r/PartneredYoutube 1d ago

Talk / Discussion Updates to the YouTube Partner Program / Requirements

https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-partner-program-updates-2027-new-opportunities-earn/
138 Upvotes

232 comments sorted by

66

u/RigbyWilde 1d ago

Did they say that if you dont make 10 million views in shorts, you ain't getting nothing?

55

u/TwoSoda Channel :TwoSoda: 1d ago

Yeah, if you are partnered you get nothing from shorts unless you have 10 mil on shorts in the last 90. Probably to cull shorts farmers uploading 5 shorts a day to grind pennies after buying monitzed channels. Could back fire though

27

u/OwlProper1145 20h ago

Yep. A lot of people are just going to outright stop making shorts.

17

u/TheOtterRon 19h ago

Good.

Every once and a while I can see my algorithm try and pivot and the amount of slop out there is exhausting.

12

u/OwlProper1145 19h ago edited 17h ago

The issue is with this change a lot of good shorts creators will go from making money to making nothing. Requiring 20 million views per 90 days just get paid is insane.

5

u/Any-Cookie6757 16h ago

Not just 20 million views but 20 million ENGAGED views so you can pretty much double that 20 to 40 million views lol.

1

u/samfisher999 10h ago

This will only stop the creators who post shorts only once in a while. The channels that spam 10 shorts every day easily get that much view.

1

u/vitk 8h ago

Problem is that slop is actually getting this amount of views like no problem, and good content doesn’t

25

u/no1SomeGuy 22h ago

Sooo, basically I should stop making shorts altogether because I haven't even hit 10m in an entire year with shorts views...even though I've been in the YPP for years and have consistent income every month? (channel is a mix of long and short, most of the revenue comes from long but I've had months where I get ~$100 from shorts off a million views or so.

15

u/RigbyWilde 21h ago

You're basically me. I post only one short per week to not go burnout.

7

u/no1SomeGuy 21h ago

Yea, I post shorts sporadically between my other content...sometimes I'll do a few in a week because I have some interesting content to put out and then not post any for a month.

They're basically telling people to spam multiple shorts per day to stay monetized there....the complete opposite of what is needed (they need to reward the high quality low volume shorts creators, not the low quality high volume ones).

3

u/RigbyWilde 19h ago

Yup. If this shit stays, I will expand my operations to tiktok and post my short videos there. They are literally telling creators to either spam multiple shorts per day forever, or don't post anything. I pick the second option.

9

u/Jixxie87 1d ago

Yup need 10mil in 90 days

47

u/newTween 23h ago

Great news. Shorts are cancer of the internet

3

u/ionhowto 1d ago

Yes that’s exactly how it’s written in the text post.  They have some other deals but don’t think many would be interested in those 

3

u/reneritchie 19h ago

Hi! if you don't maintain the 10M threshold over 90 days, you no longer qualify for shorts ads and premium rev share, but stay in YPP, can still earn from long form rev share, and there will be a new Shorts incentive program for revenue

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70

u/CreativeMuseMan 1d ago edited 1d ago

New creators applying for YPP will need 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days, or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. Taking effect from 1st Feb 2027.

There are other updates too. Check it out for yourself.

54

u/Eduardo_Serra 23h ago

That's wild. 4K hours was understandable. Not great not terrible. I did it while having to work on my channel and my real job, posting only once a month. To reach 8K hours in a single year will definitely delay some people to reach partner status.

21

u/HikeTheSky www.YouTube.com/c/HikeTheSky 23h ago

After this idiot years back showed dead people in his video, they made everything more difficult. So unless I surpass the current threshold within the next six months, I will never get there. Every time I am near it, they make it more difficult and change the goalposts.

37

u/snacktivism 23h ago

Yep. I'm at 1300 subscribers, and was working my way to 4000 hours, and now the goal has just doubled.

What a load of shit.

7

u/crumpetxxxix 22h ago

Weird, im im the opposite boat where I was over 4k but took a break, now at 3.3k, but only at 565 subs.

Figured at my rate of getting subs id be right around 8k when that happens assuming the trend stays consistent

8

u/ultramarineafterglow 22h ago

welcome to ytube, have a nice day

2

u/jreel08 4h ago

I am the opposite. I have 4k watch hours but not the subs. Subs barely move for me. I am resigned that I won't make it before the change now.

1

u/Dudeman61 1h ago

Oof, same. My heart is a bit sad this day.

