On January 16th, YouTube made changes to its Partner Program. These changes pertain to the threshold for monetization. Originally, content creators were eligible for monetization if they had 10,000 or more lifetime views, that is, 10,000 public views.
Now, creators will be required to have 4,000 hours of watch time from the past twelve months, as well as at least 1,000 subscribers. If a content creator does not meet these criteria, they will be unable to monetize their videos.
In a blog post, YouTube announced that this change in monetization regulations is being put in place in order to "prevent bad actors from harming the inspiring and original creators around the world who make their living on YouTube". YouTube also claims that they have arrived at the decision to create these new regulations after "conversations with creators". However, the online response by creators towards YouTube's new policies have been almost entirely negative, with many people saying that it would be better to simply punish the channels that are misusing the platform instead of punishing the platform as a whole.
YouTube themselves have stated in the previously mentioned blog post that these changes will effect a significant number of platform users, but have tried to write this off by explaining that 99% of the effected users are making less than $100 a year on YouTube. However, this really isn't a fair excuse.
Yes, $100 is not a lot of money, but think about it this way. This is money that these creators could be using to improve their videos and grow their channels. Now, however, they no longer will be earning the money to do so.
If YouTube wanted to gain more users and dedicated viewers, it is more likely that they would of implemented a different policy, perhaps one that makes stricter guidelines for content. By making it harder for small channels to monetize their views, YouTube appears to only care about their larger channels, often run by internet celebrities who partner with YouTube's streaming service, YouTube Red, to create or star in feature length films or television shows.
It is worth noting that the majority of the top comments on the YouTube blog post are "sub for sub", that is "subscription for subscription". Most of the people commenting this have also included additions such as "if everyone reading this did a sub for sub we could all get at least 1,000 subscribers".
It's clear that while the new guidelines are definitely a blow to smaller channels, many smaller creators are banding together and supporting each other. Many larger creators have spoke up online, offering smaller creators ways to make money while they build up their subscriber base, such as starting up a Patreon (a membership platform where people can give money to creators and receive small gifts or prizes in return).
If YouTube wants to continue to gain users, they shouldn't make changes to the platform that penalize smaller users. Yes, the bigger users bring in the money for YouTube, but in order to continue to grow as a platform, they need to appeal to new users, and encourage smaller channels to keep creating.
