It might sound like a strange title for a poem, but if you have a You Tube channel, especially a small one, than you are probably aware that for the past year or so the You Tube world has plagued by several incidents that has supposedly caused advertisers to pull their adds from the platform. To allay advertisers fears, You Tube has responded by dramatically revamping its monetization platform, not once but twice.
The first time was early last year when without any warning You Tube cut off monetization to any channel with less than 10,000 lifetime views declaring that it need to collect the data from these views to gather the data needed to ensure advertisers that all was well. It was a tough blow to many small channels, must like the Make Time for Happy channel staring my little pup Happy that this poem was posted on, were just starting out and therefore shy of the necessary lifetime views. But discouraging as it was, the goal was reachable. It was not some allusive goal that had not chance of ever materializing.
After months of patient waiting, in early December Happy’s channel like hundreds of other channels finally reached the goal. We were all excited, in a few days monetization would be turned on and here and there a few pennies would be added to the account until at last he reached the $100 threshold required to receive a payout.
But sadly, instead of rejoicing, a few days ago another wave, far more severe than the last, hit You Tube out of the blue. Declaring that 10,000 lifetime views was not enough. They now declared that the only way they could assure that a channel was advertiser friendly was by having a channel get 4,000 hours of views a year as well has have 1000 subscribers. Essentially turning off all possibility of ever being monetized for many small channels such as the one we had started.
It was a devastating blow not only to us, but to a large swath of the You Tube community. Many like us, had at last reached the mythical 10,000 views and were eagerly waiting for the chance to once again earn a few pennies here and there so they could buy the necessary equipment that they hoped would one day allow those few pennies to turn into nickels, dimes, and eventually dollars.
Disappointed by the realization that we were back at square one, faced with the nearly impossible task of getting months worth of views and hundreds of subscribers. But harder yet to endure was the discomforting thought that even if by some miracle we reached this mark what hope were we and the thousands of other You Tubers have that upon reaching this Himalayan height, You Tube would not turn around and change the goal all over again. Free to put a small ad under the videos many worked so hard to make, without ever having to give the maker of those videos a dime.
So perhaps you can understand the deep frustration that inspired this poem of woe brought on by the most current round of the You Tube Adpocalypse.
KB Writes 