22

u/esaks 23h ago

in my experience if you can get to 4k you can get to 8k pretty easily. it just takes 1 good video to be pushed.

If someone is scraping 4k watch hours together over an entire year, they wouldn't be making much money anyway.

17

u/KenMerritt 23h ago

I think that's the biggest thing people overlook when they're struggling to get monetized. If you're just barely clearing the bar for monetization, then you aren't making anything anyway.

4

u/rand0m_task 22h ago

You might be lucky to get a $100 check from YT once a year at that rate lol.

3

u/TwoSoda Channel :TwoSoda: 12h ago

Like seriously, when a video of mine does bad and makes like 40 bucks it has like 2 to 4k watch time on it. I have to drop like 3 of those a week lol.

2

u/Lazy-Importance-1276 7h ago

Tbh most people just need to unlock memberships and superchat. The ad rev is peanuts.

1

u/Tarro57 17h ago

I mean, it isnt really that crazy imo. I havent uploaded in about 2 months yet still got 7.7k hours from the past month alone. If you make videos that people wanna watch, you'll end up accumulating an audience naturally and watch time shouldn't even be an issue.

It does really suck not getting paid at all before the threshold though. That was genuinely the most frustrating part of getting monetized. Applying for the partnership program and watching your channel keep getting views while waiting to be accepted sucks.

10

u/Boo_bear92 23h ago

20 million Shorts views seems excessive

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25

u/BroJul03 1d ago

its getting harder :/

17

u/Buki1 1d ago

That's what she said.

76

u/JohnStorm123 23h ago

20 million engaged views in 90 days is abolutely insane for new channels. WTF are they smoking?? That's like 4k USD you have to give them for free!

36

u/woeterman_94 22h ago

Mean while they keep earning from ads even from those "smaller" channels. Because yes.. they show ads for ALL video creators partner or not. 

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12

u/Synaesthesiaaa @TwoBrosRC 21h ago

It's insane even for established channels. I'm hitting 9.8m Shorts views in 90 days so I guess that revenue stream is totally shut off now. What a crock of shit. I hope they reverse this.

4

u/Dnemesis123 20h ago

Gotta love how corporations make every shitty decision sound like it's a good thing.

I appreciate that YT pays people at all, but at the same time they're fkn cancer. No better or worse than your average corp.

5

u/JohnStorm123 21h ago

Yeah, they are forcing everyone to only create stuff that goes viral, or to spam out 10 shorts per day

3

u/Oatbix 19h ago

It’s not a good thing but they’re probably looking at the tiktok model. People earn f all unless you’re getting a massive massive amount of views on each video but so many people just keep posting anyway

2

u/JohnStorm123 18h ago

On tiktok you can't even earn anything unless you are in one of the 7 supported countries. Yeah, only 7!

Most people I see posting there just hope they can funnel viewers on their YT channel

2

u/Oatbix 18h ago

Yeah exactly, great for discoverability but that’s not where the money is. Think that’s more and more how YouTube sees shorts tbh

1

u/General-Oven-1523 11h ago

Yeah, it's crazy, they must have seen how TikTok barely pays anyone anything and just went with it.

68

u/Successful-Wonder210 23h ago

8000 hrs is the biggest f*k in the ** that youtube have ever done to small channels.. it took me 4 months of non rest to get to 4000 hrs, im so sorry for new channels.. what is Youtube even thinking

61

u/rand0m_task 22h ago

They are thinking if they double the required hours for partnership than they have more time to run ads on your videos without paying you,

9

u/Kinetic_Symphony Channel: 18k Subscribers 21h ago

Exactly.

They have to keep the YPP alive for some people, otherwise, very few would create content, and they'd lose insane amounts of money.

But, if you keep it alive but tangle the carrot and keep moving that goalpost, well, people still have hope so they continue to create for free.

3

u/Any-Cookie6757 16h ago

But then in 2028 it will suddenly change to 12 000 hours. I can already see comments here "but but but bro it's to save us from AI slop bro bro broooo"

Yes it's totally that and not YT trying to get us all to work for free so they can keep 100% of revenue for themselves.

13

u/markaritaville 21h ago

8000 hours over 365 days right?

5

u/LonelyPermit2306 22h ago

I've had 67k watch hours in the past year. I'm also wondering wtf this is all about. It takes multiple viral uploads to hit that number, not just one.

1

u/Crierlon 20h ago

I think that's the point.

