YouTube Makes It Even Harder for Creators to Monetize Videos

YouTube announced their intentions to make it even harder for creators to monetize their videos on the platform this week.

According to TechCrunch, users previously “needed 10,000 total views” to join the YouTube Partner Program, which grants creators the ability to monetize videos, among other perks.

“Starting today, channels also need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of view time in the past year. (For now, those are just requirements to join the program, but Google says it will also start applying them to current partners on February 20.),” they reported on Tuesday.

YouTube will also “closely monitor signals like community strikes, spam, and other abuse flags to ensure they comply with our policies,” and, “Both new and existing YPP channels will be automatically evaluated under this strict criteria and if we find a channel repeatedly or egregiously violates our community guidelines, we will remove that channel from YPP.”

The company is also making changes to the Google Preferred program, following the Logan Paul controversy this month.

Following the announcement of the new changes, YouTube content creators both criticized and defended the move on Twitter.

Both YouTube star KeemStar and PewDiePie, the most subscribed channel on the platform, defended YouTube.

https://twitter.com/pewdiepie/status/953539533076942849

https://twitter.com/pewdiepie/status/953542525066805248

https://twitter.com/pewdiepie/status/953544003315798017

Others criticized the company for refusing to listen to its users, and making things more difficult for smaller channels.