- YouTube recently made a significant change
to their terms of service and the right to monetize.
And if you're watching this video,
there's a good chance you got an email about this
and are currently having a panic attack.
Believe it or not, I've covered this issue as early
as last year when this started to roll out as an experiment,
but now we have new information
and I wanna update you on this
because a lot of creators have anxiety
about the YouTube Ad Monetization Policy,
the right to monetize and whether or not
YouTube is going to be running ads on its videos
without paying them.
This is going to be a long, detailed video
and a deep dive into this issue
because it affects a lot of different things
that you may not be aware of.
I'm gonna try and break it down and cover it.
I am also going to help you
if you are a new content creator
understand what is happening and how this affects you.
And if you are a Partner of the YouTube channel,
you still need to watch the end of this video
on why and how this also could affect you in the future.
Especially, if you ever make edgy or controversial content.
Or if you have concerns about demonetization,
what I'm going to say to you is going to make more sense.
Now, because the internet is gonna internet,
I need to make my position clear here, crystal clear.
I am not in favor of this new update to the YouTube policies
and to the Partner Program.
I don't think it benefits viewers in any significant way
because they want to support creators.
And when they watch ads, when you guys watch the ads,
we thank you because we know you're only putting up with it
mostly because you feel that it's a way of benefiting us
because you're getting free content.
So this doesn't help the viewer.
This absolutely doesn't help the creator at all.
And unfortunately,
some of you will get motivated by this.
And speaking as somebody who runs ads
for their other online business centers,
this doesn't actually even help advertisers.
It doesn't help me as an advertiser,
it doesn't help me as a viewer,
it doesn't help me as a creator.
So no, I'm not really cheerleading this policy
in any meaningful way, but I also respect YouTube's right
to run their business the way that they want to run it,
and don't want anybody to feel like this is an excuse
to go be toxic to people that work at YouTube.
I think that it's our responsibility as creators
to make the most of whatever situation we find ourselves in.
And I want to encourage you,
especially those of you who are small YouTubers,
if you're new content creators, if you're rookies,
don't let this be the reason that you stop making content.
There are a lot more details here.
But something that has to be said
is that people are bringing up the idea
that this exploits creators,
that their work is gonna be taken advantage of
and monetize by YouTube.
There is a concern about that,
but I want to run some numbers by you
before we talk about exploitation here,
because I want you to understand
the issue that has happened.
The average YouTube content creator,
who is not a mega channel, that's not a big channel
or is not covering certain topic and issues,
makes $1 for every 1000 views
they get on their YouTube videos.
And if you are a smaller channel, a smaller content creator,
it's very difficult for you to get a thousand views
on any of your content,
and to meet the monetization requirements is very difficult
for most of you anyway.
But even if you were able to get those views
and you were able to qualify,
getting to like about a hundred thousand views
is what it would take
for you to meet the $100 payout threshold
for you to get any money from YouTube at all.
And that's assuming that you could be qualified
for the YouTube Partner Program to begin with.
We're not talking about the olden days
when everybody could be monetized.
Even if you were monetized, it doesn't mean you would get
to the $100 threshold to even get paid.
If you really want me to break this down for you,
I have another video that I'm gonna be doing,
talking about modernization and everything you need to know,
but here's a little teaser.
Since the average content creator makes $1
for every thousand views on their YouTube videos,
assuming they're not demonetized,
assuming they're in the Partner Program,
it means the average content creator
makes one 10th of a penny
for every view, they get on YouTube.
No, you didn't hear me wrong.
You didn't hear me wrong.
A 10th of a penny for every view that you get on YouTube,
assuming you're not demonetized
and you're even in the Partner Program.
Since I talked to literally hundreds of you on Twitter,
and comments and DMs constantly
throughout the week,
I know for a fact that many of you are putting hours
upon hours upon hours into every single video that you make.
And so from the exploitation of your labor standpoint,
even if they were paying you
and you were in the Partner Program from zero subscribers,
it would not actually be enough to truly compensate you.