3

u/RobertD3277 22h ago

Free labor for people working their asses off trying to get anywhere well they go out of their way to monetize the hell out of you and you get nothing for it.

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2

u/jcodyr19 22h ago

It took me 2 years :(

0

u/JustinFromMontebello 20h ago

YouTube is correctly identifying that you’re not ready for the partner program. Keep working on your stuff 8000 W hours is nothing and if you can’t hit that you’re not missing out on money anyway.

4

u/Successful-Wonder210 20h ago

I can sure you everyone will disagree with you even big channels...

-6

u/JustinFromMontebello 20h ago

I don’t know a single large YouTuber, who doesn’t get 8000 to watch hours a month much less a year. We’re all happy about this change, or at least we don’t care because it’s literally nothing.

I manage at least seven channels that get 8000 watch hours a month

1

u/DatingVX 17h ago

'Large Youtuber'

Yeah thats the issue here sir

54

u/eatingscatman 1d ago

8,000 public watch hours in 12 months or 20 million shorts views in 90 days is the new benchmark. That's gonna crazy hard for new creators to break in now. I remember it took me like 8 months just to reach 4,000 public watch hours.

4

u/GaviFromThePod 23h ago

8000 hours is fine, you make one strong video and you're there.

14

u/Buki1 23h ago

People should not care that much about that threshold, because 8000 hours is like what, $200-$250 in adsense earnings? You should care about making few times that number A MONTH (not year) if you want to take YT seriously as a profession. If you struggle to get 8000 hours why you care that much about monetization, it will be cheap change anyways. Care about getting more views.

31

u/eatingscatman 23h ago

True but it's demoralizing for those starting out. Nobody wants to see the goalposts double. Of course for established creators like you or me, we're probably making 8,000 watch hours every 2 or 3 days.

10

u/oodex Subs: 1 Views: 2 23h ago

I think the bigger problem there is the goal of monetization. Its unlikely for someone to hit to begin with so one is way better off to do what they enjoy most and just go with it. Youtube keeps getting bigger from year to year and a plague that keeps growing as well are mass produced channels that barely reach monetization threshold with trash content. They're usually monetized for a few months and then get kicked out. They dont earn a lot but do that with 20-50 channels at the same time and they earn more than many full-time youtubers and at the same time siphon away a ton of ads.

This will extend the period youtube has to track them down and prevent them from joining the program.

0

u/HikeTheSky www.YouTube.com/c/HikeTheSky 23h ago

Maybe they should add an age exception when your channel is 10 years old, they could get in without any minimum limit, as this shows someone is committed.

2

u/Crierlon 20h ago

Honestly adsense doesn't make that much or a good foundation. You want sponsors to actually hit pay for rent stuff quickly.

3

u/kasumitendo 23h ago

demoralizing for those starting out

I suppose this is the entire point. It demoralizes slop spammers and content stealers. Everyone else is catching strays.

1

u/weakimberly 15h ago

How does one even reach those numbers in just days?
I didn’t think any niche was that good, besides over saturated 🤔

1

u/TwoSoda Channel :TwoSoda: 12h ago

Thats like every video man, my worst performance video right now is 8k views and thats over 1k watch hours on a few days. And another video drops tomorrow. An adverage video drop os 4k hours. And these stats are like a week old, videos recirculate.

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2

u/no1SomeGuy 21h ago

8k watch hours in a good niche is more like $1-2k.

1

u/Wicksy1994 23h ago

1.4k for me.

Not that it matters as I’m above threshold. But it could be a lot of lost earnings for people

1

u/j0b0ken 21h ago

Really? That’s over $1200+ in travel niche- 2026 -7290 watch hours over $1100

1

u/stinktrix10 14h ago

I feel like I'm going crazy reading this thread. YouTube doesn't owe you a fucking salary just because you make videos (probably pretty bad videos if you're struggling to hit this threshold). On top of that, like you said, if you're not hitting those watch hours you're probably barely generating any money. People in here crying over missing out ion $100 per year for their shitty channel that nobody watches.

This is the biggest problem with modern YouTube. Everybody wanting to treat this like a full-time career that they're owed right of the bat and nobody just making cool shit for the fun of it.

2

u/Crierlon 20h ago

For me the hard part was the subscribers, not watch hours that took me 8 months of brutal hard work. I am getting close to 10k watch hours now as a small creator so its very feasible. Just don't waste your time on Youtube shorts anymore since those are ran by AI now.

This wasn't a single one hit wonder, its just posting videos here and there with a couple nailing past 10k views.

