YouTube's so-called policy update of late has caused significant uproar among both "youtubers" and occasional vloggers. Effective February 20, 2018 YouTube will deny all video monetization to anyone not having at least 1000 subscribers and generating a minimum of 4000 view-hours for the platform per year.
Clearly, this is yet another step of YouTube and Google making it obvious that their corporate interest is not as "nicely aligned" with user interest or what their "verified partners" and similarly small users (as in you and me) want or need. That they call this infamous move something to better protect creators is very low and outright derogatory of their users, content creators, and everyone else without whom they would be nothing.
Significant numbers of user comments already express their opinions (and hopes) that this will hit YouTube themselves. It likely will. Hurting and upsetting one's own user base always does. We have to wait and see how things will play out in the near future and watch for further announcements though.
In the meantime, I have to agree with the ones saying that this will backfire on YouTube and Google big time. I already have moved my better video clips to Vimeo anyway, and I will continue even more so now.
The entire issue might also help Steemit building a wider base of happy users. Adding video and blockchain-based video hosting to Steemit would be a huge leap forward for all of us on here! That may grow into one of the solutions we need more than ever now! We need a real internet again, i e one that is (re-)decentralized away from Facebook, Google, Youtube, Amazon and similarly unfriendly big corporations and their centralized large platforms hurting all of us.
Below this post is a copy of one of the last youtube-optimized thumbnail images I did -- appropriately featuring something going over a cliff :)
The clip is also hosted elsewhere now...