And you'd be operating at a loss the first few years
that you're doing a YouTube channel even if you had AdSense.
That's why it's important to diversify your revenue streams
in YouTube, and to expand your horizons
as a content creator, if you want to be full-time
because most YouTubers cannot sustain a full-time income
and a healthy lifestyle
off of what they earn from YouTube AdSense
especially if they never go viral.
And so if you're not here
thinking you're gonna win the lottery
and you're taking a common-sense approach,
then you know that as much as this could be discouraging
it's not a reason for you to stop uploading content
and building a community and building an audience.
So I just felt I needed to say that upfront to you
because I know it might feel like either something
is being taken away from you as an opportunity to profit
and that YouTube is getting over on you,
but there's just not enough money in it for them
as far as I'm concerned.
And what the math dictates says that 90% of traffic
goes to the top 3% of channels on YouTube.
This means everyone, not in that top 3% of the leads
is fighting for the remaining 10% of traffic
and therefore the smallest remaining portion of ad revenue.
So I don't feel that this is genuinely exploitive
because I don't feel that AdSense
would be significant enough for the majority of creators
to begin to compensate them for their effort.
I'm gonna try not to depress you in this video, I swear,
but let's move on to the next part of this.
I'm gonna link to the full policy for you to read on this
and the update to the terms of service,
but the shorthand version is that,
YouTube is reserving the right to monetize
any and all content on their platform.
And that monetizing that content
doesn't directly entitle a creator to compensation.
And this is part of what they're calling
YouTube right to monetize.
What this means is that
if you're in the YouTube Partner Program
and you're suspended from the Partner Program,
whether permanently or temporarily
or taken out of the YouTube Partner Program,
YouTube can still run ads on your videos
and they don't have to pay you for it.
If you're not in the YouTube Partner Program,
YouTube can still run ads on your videos
and not have to pay you for it.
And they have the right to do this
within their own platform.
And that's what they're communicating
in this terms of service and policy update.
At least that's the best way that we can interpret it
as a community unless they're saying otherwise
to contradict this,
this is the general understanding of what they've put out.
And I don't think we have any evidence
that it works differently.
So what that means is that
it's not about small YouTube channels
and small creators exclusively.
Even if you are a monetized content creator,
if for some reason you are not allowed to participate
in the YouTube Partner Program, for any reason,
YouTube will not be losing revenue
because they will continue to have the right
to run ads on that channel if they want to.
This also means that it doesn't have to be
that the creator did something wrong.
This means that ads can run on channels
that have a significant audience,
that was just rejected from the YouTube Partner Program,
meaning you didn't even get approved
because we need to talk about what it takes
to be a YouTube Partner
'cause some of you might be confused here.
To qualify for the YouTube Partner Program,
you have to have 1000 subscribers on YouTube.
Your channel must be more than 30 days old.
Your YouTube channel also needs to qualify
with 4,000 hours of watch time on your content.
And it needs to not fall below that threshold
in a 12-month period.
You also then have to submit to be a YouTube Partner
and approved by YouTube
to be brought into the AdSense monetization
for the YouTube Partner Program.
And you also, of course, will need a Google AdSense account
tied to your YouTube channel.
So that's the basic outline of the requirements
to be in the YouTube Partner Program
and be paid for ads that display on your videos.
On top of that, your content has to stay in good standing
without you getting copyright strikes
and community guidelines strikes, you know, going forward
'cause there are other consequences with that specifically.
You also need to be aware that if your content
is copyright claimed by another third party copyright holder
that they reserve the right to control
the advertising on your videos.
Meaning that they can choose to run ads,
choose not to run ads,
they can choose how many ads are placed.
So they would have control over the viewing experience
concerning where ads show up in a video,
how many and how often.
You need to be aware of that.
This will become important later.
This is something thing that we need to think about
for several reasons.
