So, today was the first full day of the fallout from YouTube’s announced changes to their Partner Program – the first day to really see what the internet had to say about it, and honestly, it’s about exactly what I expected.
Many people behind relatively small channels of all types are of course objecting to this, as you would expect. What surprises me though is YouTubers who run more medium to large channels – in the few hundred thousand to nearly 1 million subscriber range – who are actually being supportive of YouTube doing this, feeling it will benefit them. If the channels being hurt are “Small Time” channels, these would be the “Big Time” channels.
Their advice to small channels is both hilarious and insensitive to me. In one phrasing or another, it boils down to this:
“You should make videos because you love it. If you keep at it, and make good content you might eventually reach a level where you begin to make money again and might become big.”
Other reactions from people who are less supportive are usually insults to small channels, commenting on poor video quality or poor subject matter – oddly, very closely related to the types of comments and reactions that many channels get during the “troll phase” of growth, when reach and views begin to pick up but a stable fan base hasn’t been formed. Small channels tend to get seen by people who are more hostile or silent, rather than people who will really enjoy the content and the end result is, well, hate.
Here’s the thing, and this might sound like a crazy idea, but just think about it for a moment.
Maybe… just maybe, those people running small time channels who are mad that now they won’t get any money for them.. maybe they don’t want to get big.
At a certain point, a YouTube channel becomes too much. Hell, I actually know a few people who, once their channel got to a certain size, they abandoned it because it was too active. They couldn’t build a close knit fan base because everything was just too damned much and they just said forget it and ended it all.
Others might, by the nature of what they like, have very niche channel subjects or content styles and as such will never actually grow beyond a certain size by the nature of things. Why should they be punished?
Or, one last category, are people who don’t want to be like everyone else. I, for one, fall into this. I may talk about gaming, tech, and that kind of stuff but ya know what? I don’t want my channel to ever be like the others. I’ll take elements and ideas I like, sure, but I’m not going the route that the average popular gaming / tech channel on YouTube does.
I know I’m not the type to ever get big, and I’m fine with that. Not having that as a goal doesn’t mean I, or anyone else, should be penalized like this.
I want to do my own thing, which is what we all thought YouTube was about, but I guess that’s not the case. Both YouTube’s own (rather pathetic) creator guidelines and suggestions, combined with the insensitive, completely out of the loop and in some cases elitist as fuck comments from mid range to high end YouTubers really puts it in perspective – if you aren’t acting like every other flavor of the week trendy creator, your content isn’t worth anything unless by some random chance you meet some arbitrary criteria.
It isn’t keeping “shit content off the channel” like some say, it’s inhibiting new ideas from making a mark, new seeds from being planted.
The worst thing is how those aforementioned YouTubers with medium to large comment about starting back in 2011-2012 and the like and how they worked their way up, seeming to forget that every single day since they started, thanks to various changes in the way videos show, and the sheer flood of people making content on the site, that it’s become exponentially harder to get noticed (and actually get people to subscribe and watch regularly) without some incredible luck.
Still, the fact remains that many of us don’t want to be anything close to a “big” channel. Why should we not get rewarded still for our efforts and love like the big ones do? Hell, some of them put less effort into content than I have with some of my videos, but oh, because they are already popular, they deserve money, and I deserve not even a chance to gain a few cents from my channel, right? Fuck that!
Everyone who makes content deserves at least some trickle of ad revenue for their efforts. It’s actually hilarious, Adpocalypse is brought up regularly in this, and I laugh when big time YouTubers bring up how they lost money during Adpocalypse, yet in the same video want to say that a small time YouTuber not only doesn’t deserve money, but shouldn’t make YouTube their full time thing. Obviously if the Adpocalypse issue hit you as hard as you say, you shouldn’t make it your full time job either, now should you? Oh, I’m sorry, that probably hit a little close to home.
We should be able to make a few extra bucks off videos we make. That simple. We shouldn’t have to meet some arbitrary criteria of subscribers and view times. Ever. So long as the individual videos don’t violate some perfectly sane rules for content, we should be able to make money.
At least Jim Sterling gets it…. Thank God for Jim Fucking Sterling, son!
Next time, I’m going to actually tear apart the emails sent, and the blog posts relating to this. Get some coffee ready, it’s going to be a hell of a ride!