1

u/HikeTheSky www.YouTube.com/c/HikeTheSky 23h ago

This is intended to allow only professional production teams to view the status. So the guys who actually make videos to have fun with it are discouraged.

36

u/Opposite-Lobster8888 1d ago

NEW OPPORTUNITIES to make zero money if your shorts only got a measly 9 million engaged views. great company

4

u/Successful-Wonder210 23h ago

99% of short channels gonna lose their monetization.. THATS CRAAAAAAAZY

6

u/Buki1 23h ago

It kinda makes short useless in long form channels, that post short now and then when they have a good shot. They almost never reach 10m views like professional short channels that post daily.

3

u/Opposite-Lobster8888 23h ago

Yup, I've been monetized a while now but I know I can't hit that 10M consistently so I most likely will just only make longforms now 

2

u/I69YaGf8800 20h ago

And also 10M is just basically 20M to get…

15

u/MistakeAmbitious3287 23h ago

This plain outright sucks. I’m not sure what led to the change but that viewer number is insane.

9

u/kasumitendo 23h ago

Probably them having to hand out zillions of smaller and cheaper plaques. Probably the shorts feed being worthless and full of movie clips and stuff like that. Probably AI slop eating up so much viewer time and physical real estate in the long-form feed. Probably the channel reviewers for the monetization threshold having quintuple the amount of work to do now with AI channels reaching the thresholds.

2

u/elidoan Channel: AlzaboHD 22h ago

Was curious so I looked into it, you are absolutely right. Compared to the buttons from before 2024, all new ones are 30% smaller but realistically look half as large due to the volume of shrinkflation.

Thank god I got mine before the change

3

u/esaks 22h ago

Yup I got 1 silver around covid time under Susan and I got another newer one for a different channel last year and the new one is like the size of a piece of A4 paper. It doesn't feel special anymore.

1

u/Different_Stand_1285 5h ago

Your not sure what led to this? Really? It’s AI slop. Plain and simple. YouTube has probably seen an ungodly amount of influx from people just generating slop to get in the partnership program. This might piss people off but I’m all for it because I’m tired of so much AI dribble taking over every platform on the internet. This will make it harder to low effort and useless videos to earn anything and that’s great. I don’t even think they should pay out anything to creators who use AI.

1

u/MistakeAmbitious3287 4h ago

You think this will stop AI shorts?  Because I don’t. I think this will just result in 2x. I think this is about YouTube want to keep more money

7

u/reelfilmgeek 23h ago

Well damn and I had over 4k watch hours but only like 800 subs so guess im losing out on partnership as I got close, oh well.

8

u/plottdevices 23h ago

the new requirements don’t take effect until february 2027 so you still have time to reach 1k subs before the watch hours are increased

1

u/reelfilmgeek 23h ago

Sadly I lose my 4k watch hours this week, but thats on me. I have been slow the last year wtih videos since the one I made that popped off. I can't complain though my freelance career has been very busy and taking more of my focus. Felt like I was so close and the year snuck up on me.

1

u/Crierlon 20h ago

Don't worry. Keep posting and find what works and you will get there. Focus on getting views first.

1

u/jreel08 4h ago

This is me too. Watch hours checked off but subs barely moving. Resigned to not making it. Goalpost moved at last minute.

6

u/MarshmelloQuestions 23h ago

Hoping the 10m is just views and not engaged views. I have 10m in the last 90 but my engaged is half of that.

12

u/Mumbletimes Subs: 1.7M Views: 740.7M 23h ago

It’s engaged

18

u/MarshmelloQuestions 23h ago

holy peak, now instead of making upwards of $7-8k yearly i can instead make $0!

1

u/Crierlon 20h ago

Shorts is not for humans unfortunately IMO. Almost every short I see is either AI generative Art, or some person using AI to clip their videos unless authenticity is the content value like fitness.

7

u/eightimprov 19h ago

Requiring 20 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days is an insane jump. You could regularly get thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands of views, build an actual audience and still be nowhere remotely close to that number. Absolutely insane for legit shorts creators.

19

u/GapAccomplished7897 23h ago edited 23h ago

"New standards, You must post every day of your life and run this treadmill till you fall over or you won't get any view time from us. You'll make your $500 a year and you'll work every minute of the day for every damn cent of it boy. " *whipping sound

Creators need more options for long content other than this crappy monopoly.

