**The Existential Crisis of a Small YouTuber**

I remember being just a boyfriend and girlfriend at the time, but that's when I started going through existential crises one after another. It was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me, and I had to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. Over time, I became frustrated with the YouTube community and its expectations. Everyone seemed to be following the same formula - post, upload, repeat. And that's exactly what I did. I poured my heart and soul into creating content, but I felt like I wasn't making any progress.

I was stuck in this small YouTuber mentality that I just had to keep posting and keep posting them one day magically I'll be successful. This is what I thought this is what most people think like I just have to keep at it keep doing the exact same thing over and over and over and I'll be successful because that's what the vague messaging says don't give up don't stop keep doing what you're doing and you'll get there.

But as time went on, I started to realize that this approach wasn't working for me. In fact, it was holding me back. I had started doing some OBS tutorials and tech videos because that's what I had an interest in that's what I found fun. But I didn't feel obligated to do them, unlike with my other content. It was a different vibe altogether.

**A Turning Point**

Christmas 2014 was a turning point for me. On Christmas Day, I took a closer look at my analytics and saw what was working and what wasn't. I realized that I could pivot and try something new. I decided to focus on a tech channel and give it a shot for a year or so if it's successful great if not then I'll just stop considering YouTube to be like a job potential thing like that will just be a hobby from now on but I will go really hard on this one idea to see if I can make it successful.

I didn't say you know I stopped saying Oh YouTube won't give me all the views YouTube it's not giving me all the monies YouTube won't help me grow. But honestly, that was true for me at the time. YouTube had been cold and distant in terms of communication since 2006. They never fostered a sense of community among small YouTubers. They made us feel like we were special, but really, they just weren't.

**The Reality of the YouTube Community**

Those who have made friends with other YouTubers and build up a community are the ones who understand that this isn't about being special. It's about connecting with others and creating something real. The YouTube community is full of negativity and criticism towards the platform itself, but it's also filled with people who genuinely care about each other. Those of us who have stayed positive and focused on our passions are the ones who have built a true community.

**The Anti-YouTube Garbage**

I am extremely frustrated with what has built up in terms of anti-YouTube garbage. People who claim that YouTube is holding them back or that it's ruined the community. But the truth is, it's just people being negative and complaining without offering any solutions. They're like a bunch of head-in-the-sand naysayers who refuse to adapt.

**A Message to Myself**

I've been trying to distract myself all day by ranting about YouTube, but I wanted to address some misinformation instead of staying quiet. I guess that's what I needed to do - get it off my chest and share my thoughts with the world. Thanks for watching, and see you next time!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enalright I'm adding this clip to the beginning of the video so that I have some nice things to say at the start because I think people need to hear this and then we'll touch on the misinformation and the ranty side of this video just want to come back in here and say I've added a couple different edits to this recording so far now I just want to come back in here and say if you're feeling discouraged by this if you feel like you you're not sure how you can reach these goals I will say it takes an incredibly long time to really figure out what you're doing and really do a good job with videos to the point that you should be in the partner program that you should be making money from it that you should consider it a like long-term viable business opportunity very few people make it to that point in a short amount of time it takes a long time many channels like me took like five six years before you found the right path to reach that point and that's okay it takes time it'll take hundreds of videos to really figure out what you're doing in terms of presentation in terms of editing in terms of content in terms of figuring out what content you want to cover because so many youtubers jump in and they're just like I want to make the videos that guy's making and they do nothing different they think they're doing it different cuz they are the ones doing it but they offer nothing to the table and it takes a long time to get there and I promise you that by time you truly get there you will meet the requirements for the partner program you will like period like once you reach the point where you're really on a successful path with your channel you'll you'll meet the requirements you'll by far meet the requirements and you'll be doing really well it takes time it's not easy this isn't something that's supposed to be easy like either either you're just having fun and don't care about how you're doing like I said earlier or it's something that you want to do for the long term and again it's not supposed to be easy there's no way for it to be easy unless you just get really lucky or do something really creative and if you're looking at your stuff and every time you you time you think about like what your content strategy is what your channel is what the point is ask why viewers should watch your videos and if you don't have an answer to the question of what do you do differently and it's not something significant you probably need to rethink things a bit like oh I make gaming videos please watch my college duties Let's Plays or whatever like what makes you different from all the other people doing it if you don't have an answer you're not there yet if you don't have an answer for any kind of content as to what makes you different what your specific thing that you do great or do differently or offer to the table that makes you stand out you're not there yet but by time you get there you will meet the requirements for the partner program just one and dad does at the start so that III said these things and that people would actually hear them but there is some ranting to be had coming soon well right right right now YouTube has made some changes to the YouTube Partner Program and the requirements to be able to monetize your video and I have some things to say about it that's gonna make a lot of people mad but there is also a lot of misinformation going on around about it that I want to try to clear up to make sure that people are really getting on the right foot about it and just overall sharing my thoughts but it will most likely not make people who are mad about this happy with me now there's a lot to unpack here so first and foremost if you haven't been aware YouTube has made a change to the YouTube Partner Program to that so that there are actual requirements again huh it is