If you are a YouTuber,
who's not in the YouTube Partner Program,
not even just because you maybe didn't
meet the requirements,
but even if you have like 40, 50,000 subscribers
and you just weren't approved for the Partner Program,
you were rejected
because of either the nature of your content
or something to do with copyright,
any number of reasons that you may not have been approved,
well, the thing is you won't have control over ad placement.
It won't just be that ads can appear on your videos,
it's that you won't be in control of ads being placed
or what types of ads are placed.
Now with me, for example, for years and years now,
I've actually not allowed political ads
to run on the channel.
You may have noticed that during the election cycle,
that you weren't getting political ads on my channel
because I'm thinking and I don't want you guys
to have to deal with politics here.
You'll only on occasion deal with politics
when I decide to rant about
how people who can't use email properly
wanna regulate your social media platforms
and your social media activity and why that's a bad idea,
reference the livelihoods of content creators
that was destroyed by CAPA when the government decided
they wanted to regulate social media, but I digress.
You at least, only have to put up with that once in a while
and not political ads, because I have control
of the ads that show up on my platform.
Now on occasion with the auto-suggested ads from YouTube,
if you don't go in and manually adjust that
as a content creator or decide to disable mid-roll ads
or anything like that, then an excessive amount of ads
can show up interrupting a video
at inappropriate points in the video.
I try my best to avoid this as best as I can
or when I remember, but a lot of content creators don't.
The problem is that the auto-placement ad situation
has not been great so far.
This means that if a creator
has no way of controlling that
by not being in the partner program,
then our viewing experience as people who consume content
is not gonna be that great
because at least when it was content from smaller channels
that was on the come up, we at least knew that,
okay, we're not seeing ads here and we also knew that
any other way that we support our creator
was gonna be really important to them
'cause they wouldn't have the benefit of those ads.
And now when you watch ads, you won't have a no for sure,
100% whether or not it's benefiting a content creator.
And that's one of the biggest issues
I think with this policy, from a viewer's perspective.
From a creator's perspective, we need to be
able to control how our content is consumed.If you're making SMR videos,
you may not want mid-roll ads in there.
And as a small creator,
you won't be able to control that and guarantee that
the viewing experience is the best for your audience.
That's actually really bad.
I'm not a fan of that.
I also think that it's a shame that
even if you're not in the Partner Program,
that as a publisher, you can't at least say what ads
are insensitive toward your audience.
There's a lot of problems with that.
Most content creators who are monetized
don't even know that they can adjust the ads
so that their audience
doesn't have to put up with certain things.
This is important because there are also scams
that get through the ad filters over at Google.
And some people run scams
against the creator's audiences.
There are people running scams
trying to impersonate Mr. Beast,
and try to do that to impressionable viewers
and take advantage of his popularity.
There's no end to crypto scams happening right now.
So for all of those reasons,
I feel that creators being able to have some way
to intervene for their audience
when it comes to the advertising
is something that we should have control over.
I do feel that as much as YouTube has the right to monetize,
we're the one who owns the relationship with the audience
and probably is looking out for their best interest.
But that's just my personal feeling about the subject.
I'm curious about what you think about that, especially.
So let me know that in the comments.
Let's move on to the next part of the topic.
You might remember that I said
that this doesn't just affect small creators.
It affects more creators than you might think.
I don't think it'll affect
the overwhelming majority of creators,
but something I want to do is,
I don't want you to just be angry
and frustrated watching this video.
I try to be very positive and thoughtful in my videos,
but I also try to be transparent and realistic with you.
My goal here is to incentivize you
to take a proactive approach
to your journey as a content creator,
whether you're doing this as a hobby
or you wanted to do it full-time.
So with that in mind,
I want you to look at this as a challenge
to meet the monetization requirements on YouTube
so that you can have control over the advertising
and not just for the sake of making money on YouTube
which could be important to you,
but for being able to be in control
of how your content is received
and the advertising experience
and how it does or doesn't interrupt
what the viewer came for.
With that in mind, I want you to watch my video
on how to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube.
I think it's one of the most helpful videos I've made
for new and small content creators.
So you want to check that out.
