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Hi gang,
Most of you know that I started a small youtube channel and I try to post informations about audio recording, video et photography. Mostly audio for now.

The Youtube parner program, other than offering some additional tools, give back a part of their revenue from publicity.
6 month ago, they changed the rules by asking a minimum of 10 000 views to being allowed into the program.
A few days ago, I received an email explaining that I will be kicked out of the program if I don't have 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time. Of course there is no way I'm going to reach those goal and it may take years if ever. Teaching channel like mine get less interest that what Lady Gaga wears to go shopping, you know...
Of course I wasn't making a lot of money (about 10$ a month). But I hoped to grow and planned to take that money to buy gear to review on the channel. A way to give back. It was also a sign of reward and fun to see what trafic I had each month. In fact a good motivation.

I currently have 30$ in my adsense account and it takes 100$ to withdraw. So I will probably never see that money.
We are thousands in that situation and I imagine Youtube is saving itself from paying out a few millions $$
Of course, they can do whatever they want, it's not a democracy. But it was unanounced and not well received by the small creators. The big names liked this a lot because they will get more adds on their channels and make more money.

So why do I write this whole story.
I'm wondering what to do to stay motivated and ways to make things interesting.
Please vote on what would be a good way to ask for help.

The parner program details : https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72851?hl=en

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Comments

pcrecord Tue, 01/23/2018 - 10:14

bouldersound, post: 455407, member: 38959 wrote: I drive past the Google building in Boulder all the time. I could drop off a cardboard cutout of you with a picket sign.

My YouTube earnings have been so small that it's a waste of resources to pursue them. I use YouTube to promote my other income producing activities, not as an income stream itself.

Honestly I hoped the revenue would go up slowly. Now they are just gone and with a target so far, I doubt I'll be able to achieve it. . .
But even if I achieve it one day.. in the mean time it will be a lot of unpaying views. 4000 hours = 80 000 views of 3 min... ;)

In any case, this post wasn't to do any action against google.. Just looking to decide which alternative would be best..

audiokid Wed, 01/24/2018 - 10:02

Kurt Foster, post: 455429, member: 7836 wrote: i just went to your ewwtube page and subscribed. not that it will make a difference but i did it anyway.

i also clicked on each of your videos. maybe if everyone here does it ..... it might help a bit.

Good suggestions, Kurt!

To Subscribe, here is Marco's Youtube Page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGW30EgpIUHDTJY8XKkq9OA

kmetal Sat, 03/10/2018 - 06:42

paulears, post: 456155, member: 47782 wrote: I guess the benefit to the viewers is the adverts vanish making the channel more watchable, but I feel your pain. I had the same email

what sucks for viewers is now content creators have adds in the video itself, rendering my youtube red sub, and ad blocks, useless. for most of us the youtube wont be a large revenue stream, but a great way to showcase our stuff, and have an avenue for our free content. its probably up to us to figure out how to market and package premium content/services, making youtube free advertising for us.

the whole quality issue with most streaming services really doesnt suit itself well to much of what we do as engnineers, so i think this a good kick in the pants to up the game, instead of feeding the big red machine.

pcrecord Sat, 03/10/2018 - 18:38

bouldersound, post: 456159, member: 38959 wrote: Lots of content makers are using https://www.patreon.com/.

I thought about patreon for a while.. I really don't know how it could be effective.
If I'm surfing videos, being invited to go on another site to give money isn't a natural thing for me.
Thinking about it, even here, I hesitate to follow external links to listen to songs.

Of course I'm not against it. I think I'm just not ready to beg...