now required that you have 4,000 hours watch the watch hour so about 240,000 watch minutes within the past twelve months as well as one thousand subscribers in order to be in the partner program to apply for the partner program and to make money now this is unfortunately a retroactive change which means all current partners will be removed from the program which is part of what's making a lot of people mad and I can concede that point a little bit and I will address it I don't think that's fully fair to be mad about but I do get and I will address at some point the problem is a lot of people don't seem to understand what the heck the partner program is so no you do not lose custom thumbnails no you don't lose in cards no you don't lose cards and as far as we really know know your videos won't get promoted and less as a result of being removed from the program hmm all right so there has been some misinformation going around just because people can't be bothered to read the support articles or things that they're referencing in cards are available for all YouTube users period the only end cards that aren't available and normal cards that aren't available to it non sorry my phone's going off that aren't available to non partners are ones that link externally to other websites because those can be abused for spam and in a policy trying to limit spam you want to get rid of that so you can still link to your other videos and things like that with your end cards you also don't lose custom thumbnails by being removed from the partner program that has not been a partner exclusive feature for a few years everyone can upload custom thumbnails you're not losing that and there has been no data to actually suggest that not being a monetized channel or not monetizing your videos or not being in the partner program hurts your performance there's been no I mean there's no real way to measure that but there's been plenty of examples contradictory to that idea and there's been no direct data to support it though as far as I can tell the only way people get the only place that people get this idea from is back when the original start of the ad pocalypse happened as far as public was concerned with people getting their videos d monetized following the original thing some people would show their views kind of tanked after they got demonetised the thing is here that D monetization especially by manual review is literally someone at YouTube saying hey that video is inappropriate that video is not advertiser friendly which means it contains things that advertisers don't want to display their ads on and YouTube probably doesn't want to show to where Everage viewers buy a promotion like while it's still theoretically not cool especially for the Floss pulse flags that are happening and they really need to work on the D monetization algorithm although it's been it still hits my channel but it's way better than when it started like it's been it's improved a lot as far as I can tell on my channel but if YouTube determines that a video is inappropriate why would they promote it that doesn't make sense like why would you expect them to promote it so people are mad people are really really mad people are cussing out YouTube saying this takes away any incentive for small channels and blah blah blah I'm sorry if you if having a goal that you actually have to work towards is a lack of incentive for you you're doing something wrong and I understand those who have been grinding their way to the 10,000 viewmarq or whatever trying to get monetization and now the goalpost is moved I understand why you would be frustrated but also understand that you're still not making a significant amount of money and well yes I accept I accept that that would still be in in the moment like frustration you'll still get there like if you're making real content if you're actually strategizing if you're not just uploading the same crap over and over and expecting a handout you will eventually reach that milestone and you'll have a really solid foundation and you'll be good to go so I want to rewind before I fully address the actual changes that were made and why I feel they are a good thing and very important I want to provide a little context of my time here on YouTube I keep making cuts this video will have very minimal editing because I just want to rant about it I'm still very sick I really didn't want to come on video but I keep seeing so much misinformation I wanted to address that and I did want to rant a little bit and I know it will make some people mad but for a little context I've been on a round on YouTube basically since it's been a thing and the original YouTube Partner Program that most people probably didn't know existed it by that name until like a couple years ago other than those who have been around for a long time the original YouTube Partner Program was invite only you had to have very successful content in a specific format in order for them to say hey let's partner together and make some money otherwise you couldn't get in and then they opened it up a little bit where people could apply but even people with like 15,000 subscribers and two million views could not get in gameplay content could not be partnered at all there were huge copyright concerns that despite all the complaints about YouTube's copyright program it's way better than when they were actually trying to be legally conscious about it and then YouTube opened the floodgates that eventually you no longer just had to know a guy at machinima you could agree you could apply to a network then sub networks popped up and then literally anyone could upload content and monetize it and this led to an influx of hundreds of thousands of channels and videos millions of videos of just spam hi there just nothing like I get notifications every week of someone who has copy pasted my video title and my user name into a title of a video that is just a still image linking to some spam website or reuploads of still and content trying to get some views and some quick money a view botting for money trying to fake Adsense revenue and steal money from Google basically malicious content millions of channels that re-upload soccer games and sports events trying to make money from it things like that it's been a nightmare additional content I have worked for a while I worked for an MCN for about almost four years and towards the end and part of what led me to quit my job there was I got involved with filtering and reporting and trying to clear out all of the crap all of those kinds of channels that have gotten into networks because anyone can join and no longer can anyone logistically keep up because of the floodgates being opened so many channels of this just pure garbage or just truly inappropriate not okay stuff in there and I had to filter I had to help filter it out I had to try to report things I had to train people to do this and it was a nightmare all because YouTube just decided they wanted to take a hands-off approach and that is precisely what this new change is trying to address is they are they have been working towards this for a couple years now two before the original ad pocalypse which no one seems to fathom here because short attention spans I guess headline scandals are what matters and whatever but