In the future, I actually have some updated videos
planned around this topic
and specifically the 4,000 hours of watch time.
There is a series of how to grow on YouTube videos here,
but I also want to encourage you to not use AdSense
as a crutch, if you're thinking about YouTube monetization.
This channel is largely geared
around the idea of making money online as a creative person,
somebody in the creator economy.
A lot of people wanna do that
by becoming a full-time YouTuber, but there are so many ways
to either use the audience you're building in YouTube
to do bigger and greater things beyond AdSense
or to use other social media platforms
and use YouTube as a discovery engine for your own brand.
And so you can have a lot of different opportunities
whether it's working with brands directly
and being an influencer with that sponsored content
which I've done an entire series about, by the way,
on just getting brand deals even as a small influencer.
So I recommend you watch those videos.
Especially, since it probably pays better than AdSense,
but there are also other great opportunities.
Remember, it's a 10th of a penny per view.
If you had a high CPM like me, $20 CPM
is $20 for every 1000 views,
but YouTube takes 45% of that.
It's a 55-45 split for the content creator.
So that means that I'm making roughly $10
for every 1000 views, which is amazing.
It's actually 10 times
what the average content creator would make,
but that still means I'm making one penny per view.
Rather than make one penny per view,
consider the opportunity that there is to sell directly
to your audience with things like dope merch
or print on demand products like posters and artworks,
or if you build in a big enough audience,
other opportunities open up like NFTs
or doing your own physical products.
Sky's the limit if you invest in building a community
that cares about you and cares about the content
more than they care about what platform they consume it on.
I want you to look at the opportunities available to you
and not just the frustration
and not just the things that suck,
because I know with these videos,
it's easy to get angry, discouraged, or depressed.
Taken it as a challenge.
Take it as an opportunity
to focus on meeting the numbers required.
Now, remember earlier how I said that
roughly 90% of the traffic on YouTube
goes to the top 3% or so of channels?
Let's just be generous and just say,
okay 90% of the traffic on YouTube goes to the top 10%.
That should be very familiar to you.
It's a reflection of every other part of reality, right?
So if we're looking at that, it doesn't seem to make sense
that this policy was specifically around small YouTubers.
So I don't feel that impact here, it'll feel like the impact
is for the smallest content creators,
but here is the punchline.
Here's the catch.
And again, I'm not claiming this as the exact reason
that YouTube is doing this.
This will be what we call speculation, for legal purposes,
if nothing else.
And what I see here is this,
when it comes to the right to monetize
from YouTube perspective
the ability to run ads on any content
regardless of whether the content creator
is in the YouTube Partner Program or not,
I think largely is focused around
the bigger content creators
since they hold the monopoly of attention
and also get paid the highest advertising rates on YouTube.
And my reasoning for this is the fact that
if a content creator is suspended
from the YouTube Partner Program, even temporarily,
YouTube would otherwise lose potentially millions of dollars
during their suspension.
So when it comes to YouTube monetization
and it comes to the right to monetize policy,
it seems like the most likely reasoning behind this,
because it just didn't feel like there would be enough money
in the monetization of ads on videos from smaller YouTubers.
This is going to happen by the way.
I don't feel that will be every single view
in every single video on YouTube would be monetized.
So I don't think small YouTubers have to worry
as much about that as they might think
because one, we don't see that happening
at least as of right now.
And number two, even on larger channels,
they're in the Partner Program
and YouTube Partners, you actually know this,
100% of our views aren't even monetized.
Even without getting de-monetized,
we don't have a 100% view to add ratios, anyway.
And if that's not happening
with channels where there's the most money to be made,
the most money to be made, but the highest CPMs.
Remember there are videos I have on this channel
that get 20,30, or even for $40 CPMs
and I don't get 100% ad monetization on that,
even though it would be in YouTube's best interest.
They also don't make my videos go viral
even though they would make more money.
So think about it, there's not enough ad inventory
for that to be the case, number one.
And then number two,
the concentration of that ad inventory
would not be on smaller YouTube channels.
