After a 2017 of much controversy for video sharing site YouTube, the website has announced significant changes to its YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and monetization policies.
YouTube has been publicly called out by a number of popular creators on the site, for what they believe has been a lessening of ad revenue and a cleaning up of the site to the point where creativity is limited in the name of being advertiser-friendly.
Now, YouTube has outlined a new system for determining partnerships – which allow video creator’s to earn money from their videos by having ads placed on them – by introducing new minimum thresholds.
The move comes only a couple of weeks after the immensely popular YouTuber Logan Paul received widespread backlash for a video which included footage of the corpse of a suicide victim, which he had appeared to stumble across while filming in Japan’s infamous ‘suicide forest’.
However, the response has not been entirely positive, as some believe that the change will simply make it harder for smaller, up and coming channels to benefit from a YouTube partnership.
“Starting today we’re changing the eligibility requirement for monetization to 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers.”
This change will be set immediately for currently non partnered channels, but will also roll out to all channels already partnered, meaning some may have their partnership removed.
“Though these changes will affect a significant number of channels, 99% of those affected were making less than $100 per year in the last year, with 90% earning less than $2.50 in the last month.”
The change is being made to tackle “spammers, impersonators, and other bad actors”, but a primary concern is that it does not appreciate the negative affect a popular channel, for example, that of Logan Paul’s, can have on the overall appeal of YouTube to advertisers.
However, YouTube states that they will be open to discussion from creators on this issue.
“While this change will tackle the potential abuse of a large but disparate group of smaller channels, we also know that the bad action of a single, large channel can also have an impact on the community and how advertisers view YouTube.”
It is unclear though what level of commitment YouTube will demonstrate in this area, and this policy may seem like a daunting new challenge for small channels.
It may also seem like a decision more targeted towards convincing advertisers who are worried about inappropriate content, rather than helping small channels, although certainly, it is the case that more advertisers are better for these channels.
YouTube recently removed Logan Paul’s channel from the Google Preferred program, which was a service used to promote certain content to advertisers.
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