YouTube's been working to try to filter out these channels and try to address it in a way that is fair to those who are actually doing what they're supposed to on the platform but still filter out all the bad channels they've been working at this for a while the reason that that was so stressful was because YouTube was cracking down hard on networks to get rid of these channels and because YouTube itself wasn't going to bothered to do it they left it up to the networks and they cracked down hard like networks were getting shut down left and right because of this and it was super stressful and they were super nasty about it and this was before PewDiePie's not see whatever ad pocalypse stuff this was back in early 2016 when they started maybe late 2015 like this has been going on for a couple years they've been cracking down finally in 2016 they said they had enough and shut down sub networks entirely which was kinda and in my regard phase one of trying to tackle this problem phase one was getting rid of sub networks where anyone pretty much literally anyone could start a network partner channels and then anyone could make money so there were so many layers of spam and abuse going on that YouTube needed to address so the so despite you know what public perception may be because they think that YouTube only reacts to news and things like that the the whole PewDiePie thing back in March 2017 that was kind of the final straw on the advertiser back in terms of what actually led to change on YouTube that was when they were like okay this is enough you've got to fix this even your bet even your big youtubers can cause problems now so then they started making big changes to try to fix this which meant flagging everything so yes from a perspective the actions of one big guy can hurt all the little guys but not really like it's the action of all these robots taking over the site with spam and one big guy showing that the rules are laissez-faire enough that they can that's not how you say that but laid-back enough that they can get away with anything to to say okay we really need to make a drastic shift then they introduced the D monetization bot that was kind of phase 2 then phase 3 was introducing a requirement to partner a very minimal requirement 10,000 lifetime views on your channel which meant that initially they were able to filter out like the tiny small percent I'm gonna sneeze oh isn't that coming oh that feels really bad oh that sucks I hate being sick so much I've gotten nothing done the past week or so god okay that was the try to filter out but it wasn't a strong enough filter like 10,000 views is easy to get and since it was based on views and that watch time which YouTube always deems as their ultimate metric to prevent or to like see whether someone's view botting it was it's easy enough to fake even with YouTube's tools and they're always increasing their fake view detection tools which will coincide with this but that wasn't strict enough so that was kind of like the third phase of just trying to start to filter stuff out but then eventually you know they had to increase it eventually and so then with the Logan Paul thing that really wasn't a monetization thing like this is this is what kills me and I don't know I don't have the exact facts but most people have said that his original inappropriate video wasn't even monetized in the first place so to make monetization changes doesn't make sense to be a reaction to Logan Paul in the first place what really from what I can tell with again all of this context of experience they've been making changes for a couple years now to address this specific issue that the new change directly addresses and I'll call this phase four and they were already going to roll it out but since everyone's so mad and up in arms about Logan Paul and yada yada they added a little note at like the end of the blog post to be like oh yeah by the way for those in our preferred partner program we're gonna be increasing the number of people to hand review videos because of this situation that was merely like an afterthought to just kind of appease those people this the the main core the problem doesn't remotely affect Logan Paul it doesn't even apply to his situation so people thinking that this is a bad way to address that situation or just totally off-base cuz it doesn't even remotely apply to that situation yeah so yeah there are there are channels who get screwed over by this who or who feels screwed over by this I will say who feels screwed over by this who may have been making like up to 50 bucks a month or so from their channel and that's fine like that sucks and I feel bad for you but you'll get there soon like unless your channel is somehow staying specifically stagnant for some reason it's fine I just wanted to edit and throw this little bit in here as well a lot of people who complain about these changes are also the people who complain about see PM's being low that your earnings per views are low I had a couple people who said that it's like oh well it doesn't matter anyway I stopped uploading when my 1 million views didn't make me money in here didn't make as much money anymore and it's just like holy crap the contradiction because CPMs tanked the moment they opened the doors for anyone to profit for anyone to monetize their videos because you have a limited ad budget of how many ere how much money advertisers are investing in advertising on the platform and then you have asset inventory of videos to sell ads on you exponentially buy like 90 percent increase that inventory of videos that need ads sold on them and of course the rate at which you know the money for each ad slot is going to decrease by a lot that's directly the reason CPM have tanked so by cutting out all of those channels CPMs are gonna go back up and bring stability to the platform and same thing with keeping advertisers happy like monetization has started sucking ever since advertisers pulled out so keeping them happy in a way that truly does not directly hurt very many people is good for the platform in the long run and before people while this video is already long so people have already commented before people comment saying oh you're just a big youtuber you don't understand I'm not really that big of a youtuber YouTube doesn't make me that much money directly never has won't for a while if at all and again with the context of when I was a new channel trying to grow into the partner program it wasn't really accessible to anyone it's a goal and people keep saying oh this removes all incentive from small channels again if your incentive is to just be able to do whatever you want it's not an incentive a goal that you have to reach in order to be deemed a partner should be incentive and yes it sucks for those who are right caught in the middle who you know we're just reaching this go post and it moved here that sucks I understand that but it's just driving me not seeing how bad things are respond to you're not losing any cards you're not losing features you're not losing custom thumbnails verify your channel with a phone number and don't get any strikes and you have 99% of the features available on YouTube all of those we're partner exclusive back in my day like you're not losing anything and I mean I have a few side