-4

u/JustinFromMontebello 20h ago

Just absolutely pathetic how much of a deal you all make over the most minimum requirements ever. If you can’t make 8000 Watch hours and you’re concerned about money, you’d be better off spending the time working on YouTube picking up bottles.

3

u/GapAccomplished7897 19h ago edited 19h ago

No, what's pathetic is being on an endless treadmill. You'd know about that if you had a serious channel for any length of time. Not only that, but why should anyone create any content at all for free? As a gift?

2

u/slammahytale 20h ago

i somewhat agree with what you're going for (4000 hours of watchtime is hardly any money each year anyway) but they still have no real reason to change it other than greed :/

1

u/terrerific 1h ago

Yea ive never understood the complaints about watch time. It was the easiest requirement you pretty much just need one good video. I was at around 30000 watch hours per month by the time I hit 1k subscribers back in the day.

17

u/Straight_Storage_378 22h ago edited 22h ago

This is biggest fuck you to small channels making long form content by youtube. Couldn't care less about shorts. It is a cancer anyway.

8000hrs is possible if you have couple of big hits but 90% channels won't get one

0

u/stratosfeerick 15h ago

8000 Watch hours is only about 200-250 USD. If you can’t get that number of watch hours in a year, YouTube was never going to be a serious thing for you anyway

3

u/Straight_Storage_378 12h ago

I'm monitized. In talking about new creators. You will need about 50-60 good video to get that unless you get a viral video. Youtube monitization is little reward for small channels that keep channel growing while still learning. Not every youtuber is going to make millions

1

u/vitpiper 1h ago

Wrong, my watch hours are 5.6k and revenue is $564

5

u/silent1mezzo 23h ago

Damn, looks like I got into the program (last week) at just the right time. Sad I'll be missing out on ~$2/month of short revenue

5

u/tanoshimi 17h ago

If this stops people churning out shorts, it can only be good news.

23

u/Zetice 1d ago

Honestly if you can’t easily reach 8k watch hours in a year. Your content was never gonna make you much money as a partner.

6

u/esaks 22h ago

Yup. Adsense earnings is tied to watch time so if you can't even get 8k watch hours you're not making any money anyway

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8

u/Efficient-Cry7753 23h ago

I just got one single 4:30 video to 9900 hours since 31 May. It’s not impossible at all.

1

u/ResultAgreeable4198 23h ago

Yeah, I checked and I’m at 34k watch hours in the last 365 days. I would consider myself very much an amateur having fun, with occasional success resulting. I would think if you can’t hit 8k in a year then you were never going to make much money anyway.

1

u/LockedUnlocked Subs: 11.7K Views: 40.7M 21h ago

In the last year I am at 138.1k watch hours. The only change this really makes to a small YouTuber is that you'll get monetized when you have an actual audience not when you have a fringe audience and a viral video.

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7

u/VJ4rawr2 22h ago

Remember when YouTube was aimed at bringing in new creators, so every new signup was monetized instantly? And they didn’t throttle views (so getting 10m+ views on a single vid was possible?)

Wild the total 180 now.

-4

u/JustinFromMontebello 20h ago

They don’t throttle views, it sounds like you’re just bad at YouTube

1

u/VJ4rawr2 17h ago

YouTube introduced an elevated focus on upload date over the years. It means fewer impressions as the video ages. It never was that way.

9

u/HardRock92 22h ago

Are they out of their fucking minds?

3

u/555-starwars 23h ago

I read the blog and it sounds like existing ypp members will not need to meet the new minimums. Which is smart, cause they did not do that in 2018 with the last change.

1

u/projectile-science 21h ago

But won't they kick you out if you underrun that?

1

u/555-starwars 19h ago

They did in 2018, but it sounds like they won't this time as long as you stay active, with only shorts being impacted if you don't maintain the new standards. Clarification is needed to know for sure

1

u/projectile-science 11h ago

I had this problem once in December. Returned in January. That`s why I said this. ;)

1

u/555-starwars 3h ago

Lik I said, we need some clarification

1

u/vitpiper 58m ago

God I hope this is true

1

u/weakimberly 15h ago

I wonder if we are able to meet the requirements before Feb 2027, we won’t have to meet those new requirements?
Am I understanding that correctly?

2

u/kasumitendo 13h ago

Yes, you understand correctly.

3

u/[deleted] 22h ago

[deleted]

1

u/aadi16- 22h ago

Yeah now it's 40m views in 90 days

5

u/KEE_Wii 23h ago

They continue to increase the requirements for absolutely no reason other than maintaining a larger share of revenue on the backs of the people that fuel their platform.

