least 1,000 subs to make even a penny! I was outraged. No matter how much effort I put into my videos, I couldn't get 10 times by subs in a night. This new policy is forcing me to retire from my childhood dream of being a popular YouTube channel.
YouTube has lately been taking more and more rights and privileges away from their content creators in order to give the spotlight to big businesses who pay YouTube. Movie companies, TV shows, and News networks all pay YouTube to post their content under the "trending" tab which is supposed to be reserved for content creators that are getting the well deserved views they deserve. Now YouTube has devolved and lost almost all sense of customization and creativity that they began with, which made this platform so famous among users in the first place.
As of February 20, 2018 if you're YouTube channel doesn't have AT LEAST 4,000 hours of views in the past 12 hours and AT LEAST 1,000 subscribers, then your YouTube Partnership Program will be "terminated." It is so unfortunate to see a site that was about allowing the common person a creative outlet and even pay them for their time, to become the cesspool of ads and limitations it is now.
That's the end of the rant. I'm not boycotting YouTube, that would be the opposite of what I'm trying to do. I still want to support good content creators, those who have and haven't been affected by this new policy and see YouTube thrive again. It is still sad to see what it has become however.
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Song Used:
On the Beach at Dusk - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Unwavering Emotions - Pokemon Black and White
Komm Süsser Tod - The End Of Evangelion