channels that I've worked on off and on that are now getting removed from the partner program they never really made me much money and I don't have the time to invest in maintaining them but I'm it once I get back to them I'm going to continue to do so regardless of monetization if my current main channel right now if a post box got removed from the partner program and as long as it wasn't for like strike related reasons that would cause it to actually suffer I would still be doing it like okay where I really get mad about this isn't directly about the direct reaction to the change because I can concede to some arguments that this isn't the most effective way to address the problem that they're trying to fix now granted there is no most effective way no one has a proper solution just fix your algorithm isn't a thing it doesn't work that easily they're clearly working on it it's getting better over time they still need to make drastic changes in the meantime the problem is that this is continuing to climb to a peak of what started what has been anti YouTube sentiment for hashtag small youtubers for a couple years now and I mean people have been saying YouTube is over party and you know YouTube sucks because this or that or whatever since I've been around most of those people historically fade into the distance I think now that it's more accessible there's a lot more people who feel like they're given a voice and who can build up and now there has been a community built up a community built up of youtubers who refused to leave YouTube or change what the hell they're doing on YouTube but yet still complain about YouTube and identify a small youtubers identifying as a small youtuber and tying your personal identity to that just makes no sense either you're doing this just for fun and because you love it and you'll keep doing it regardless of growth or regardless of monetization changes and you're fine or you're doing this as a business as a profit Center as a growth thing in which case identifying as an unsuccessful business makes no sense there's no specific features or hardships that face hashtag small youtubers there's no specific features or benefits that face what most people consider big youtubers the top maybe 3% maybe 5% that are in the preferred partner program those people get direct interaction with YouTube they get direct help they get direct questions they get directly hand viewed apparently to get things sorted but hundred K subs 500k subs maybe even a million subs now that that's more common those people don't get anything extra they get more success due to the nature of successful content is more successful and therefore they're gonna be more successful and you can't expect to just keep uploading things that aren't successful into YouTube to just be like you get the success button today it's not how it works and so I've just never understood and I've been there so I guess I do slightly understand it but I don't understand how people get stuck in that position I was there if you at all knew who I was before 2014 all the way back to like 2007 2006 that was uploading crappy Conan I thought it was good I was making basic gameplay videos minecraft and Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 and Marano modern warfare 2 and I refused to change what I was doing I was just like I just want to be me and post whatever I want and I posted pretty crappy cringy if I look back on them gaming videos and that was fine like if that's all I wanted from it that's fine like that was cool I had fun I met some friends and I really didn't care that I wasn't successful I had a big break that got me my first thousand subscribers and that changed my world that was like the coolest thing in the world but I didn't like care like I didn't like keep trying to get more cuz I would have been way more successful cuz that all of those people came from a Call of Duty channel and I basically stopped posting Call of Duty right after that and I kept posting I love duty I would have been way more successful but most of them left I didn't cater what I did at the time based on views or monetization because that wasn't what was important sorry congested eventually I did reach a point where I was like okay if I want to do this as a job as a career whatever I have to do what was successful and there was a couple years there where I went through existential crises because I needed to figure out and this was regular like I know it the crap out of my fiance we were just boyfriend and girlfriend at the time I annoyed the crap out of her for a while with this because I went through existential crises one after another and over this because I needed to figure out do I keep doing these fun actually I I feel pressured to keep doing what I was doing that's what everyone else was doing that's what I thought I wanted to do and I was stuck in this small youtuber mentality that I just got to keep posting and keep posting them one day magically I'll be successful this is what I thought this is what most people think like I just have to keep at it keep doing the exact same thing over and over and over and I'll be successful because that's what the vague messaging says don't give up don't stop keep doing what you're doing and you'll get there the point in it but the point of that is that you do have to adapt to changes you don't have to change what you're doing and seek out more potentially successful opportunities not literally keep doing the same thing over and over and it wasn't working but at the same time I had kind of just half-assed started doing some OBS tutorials and some tech videos cuz that's what I had an interest in that's what I found fun that's not what I felt an obligation for that's just what I was having fun with and eventually reached a point where Christmas 2014 literally on Christmas Day I had looked at the analytics I saw what was successful what wasn't successful what I was doing differently from other youtubers and I said I'm gonna be a tech channel I'm gonna give this a go for a year or so if it's successful great if not then I'll just stop considering YouTube to be like a job potential thing like that will just be a hobby from now on but I will go really hard on this one idea to see if I can make it successful I didn't say you know I stopped saying Oh YouTube won't give me all the views YouTube it's not giving me all the monies YouTube won't help me grow YouTube's been as cold distant and crappy at communication as they are now since 2006 they've never fostered an idea of community they've never catered to small youtubers they've never felt and felt you make you feel like you're more special than anyone else they never have that that sense of community is purely between people and the people who have set their and do nothing but complain about YouTube and talk about how it sucks and how it's ruining a community those are the people who have ruined the community for themselves those of us who have made friends and keep talking to each other and build up a community that's the YouTube community it's a lot of fun we still feel that there's a YouTube community because we have one we foster one we build one we don't stay negative nancies all the time even those of us who aren't huge like I have plenty of small youtuber friends who