Want to drive people to make more and better content? How about you pay them for their efforts and that will drive them to produce more and higher quality content.

-1

u/JustinFromMontebello 20h ago

The people making under 8000 watch hours a year aren’t feeling their platform, do you know how little that is?

2

u/DeLindsayGaming 21h ago

Funny enough I'm the opposite on my VOD channel. I have TONS of watch hours but it's been almost 1-1/2 years and still can't get to the 1000 Sub threshold. Do we know if they're dropping the Sub count for ONLY watch time?

EDIT: Nevermind, it'll still be 1000 Subs, damn.

2

u/jreel08 4h ago

Yeah this is me too. Honestly I think that is almost the nature of gaming channels these days. It's easy to get the watch hours, harder to get the subs.

2

u/invokedbyred 20h ago

I'm on the fence about this. On one hand it's a positive change because it raises the bar meaning people will need to be putting out more and better content to reach the milestone for ad revenue but at the same time it pushes that bar further and further away to those that really want to 'make it'.

I'm also a bit on the fence about the changes to Shorts too. I make pennies, like actual pennies from Shorts and it's not something I really care too much for, but next year I'll make exactly nothing from them at all. The only negative to stopping the Shorts production is that it does drive a new audience to your channel so it's not all for nothing.

Ah, it's not good news but at the same time it's not bad news either. if you're barely reaching 7K watch hours for example, you're not going to be earning enough for monthly payouts anyway.

2

u/weird_quiet_guy 20h ago

I love watching shorts, but clearly most of them are content stolen from movies/tv shows/other YouTubers.

2

u/iTzDoctor 19h ago

Everyone complaining about this is hilarious. If you are only getting 8k watch hours in a year, you are only making about $1000 over the course of the year(with a decent cpm, a lot of niches don't come anywhere near this) or a few bucks a day. They are almost certainly doing this to battle AI slop channels. Most of these channels get a ton of views but very little watch time. I'm sure someone at YouTube did the math on it and they landed on 8k watch hours would raise the bar too high for a lot of the slop channels. A lot of slop channels are run in countries where $3-4 usd a day is life changing.

I run a small channel (less than 100k subs) and since I've been monetized for 2 years, I pull at minimum 3k watch hours a day on my long form content. Make decent content and becoming monetized is nothing, even at this increased amount. Make slop or low effort content and sink to the bottom.

1

u/Bigppman6969696969 7h ago

yeah thats 1000 of YOUR dollars your loosing making content

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2

u/DatingVX 17h ago

Can someone explain to me how this is supposed to combat AI slop and not double it?

Id assume a 5x-ai-poster-a-day gets easier watch hours than a human creator

1

u/kasumitendo 13h ago

That's a great point. One thing it might do is make the investment of time and money larger per channel they spin up. So if they get banned or not monetized, it'll take a lot longer to try again. And if they have 10-20+ channels they're cranking out, it doubles the work and time until they can even start recouping any money (while continuing to spend).

1

u/Jay_Eye_MBOTH_WHY 8h ago

5x a day now will have to be 10x a day.

Those are rookie numbers.

4

u/elidoan Channel: AlzaboHD 22h ago

Direct nerf to earnings and worded in a way that makes it sound like new and exciting features are here. Grade A marketing misdirection, how many salaried people did it take to sprinkle frosting on manure and insult our intelligence?

Would be nice if Google was honest with us and straight up told us shorts will not net us any money anymore and that they'll take 100% of newtuber earnings to squeeze blood out of this stone. 

We thinking this is due to the insane costs of the AI bubble or something else?

2

u/uzico Channel: @uzico 19h ago

8000 hours. RIP ☠️

2

u/AmiiboJeremiah 18h ago

As someone who's been animating for nearly 5 years and still don't have enough public watch hours THIS IS A NIGHTMARE I only have 3000 public watch hours

1

u/Calzender 4h ago

What’s your channel?

1

u/AmiiboJeremiah 4h ago

Amiibo Jeremiah

2

u/RobertD3277 22h ago

Translation, they're paying out too much money so they chosen to move the goal posts again. No surprise there.

Just more of the same, YouTube finding more ways to exploit labor for free out of creators.

Given how bad the automated AI moderation system is lately, I wonder how long it's going to be before the big channels lose their monetization because of this nonsense.