It would be on the YouTube channels
that stand to make the platform the most money.
So once again, that top 3% of channels
, or if you even want to be generous, the top 10% of channelsmonopolizing more than 90% of the traffic on the platform.
And this is why the creator responsibility policy,
I think this is the key to all of this.
Again, somewhat speculation on my part.
If you're not familiar,
the creator responsibility policy
means that YouTube can hold content creators accountable,
I love that phrase, that we're holding people accountable.
They can hold people accountable for behavior
that they do outside of YouTube
that they feel could negatively impact the community
or basically represent
being a YouTuber in an unfavorable light in some way.
We've seen things like this happen before.
However, the issue is that if YouTube takes action
and demonetize it, one of its largest content creators
for any reason, YouTube stands the miss-out
on millions of dollars potentially of ad revenue.
Even if it's a 90-day suspension.
If you're talking about a premium channel
that gets tens of millions of views per month or per week,
then that could be extraordinary, that could be huge.
Millions of dollars of revenue per week or per month
for as long as is appropriate to suspend that creator.
And in the case of that creator
being suspended indefinitely,
that's absolutely gonna be millions of dollars
that YouTube loses when it doesn't have to.
And that's why I think the right to monetize policy
really exists in my opinion,
I think that it makes good business sense to say,
we might need for public reasons
to hold somebody accountable,
but it's costing us our bottom line.
So we can have it both ways, we could monetize and run ads
against that creator's content, but at the same time
just not necessarily have to pay that creator
and make a public statement
that they've been punished appropriately.
Now, from my standpoint, that's ruthless business sense.
I'm not here to condone or condemn that.
From a purely business standpoint,
well, that makes sense.
That makes the most logical sense.
Also, the silver lining here, there has been a myth in the past
that YouTube doesn't show or promote smaller YouTubers
and smaller channels content
because there's no monetary incentive for them.
But now with the right to monetize,
you can make an easy argument
that there's the incentive to monetize everything.
Even though it may not happen at least,
they have the right to do so.
So now there's no reason to believe
that they're suppressing small content creator's videos.
There's no reason because since they have the right
to monetize it, since it could theoretically be monetized,
well, there's no reason to specifically
suppress this group of creators.
So if we look at it from that perspective,
which is a little generous, but it's still logical
then it eliminates that myth outright.
I've always thought that that was a myth
because I always thought
the data was more important to them.
'Cause I think the data's worth more money
especially the one we're talking about
a 10th of a penny per view here
on channels that stand to get the least amount of views.
Not because they're undeserving,
but because just statistically
they're getting the least amount of views.
As I said earlier, I'm trying to approach this
as reasonably and logically as possible.
I know not everyone will agree with me,
but I'm quite literally following the money.
There is another wrinkle in this.
I'm not a lawyer, but there are issues
with taking on creator brand deals
where part of the contract is that you don't run ads
for the first seven days.
Some people have it for two weeks, it could even be 30 days.
In a situation like that,
again, apologies for lawn care going on back there.
in a situation like that
then a creator could be in breach of contract
if YouTube is running ads on their video
and they don't have the ability to override that
by saying, you know
I'm going to opt this video out of monetization in-app ads.
You can't do that if you're suspended
from the YouTube Partner Program
or if you're not allowed
to be in the YouTube Partner Program in the first place.
Now, because I know the majority of you
are smaller YouTubers,
you probably think that this shouldn't matter to you,
but every big YouTuber was once a small YouTuber,
and the bigger issue is just the way
that this is being handled is kind of indicative
of the direction that we need to understand
things are going.
And while I'm not a lawyer, we need to keep in mind
that there are legal consequences for this type of approach
because this isn't just about problematic content creators
who may have lost their YouTube monetization,
but remember that it also impacts content creators
who are not allowed to participate
in the YouTube Partner Program,
but still may have gained a sizable enough audience
to do brand deals.