aren't like this it's the same thing like if you're in a livestream if there's like two people who are asking why chat is dead the whole time chats gonna stay dead because the only people talking are talking about the chat being dead that's a huge turnoff no one wants the chat in a dead chat but if those two people just talk and have a good time more people will talk and the chat will build I am extremely frustrated with what has built up in terms of anti YouTube garbage and I really wish people would just get their heads out of their asses and either you know change what they're doing to be more successful realize that YouTube doesn't cater to them or realize that there's a million other platforms out there that you could probably build an audience on and make money a lot quicker especially if you're making crappy Let's Plays livestream it but I am sensitive to the idea that if you were just about to reach that goal it was gonna feel good and now they moved it and that sucks but if you were just worried about making the 5 dollars from it that's not the point and I don't I'm not as sensitive to that but there there's a certain group who is fine to be bothered but there's so many who are just so off-base I don't know I'm struggling to talk now I'm very congested I probably stay on way worse than when I started I would go ahead and hop off here just wanted to rant this went a little longer than expected and apologies if I made you mad by it but I wanted to share and I mainly just what I've basically been trying to distract myself all day to keep myself from making a video because I knew it was gonna make people mad but I'd rather address the misinformation than just stay quiet I guess I don't know thanks for watching see you next timealright I'm adding this clip to the beginning of the video so that I have some nice things to say at the start because I think people need to hear this and then we'll touch on the misinformation and the ranty side of this video just want to come back in here and say I've added a couple different edits to this recording so far now I just want to come back in here and say if you're feeling discouraged by this if you feel like you you're not sure how you can reach these goals I will say it takes an incredibly long time to really figure out what you're doing and really do a good job with videos to the point that you should be in the partner program that you should be making money from it that you should consider it a like long-term viable business opportunity very few people make it to that point in a short amount of time it takes a long time many channels like me took like five six years before you found the right path to reach that point and that's okay it takes time it'll take hundreds of videos to really figure out what you're doing in terms of presentation in terms of editing in terms of content in terms of figuring out what content you want to cover because so many youtubers jump in and they're just like I want to make the videos that guy's making and they do nothing different they think they're doing it different cuz they are the ones doing it but they offer nothing to the table and it takes a long time to get there and I promise you that by time you truly get there you will meet the requirements for the partner program you will like period like once you reach the point where you're really on a successful path with your channel you'll you'll meet the requirements you'll by far meet the requirements and you'll be doing really well it takes time it's not easy this isn't something that's supposed to be easy like either either you're just having fun and don't care about how you're doing like I said earlier or it's something that you want to do for the long term and again it's not supposed to be easy there's no way for it to be easy unless you just get really lucky or do something really creative and if you're looking at your stuff and every time you you time you think about like what your content strategy is what your channel is what the point is ask why viewers should watch your videos and if you don't have an answer to the question of what do you do differently and it's not something significant you probably need to rethink things a bit like oh I make gaming videos please watch my college duties Let's Plays or whatever like what makes you different from all the other people doing it if you don't have an answer you're not there yet if you don't have an answer for any kind of content as to what makes you different what your specific thing that you do great or do differently or offer to the table that makes you stand out you're not there yet but by time you get there you will meet the requirements for the partner program just one and dad does at the start so that III said these things and that people would actually hear them but there is some ranting to be had coming soon well right right right now YouTube has made some changes to the YouTube Partner Program and the requirements to be able to monetize your video and I have some things to say about it that's gonna make a lot of people mad but there is also a lot of misinformation going on around about it that I want to try to clear up to make sure that people are really getting on the right foot about it and just overall sharing my thoughts but it will most likely not make people who are mad about this happy with me now there's a lot to unpack here so first and foremost if you haven't been aware YouTube has made a change to the YouTube Partner Program to that so that there are actual requirements again huh it is now required that you have 4,000 hours watch the watch hour so about 240,000 watch minutes within the past twelve months as well as one thousand subscribers in order to be in the partner program to apply for the partner program and to make money now this is unfortunately a retroactive change which means all current partners will be removed from the program which is part of what's making a lot of people mad and I can concede that point a little bit and I will address it I don't think that's fully fair to be mad about but I do get and I will address at some point the problem is a lot of people don't seem to understand what the heck the partner program is so no you do not lose custom thumbnails no you don't lose in cards no you don't lose cards and as far as we really know know your videos won't get promoted and less as a result of being removed from the program hmm all right so there has been some misinformation going around just because people can't be bothered to read the support articles or things that they're referencing in cards are available for all YouTube users period the only end cards that aren't available and normal cards that aren't available to it non sorry my phone's going off that aren't available to non partners are ones that link externally to other websites because those can be abused for spam and in a policy trying to limit spam you want to get rid of that so you can still link to your other videos and things like that with your end cards you also don't lose custom thumbnails by being removed from the partner program that has not been a partner exclusive feature for a few years everyone can upload custom thumbnails you're not losing that and there has been no data to actually suggest that not being a monetized channel