When people ask what the biggest video sharing platform on the internet is, YouTube is given as the answer. It may not be the best, but it’s the biggest, mostly due to an act that happened a decade ago. Ten years ago, the platform opened up its partner program to everyone, letting any video that went viral garner a small revenue through ads.
That revenue was given to the content creator or partner. As a result, the platform exploded with popularity, giving birth to many YouTube Titans over the decade as well as the phrase “I YouTube for a living”. However, with the good came the bad. Cases of abuse where original content is re-uploaded by others who try to earn revenue from it arise as do large companies bullying small time content creators. While there is no fix yet for the latter, the Google-owned company has a solution for the former: no longer serving ads on YouTube Partner Program videos until the channel reaches 10k lifetime views.
“Starting today, we will no longer serve ads on YPP videos until the channel reaches 10k lifetime views. This new threshold gives us enough information to determine the validity of a channel. It also allows us to confirm if a channel is following our community guidelines and advertiser policies. By keeping the threshold to 10k views, we also ensure that there will be minimal impact on our aspiring creators. And, of course, any revenue earned on channels with under 10k views up until today will not be impacted.”
– Ariel Bardin, VP of Product Management
It’s a bold move, one that’s sure to attract both support and criticism, the former by big YouTubers who have taken a hit to their ad revenue and the latter by smaller YouTubers. It’s not the only hurdle small time YouTubers have to cross. In a few weeks, YouTube will also be adding a review process for new creators who apply to be in the YouTube Partner Program. After a creator hits 10k lifetime views on their channel, their activity will be reviewed against YouTube policies. If everything looks good, the channel will be brought into YPP and begin serving ads against their content.
It’s not the only big change YouTube has in store for the company: 30-second unskippable ads are also meant to disappear next year.
Source: YouTube Blog