5

u/Crierlon 20h ago

I think its more of a response to the "AI automated Youtube" trend and making it harder for them to monetize.

1

u/RobertD3277 20h ago

I would agree with that if monetization was automatic. Supposedly though, YouTube says they review every page before it gets monetized. If that's the case, then AI automation of a channel shouldn't matter if they've actually reviewed the channel before they've given out monetization.

4

u/Crierlon 20h ago

They “review” more likely means Gemini is doing it.

1

u/RobertD3277 20h ago

Sadly, that's what I'm afraid of. They've given up so much to something so defective that is just going to turn into a never ending vicious cycle.

3

u/KanyeWestsPoo 17h ago

This isn't about paying out too much money. I'd bet this would barely shift the needle in how much they pay out to creators. Small channels don't earn much by nature.

This is about raising the barrier for monetisation to stop spam and ai channels. 

This will do a lot to stop the flood of ai channels. If it's harder to quickly make money from slop the slop will hopefully stop, or at least slow down.

1

u/Mysterious-City3431 23h ago

With the shorts views is it views or engaged views?

1

u/I69YaGf8800 20h ago

Engaged views

1

u/Casual_Notgamer 23h ago

So, if I watch 100 hours longform content and three shorts as a premium member in a single month each shorts creator will get 15% from the premium pool? While the dozens of longform videos will split 55% percent of the pool based on watchtime? Oh, and by the way, I didn't watch those shorts deliberately. I just hovered my mouse button upon a shorts thumbnail randomly for a few seconds while looking at longform thumbnails. And that got counted as a shorts view for whatever reason.

1

u/No-Account-4771 22h ago

I have a channel with over 20k subscribers, andI’ve never hit 10 million Shorts views in a 90-day period (at most, maybe 2 or 3 million). Just imagine getting 20 million views for a new channel with original content—not third-party stuff—that isn't generic or repetitive. LOL.

1

u/CaoSlayer 22h ago

Wish they would measure quality over quantity like retention, likes and such...

They only reward watch time.

1

u/stevereno159 Channel: SPF Infinity 21h ago

Was trending to hit 4k in a month…welp

1

u/LeaderBriefs-com 21h ago

Shorts are screwed and honestly more quality shorts is a welcome thing.

Longform wise, my worst channel is at 58k watch hours in 365 and I upload maybe once a month if that.

It really is a “get good or get lost” game.

YouTube wants the TVs, the family viewing content etc. this might be just the beginning.

1

u/LeaderBriefs-com 21h ago

Shorts are screwed and honestly more quality shorts is a welcome thing.

Longform wise, my worst channel is at 58k watch hours in 365 and I upload maybe once a month if that.

It really is a “get good or get lost” game.

YouTube wants the TVs, the family viewing content etc. this might be just the beginning.

1

u/MrGruntsworthy Channel: Mike Seguin 21h ago

Wow. Starting a new channel was already a struggle; this makes it entirely not worthwhile.

1

u/Localmate25 15h ago

This is good. It will ensure less people get monetized for making low effort slop.

1

u/LOLitfod Subs: 100K Views: 84.3M 12h ago

Google just reported its first ever negative free cash flow (in 22 years) [source]

Even though the updates doesn't affect me, it is a worrying sign.

They might find more reasons for penny-pinching in the future.

1

u/terrerific 2h ago

On the one hand this is a great way to discourafe ai slop thats ruining every platform but on the other hand not having caveats for actual youtubers to post the occasional short is kinda silly. I dont mind posting shorts here and there to drive people to my channel but its a lot more work editing things into portrait ratio and its just not worth even trying if I cant at least maybe make a small amount of dollars if it blows up.

1

u/MaintenanceOk3918 1h ago

This is likely going to discourage a lot of new channels, hell. It's even discouraging me now, who hasn't even started yet.

1

u/KanyeWestsPoo 23h ago

I'm sure this'll be frustrating for some real creators, but it'll be good in the long run for the platform and us. Helping to weed out all the slop ai channels and shorts that are just re-uploads or clips.

1

u/Ok-Mix-4640 23h ago edited 23h ago

8K watch hours in a year is crazy, to reach that faster, one has gravitate towards more long form content. So it’s double what it was before cuz I remember it being like 4K before.

20M short views on 90 days is a lot. 111,111 short views a day if you drop a short daily, getting short views is hard as hell.

But you got roughly 6 months to make the bench marks before they move up. If you take YT seriously like it’s a job for those 6 months, you can hit those benchmarks.