or not monetizing your videos or not being in the partner program hurts your performance there's been no I mean there's no real way to measure that but there's been plenty of examples contradictory to that idea and there's been no direct data to support it though as far as I can tell the only way people get the only place that people get this idea from is back when the original start of the ad pocalypse happened as far as public was concerned with people getting their videos d monetized following the original thing some people would show their views kind of tanked after they got demonetised the thing is here that D monetization especially by manual review is literally someone at YouTube saying hey that video is inappropriate that video is not advertiser friendly which means it contains things that advertisers don't want to display their ads on and YouTube probably doesn't want to show to where Everage viewers buy a promotion like while it's still theoretically not cool especially for the Floss pulse flags that are happening and they really need to work on the D monetization algorithm although it's been it still hits my channel but it's way better than when it started like it's been it's improved a lot as far as I can tell on my channel but if YouTube determines that a video is inappropriate why would they promote it that doesn't make sense like why would you expect them to promote it so people are mad people are really really mad people are cussing out YouTube saying this takes away any incentive for small channels and blah blah blah I'm sorry if you if having a goal that you actually have to work towards is a lack of incentive for you you're doing something wrong and I understand those who have been grinding their way to the 10,000 viewmarq or whatever trying to get monetization and now the goalpost is moved I understand why you would be frustrated but also understand that you're still not making a significant amount of money and well yes I accept I accept that that would still be in in the moment like frustration you'll still get there like if you're making real content if you're actually strategizing if you're not just uploading the same crap over and over and expecting a handout you will eventually reach that milestone and you'll have a really solid foundation and you'll be good to go so I want to rewind before I fully address the actual changes that were made and why I feel they are a good thing and very important I want to provide a little context of my time here on YouTube I keep making cuts this video will have very minimal editing because I just want to rant about it I'm still very sick I really didn't want to come on video but I keep seeing so much misinformation I wanted to address that and I did want to rant a little bit and I know it will make some people mad but for a little context I've been on a round on YouTube basically since it's been a thing and the original YouTube Partner Program that most people probably didn't know existed it by that name until like a couple years ago other than those who have been around for a long time the original YouTube Partner Program was invite only you had to have very successful content in a specific format in order for them to say hey let's partner together and make some money otherwise you couldn't get in and then they opened it up a little bit where people could apply but even people with like 15,000 subscribers and two million views could not get in gameplay content could not be partnered at all there were huge copyright concerns that despite all the complaints about YouTube's copyright program it's way better than when they were actually trying to be legally conscious about it and then YouTube opened the floodgates that eventually you no longer just had to know a guy at machinima you could agree you could apply to a network then sub networks popped up and then literally anyone could upload content and monetize it and this led to an influx of hundreds of thousands of channels and videos millions of videos of just spam hi there just nothing like I get notifications every week of someone who has copy pasted my video title and my user name into a title of a video that is just a still image linking to some spam website or reuploads of still and content trying to get some views and some quick money a view botting for money trying to fake Adsense revenue and steal money from Google basically malicious content millions of channels that re-upload soccer games and sports events trying to make money from it things like that it's been a nightmare additional content I have worked for a while I worked for an MCN for about almost four years and towards the end and part of what led me to quit my job there was I got involved with filtering and reporting and trying to clear out all of the crap all of those kinds of channels that have gotten into networks because anyone can join and no longer can anyone logistically keep up because of the floodgates being opened so many channels of this just pure garbage or just truly inappropriate not okay stuff in there and I had to filter I had to help filter it out I had to try to report things I had to train people to do this and it was a nightmare all because YouTube just decided they wanted to take a hands-off approach and that is precisely what this new change is trying to address is they are they have been working towards this for a couple years now two before the original ad pocalypse which no one seems to fathom here because short attention spans I guess headline scandals are what matters and whatever but YouTube's been working to try to filter out these channels and try to address it in a way that is fair to those who are actually doing what they're supposed to on the platform but still filter out all the bad channels they've been working at this for a while the reason that that was so stressful was because YouTube was cracking down hard on networks to get rid of these channels and because YouTube itself wasn't going to bothered to do it they left it up to the networks and they cracked down hard like networks were getting shut down left and right because of this and it was super stressful and they were super nasty about it and this was before PewDiePie's not see whatever ad pocalypse stuff this was back in early 2016 when they started maybe late 2015 like this has been going on for a couple years they've been cracking down finally in 2016 they said they had enough and shut down sub networks entirely which was kinda and in my regard phase one of trying to tackle this problem phase one was getting rid of sub networks where anyone pretty much literally anyone could start a network partner channels and then anyone could make money so there were so many layers of spam and abuse going on that YouTube needed to address so the so despite you know what public perception may be because they think that YouTube only reacts to news and things like that the the whole PewDiePie thing back in March 2017 that was kind of the final straw on the advertiser back in terms of what actually led to change on YouTube that was when they were like okay this is enough you've got to fix this even your bet even your big youtubers can cause problems now so then they started making big changes to try to fix this which meant flagging everything so yes from a perspective