If you're doing brand deals and it's in the contract
that you can't run ads for the first seven or 15 or 30 days
of launching the sponsored content
and then YouTube overrides your ability
or denies you the ability to control ad placement
and turn those ads off,
you could end up in breach of contract.
If you're in breach of contract
then obviously you could be sued potentially
for violating the brand deal or they could withhold payment.
There's any number of things
that could be taken out of your hands here.
And so in advocating
in the best interest of a content creator, that's why,
regardless of whether or not you feel that this policy
only affects problematic content creators,
you can see how it wouldn't,
but that even if you don't like somebody
or you don't agree with their content
doesn't mean that you should be rooting
for the downfall of a creator or for issues or policies
or things that make it more difficult for creators
to control what happens within their own content
and within their own brand
and within them their own business.
Since we've already kind of established
that YouTube ad revenue is not the end-all, be-all,
nor is it always enough
to support content creators full-time,
is part of why I'm making this brand deals series.
Brand deals are one of the main ways
that YouTubers monetize beyond AdSense
and can continue to grow their platform,
make a livelihood, but also to pay the people
that they work with on their team.
A lot of content creators, myself included,
hire friends and family to help them from time to time.
So this is a bigger picture issue.
And that's why I've made this a deep dive video
because it is that important to us
as a community to understand what is happening here
and what our options are.
I want to continue to encourage creators to pursue
all of the avenues of monetization available to them.
That is why the channel going forward will heavily focus
on the business of being a content creator
and the different ways to make money from your content.
Also, how to build out that business, how to hire people,
but also for those people who are part of the community,
working for content creators,
I want to create resources and videos for them as well
because when you see things happen
and changes going on in these platforms,
which I'm not trying to keep you up to date on,
it means that we have to rethink
the career choices that we're making
and we have to analyze
what's gonna be in our best interest.
And we have to think about how to protect ourselves.
And so for me, I'm disappointed with this direction,
but I also understand where YouTube is coming from
because it's a platform that frankly,
is not as profitable as we might imagine.
The cost of web hosting is astronomical.
And even though, yes, Google does absorb some of that,
it still ultimately need this platform
to financially pull its own weight.
And when most of the revenue is concentrated
in a relatively small of the creators, the top creators,
and those people are the most vulnerable to issues
with bad PR that reflects on the community and the platform.
When you have things out there, let's just say it.
When there's such a thing as cancel culture,
YouTube as a platform doesn't feel like
it wants to lose in the bargain.
And I can't really say I blame them.
So while you might be watching this as a smaller YouTuber
and feeling discouraged
or feeling like this impacts you more, I want to remind you,
most of the ads will not run on a small YouTube channel,
even if some do.
And I don't think it's worth feeling exploited
at a 10th of a penny per view rate
since that's not going to compensate you
for the time of video production and video editing
even if you've got it.
In many cases, even if you were getting a penny per view,
it wouldn't be enough.
So I want you to just have perspective.
I'm not saying that this is a good thing.
I'm saying it's not as bad as you think
if you're a smaller content creator
and that there are some things that you now
understand a little bit more, I hope,
but if you are an established creator,
you now know more or less where things stand
and that you have to do everything possible
to protect your brand going forward
because you're not in this together with the platform,
so to speak.
The platform is going to make sure that it stays profitable.
And so you have to make sure
that you also take care of your business
and stay profitable.
So think about it from that perspective.
Think about this from the perspective
of taking responsibility for your own outcomes
as a content creator
and realizing that this platform should serve as a tool
and a vehicle for your goals
and not be something that you become overly dependent on
because the goalposts notably move,
and we've seen that time after time again.
Hopefully, this video was informative.
I know it wasn't something that you probably
left feeling great about.
If you want to know about
the most profitable niches in YouTube,
I've made a video on that, that you can check out.
It's gonna be linked in the description.
Also, I've made an entire series
on how to monetize with YouTube brand deals,
which I think becomes more important and relevant than ever.
So that will be in the description down below as well.
As always, thank you so much for watching, and don't forget,
go up there and create something awesome today.
Take care.
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