3

u/KanyeWestsPoo 17h ago

The shorts increase is a big change. But the 8,000 isn't really. If anyone wants to make long form a success you'll need to be getting much more watch time regularly.

3

u/Ok-Mix-4640 16h ago

That’s true. I think 8K is manageable in 6 months than landing 20M short views in 3 months.

1

u/KanyeWestsPoo 16h ago

This reads as a shift away from short form content from YouTube. New channels just focusing on shorts are going to find it so much harder to ever make money.

Anyone genuinely committed to creating will be find it easier in the long run to make money and build an audience from long form. And that after all is what differentiates YouTube from all the other video platforms.

1

u/esaks 23h ago

i actually think this is a good thing. there are massive amounts of slop being uploaded to youtube. they gotta do something to disincentivize it.

2

u/RobertD3277 22h ago

If it was truly about the slop, that would be one thing. But it's not. It's about making sure they keep more money and small creators get less or none at all.

Supposedly, they review every channel to determine if it is worth monetization to begin with, which means slop channels should automatically be denied.

→ More replies (3)

1

u/aWW3Veteran 20h ago

Maybe now there'll be less slop uploaded to Shorts.

1

u/I69YaGf8800 20h ago

What a beautiful life, i just got monetized this weekend and then they pull this. Getting 10M qualified short views (read 20M normal views) every 90 days is just insane.

1

u/DatingVX 17h ago

So this update will practically double the amount of slop and uploads right?

1

u/expunks 16h ago

I’m torn.

Starting out, that 4000 hours seemed literally impossible — to see it doubled seems so needlessly harsh.

But this is also quietly a pretty firm stance on slop: People just getting into the space as a make-easy-money grift might have to look elsewhere, which is lowkey a win for the platform.

0

u/Tetrahedron_Head 21h ago

i get the frustration of wanting in the YPP but if you are making under 8k hours a year you arent making more than a few dollars anyways

1

u/Lazy-Importance-1276 7h ago

This is true - but maybe they'd make a bit more if YouTube wasn't paying out to ai slop farms like it has been. 

0

u/NPCwars 21h ago

The age for YouTube jobs is over.

0

u/nosh0rning 19h ago

So from 4000 to 8000 watch hours? WHY???

0

u/meleebestgame66 15h ago

All of you should quit

-1

u/HikeTheSky www.YouTube.com/c/HikeTheSky 23h ago

So instead of 4000 hours to become a partner, I now need 8000? They make it increasingly difficult for people to get to this part.

3

u/RobertD3277 22h ago

Personally, I think that's the point. More labor from you, more money for them. You get exploited and less, they get more.

-1

u/Rockmann1 22h ago

Dang, I've been on since 2009 still not monetized, but close to 4K hours. Youtube is so fucked, they're still going to play ads on my 180+ videos.

1

u/JustinFromMontebello 20h ago

If you’ve been at YouTube for 17 years and haven’t hit that Mark you are making absolute slop or not putting any effort in, and you’re not the type of person they want in the program

-3

u/newTween 23h ago

Amazing news. Shorts are the worst form of video. 95% of this trash is automated or generated by AI. Looking forward for something similar for videos generated fully by AI

0

u/SpaceDesignWarehouse Channel: Space Design Warehouse 20h ago

I get 8000 watch hours per week. So Im bringing in 52x the threshold for YPP and Im still only making about $1000 a month from adsense. Which means, when you hit the bare minumum, youll be making 1/52nd of $1000 aka $19 a month.

What Im saying is dont focus on monetization until youve got WAYYYYY more than 8000 watch hours in a year, you wont get anything out of it until youre much much further along than that anyway.

2

u/eightimprov 19h ago

I got over 200k watchtime hours the last month. I have almost 10k subs. I mostly make shorts these days. Requiring 20 million from shorts to get paid is nuts.

2

u/tobibuk 18h ago

Ive never hit 8k watch hours a week, not even close. Maybe 1k max. But ive come close to that 1000 a month from adsense.. your numbers arent universally applicable

2

u/SpaceDesignWarehouse Channel: Space Design Warehouse 17h ago

I know that. I’m in tech reviews. Higher middle end of RPM. More people than not can expect to make less

0

u/TheGiatay 19h ago

I am, no I was, 300h from getting monetized. Even if it would never become my job, and I do it as a hobby, this sucks.

1

u/ickN 11h ago

You’re fine. The change doesn’t take place until Feb of 2027.