the actions of one big guy can hurt all the little guys but not really like it's the action of all these robots taking over the site with spam and one big guy showing that the rules are laissez-faire enough that they can that's not how you say that but laid-back enough that they can get away with anything to to say okay we really need to make a drastic shift then they introduced the D monetization bot that was kind of phase 2 then phase 3 was introducing a requirement to partner a very minimal requirement 10,000 lifetime views on your channel which meant that initially they were able to filter out like the tiny small percent I'm gonna sneeze oh isn't that coming oh that feels really bad oh that sucks I hate being sick so much I've gotten nothing done the past week or so god okay that was the try to filter out but it wasn't a strong enough filter like 10,000 views is easy to get and since it was based on views and that watch time which YouTube always deems as their ultimate metric to prevent or to like see whether someone's view botting it was it's easy enough to fake even with YouTube's tools and they're always increasing their fake view detection tools which will coincide with this but that wasn't strict enough so that was kind of like the third phase of just trying to start to filter stuff out but then eventually you know they had to increase it eventually and so then with the Logan Paul thing that really wasn't a monetization thing like this is this is what kills me and I don't know I don't have the exact facts but most people have said that his original inappropriate video wasn't even monetized in the first place so to make monetization changes doesn't make sense to be a reaction to Logan Paul in the first place what really from what I can tell with again all of this context of experience they've been making changes for a couple years now to address this specific issue that the new change directly addresses and I'll call this phase four and they were already going to roll it out but since everyone's so mad and up in arms about Logan Paul and yada yada they added a little note at like the end of the blog post to be like oh yeah by the way for those in our preferred partner program we're gonna be increasing the number of people to hand review videos because of this situation that was merely like an afterthought to just kind of appease those people this the the main core the problem doesn't remotely affect Logan Paul it doesn't even apply to his situation so people thinking that this is a bad way to address that situation or just totally off-base cuz it doesn't even remotely apply to that situation yeah so yeah there are there are channels who get screwed over by this who or who feels screwed over by this I will say who feels screwed over by this who may have been making like up to 50 bucks a month or so from their channel and that's fine like that sucks and I feel bad for you but you'll get there soon like unless your channel is somehow staying specifically stagnant for some reason it's fine I just wanted to edit and throw this little bit in here as well a lot of people who complain about these changes are also the people who complain about see PM's being low that your earnings per views are low I had a couple people who said that it's like oh well it doesn't matter anyway I stopped uploading when my 1 million views didn't make me money in here didn't make as much money anymore and it's just like holy crap the contradiction because CPMs tanked the moment they opened the doors for anyone to profit for anyone to monetize their videos because you have a limited ad budget of how many ere how much money advertisers are investing in advertising on the platform and then you have asset inventory of videos to sell ads on you exponentially buy like 90 percent increase that inventory of videos that need ads sold on them and of course the rate at which you know the money for each ad slot is going to decrease by a lot that's directly the reason CPM have tanked so by cutting out all of those channels CPMs are gonna go back up and bring stability to the platform and same thing with keeping advertisers happy like monetization has started sucking ever since advertisers pulled out so keeping them happy in a way that truly does not directly hurt very many people is good for the platform in the long run and before people while this video is already long so people have already commented before people comment saying oh you're just a big youtuber you don't understand I'm not really that big of a youtuber YouTube doesn't make me that much money directly never has won't for a while if at all and again with the context of when I was a new channel trying to grow into the partner program it wasn't really accessible to anyone it's a goal and people keep saying oh this removes all incentive from small channels again if your incentive is to just be able to do whatever you want it's not an incentive a goal that you have to reach in order to be deemed a partner should be incentive and yes it sucks for those who are right caught in the middle who you know we're just reaching this go post and it moved here that sucks I understand that but it's just driving me not seeing how bad things are respond to you're not losing any cards you're not losing features you're not losing custom thumbnails verify your channel with a phone number and don't get any strikes and you have 99% of the features available on YouTube all of those we're partner exclusive back in my day like you're not losing anything and I mean I have a few side channels that I've worked on off and on that are now getting removed from the partner program they never really made me much money and I don't have the time to invest in maintaining them but I'm it once I get back to them I'm going to continue to do so regardless of monetization if my current main channel right now if a post box got removed from the partner program and as long as it wasn't for like strike related reasons that would cause it to actually suffer I would still be doing it like okay where I really get mad about this isn't directly about the direct reaction to the change because I can concede to some arguments that this isn't the most effective way to address the problem that they're trying to fix now granted there is no most effective way no one has a proper solution just fix your algorithm isn't a thing it doesn't work that easily they're clearly working on it it's getting better over time they still need to make drastic changes in the meantime the problem is that this is continuing to climb to a peak of what started what has been anti YouTube sentiment for hashtag small youtubers for a couple years now and I mean people have been saying YouTube is over party and you know YouTube sucks because this or that or whatever since I've been around most of those people historically fade into the distance I think now that it's more accessible there's a lot more people who feel like they're given a voice and who can build up and now there has been a community built up a community built up of youtubers who refused to leave YouTube or change what the hell they're doing on YouTube but yet still complain about YouTube and identify a small youtubers identifying as a small youtuber and tying your personal identity to that just makes no sense either you're doing this just for fun and because you love it and you'll keep doing it regardless of growth or regardless of monetization changes and you're fine or you're doing this as a business as a profit Center as a growth thing in which case identifying as an unsuccessful business makes no sense there's no specific features or hardships that face hashtag small youtubers there's no specific features or benefits that face what most people consider big youtubers the top maybe 3% maybe 5% that are in the preferred partner program those people get direct interaction with YouTube they get direct help they get direct questions they get directly hand viewed apparently to get things sorted but hundred K subs 500k subs maybe even a million subs now that that's more common those people don't get anything extra they get more success due to the nature of successful content is more successful and therefore they're gonna be more successful and you can't expect to just keep uploading things that aren't successful into YouTube to just be like you get the success button today it's not how it works and so I've just never understood and I've been there so I guess I do slightly understand it but I don't understand how people get stuck in that position I was there if you at all knew who I was before 2014 all the way back to like 2007 2006 that was uploading crappy Conan I thought it was good I was making basic gameplay videos minecraft and Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 and Marano modern warfare 2 and I refused to change what I was doing I was just like I just want to be me and post whatever I want and I posted pretty crappy cringy if I look back on them gaming videos and that was fine like if that's all I wanted from it that's fine like that was cool I had fun I met some friends and I really didn't care that I wasn't successful I had a big break that got me my first thousand subscribers and that changed my world that was like the coolest thing in the world but I didn't like care like I didn't like keep trying to get more cuz I would have been way more successful cuz that all of those people came from a Call of Duty channel and I basically stopped posting Call of Duty right after that and I kept posting I love duty I would have been way more successful but most of them left I didn't cater what I did at the time based on views or monetization because that wasn't what was important sorry congested eventually I did reach a point where I was like okay if I want to do this as a job as a career whatever I have to do what was successful and there was a couple years there where I went through existential crises because I needed to figure out and this was regular like I know it the crap out of my fiance we were just boyfriend and girlfriend at the time I annoyed the crap out of her for a while with this because I went through existential crises one after another and over this because I needed to figure out do I keep doing these fun actually I I feel pressured to keep doing what I was doing that's what everyone else was doing that's what I thought I wanted to do and I was stuck in this small youtuber mentality that I just got to keep posting and keep posting them one day magically I'll be successful this is what I thought this is what most people think like I just have to keep at it keep doing the exact same thing over and over and over and I'll be successful because that's what the vague messaging says don't give up don't stop keep doing what you're doing and you'll get there the point in it but the point of that is that you do have to adapt to changes you don't have to change what you're doing and seek out more potentially successful opportunities not literally keep doing the same thing over and over and it wasn't working but at the same time I had kind of just half-assed started doing some OBS tutorials and some tech videos cuz that's what I had an interest in that's what I found fun that's not what I felt an obligation for that's just what I was having fun with and eventually reached a point where Christmas 2014 literally on Christmas Day I had looked at the analytics I saw what was successful what wasn't successful what I was doing differently from other youtubers and I said I'm gonna be a tech channel I'm gonna give this a go for a year or so if it's successful great if not then I'll just stop considering YouTube to be like a job potential thing like that will just be a hobby from now on but I will go really hard on this one idea to see if I can make it successful I didn't say you know I stopped saying Oh YouTube won't give me all the views YouTube it's not giving me all the monies YouTube won't help me grow YouTube's been as cold distant and crappy at communication as they are now since 2006 they've never fostered an idea of community they've never catered to small youtubers they've never felt and felt you make you feel like you're more special than anyone else they never have that that sense of community is purely between people and the people who have set their and do nothing but complain about YouTube and talk about how it sucks and how it's ruining a community those are the people who have ruined the community for themselves those of us who have made friends and keep talking to each other and build up a community that's the YouTube community it's a lot of fun we still feel that there's a YouTube community because we have one we foster one we build one we don't stay negative nancies all the time even those of us who aren't huge like I have plenty of small youtuber friends who aren't like this it's the same thing like if you're in a livestream if there's like two people who are asking why chat is dead the whole time chats gonna stay dead because the only people talking are talking about the chat being dead that's a huge turnoff no one wants the chat in a dead chat but if those two people just talk and have a good time more people will talk and the chat will build I am extremely frustrated with what has built up in terms of anti YouTube garbage and I really wish people would just get their heads out of their asses and either you know change what they're doing to be more successful realize that YouTube doesn't cater to them or realize that there's a million other platforms out there that you could probably build an audience on and make money a lot quicker especially if you're making crappy Let's Plays livestream it but I am sensitive to the idea that if you were just about to reach that goal it was gonna feel good and now they moved it and that sucks but if you were just worried about making the 5 dollars from it that's not the point and I don't I'm not as sensitive to that but there there's a certain group who is fine to be bothered but there's so many who are just so off-base I don't know I'm struggling to talk now I'm very congested I probably stay on way worse than when I started I would go ahead and hop off here just wanted to rant this went a little longer than expected and apologies if I made you mad by it but I wanted to share and I mainly just what I've basically been trying to distract myself all day to keep myself from making a video because I knew it was gonna make people mad but I'd rather address the misinformation than just stay quiet I guess I don't know thanks for watching see you next time\n"