How YouTube’s New Monetization Rules Hit Small Creators

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YouTube just made two moves that change how creators get paid and how creators get judged. One raises the bar for monetization, especially on Shorts. The other quietly redefines a “view” so that a single autoplay frame can count, which sounds small until you think about social proof, sponsors, and what metrics creators will trust next.

We walk through the updated YouTube Partner Program thresholds and why the 8,000 watch hours requirement may be survivable for long-form channels that keep improving. The real gut punch is Shorts monetization: qualifying engaged views and maintenance targets can wipe out the “bonus income” many long-form creators earned from clipping streams or posting occasional Shorts. We read a listener message that puts a real dollar amount on what disappears, and we talk about what that loss means for reinvesting in gear, editing, and growth.

Then we dig into the view count change and the uncomfortable question it raises: if views inflate without intent, what does a view even mean now? We debate whether YouTube could ever hide views, how manipulation and “successful because it’s successful” behavior happens, and why analytics like retention and engaged views matter more than headline numbers. We also share a scary prediction about livestream mid-roll ads being pushed harder, plus a practical Q&A on starting a retro gaming channel with a clear, discoverable angle.

Subscribe, share this with a creator friend, and leave a review if our breakdown helps. What’s the next YouTube change you’re expecting?

Transcript

YouTube Takes Back Shorts Money

SPEAKER_01 0:00

YouTube encouraged me that you should take your life to me. From creators like myself who are primarily long form, they are kind of taking it away from me.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

It doesn't go from like a thousand dollars a year to five hundred dollars that you're giving you a pay cut, they're just straight up cutting it. Our two million subscriber channel, even though we put up shorts all the time, will not hit what it needs to in order to stay monetized for shorts.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I think by like sometime between now and a year from now, I think, I don't want this, they're going to force streamers to have mid-rolls on their livestream, like

Welcome And The Big YouTube Changes

SPEAKER_01 0:33

it or not.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that has no idea what the heck's going on around here on YouTube. But we're going to talk about it anyway. I'm Travis and I'm here with Dan, the favorite team. Everyone apparently loves to see us together. Dan.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Thanks. That's you always know how to put a lot of pressure on me before we get started.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Well, because I feel like um the pressure's on everywhere. And for small creators, uh, you're definitely gonna want to listen in. If you miss, I'm sure all of you have heard the news. We're gonna talk about the news that what YouTube's been doing lately with the monetization and now with the view thing, and we're gonna maybe even speculate, maybe some other things they might do because I feel like everything's on the table right now. Every option that we've talked about, whether it's good, bad, and different, is on the table. So if you're new here, we're here to help you grow a YouTube channel today. We're gonna answer a couple questions that were sent in to us, but we're gonna talk about all the changes on YouTube and how they affect you. Like what's going on with YouTube? What is going on? Dan, let's quickly um talk about the two big changes that have happened over the last two weeks, and then let's start talking about it. What were the two big changes in case anyone missed it?

New Monetization Thresholds Explained

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So, first, they is oh, monetization. Yes, they've updated the monetization. And that means instead of 4,000 hours of watch time and 1,000 subscribers, you need 8,000 hours of watch time. And then for shorts, you need 20 million qualifying views, which is basically engaged views. That's just to get in, and then you have to maintain 10 million views every 90 days, which is, of course, I think out of all of the things they've done, that is the biggest change and the and the most I'd say terrifying one if you are somebody who makes shorts and you rely on any amount of income from those.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

And we're gonna actually hear a message about someone from someone about that exact thing. So, yes, that's the first big one. Monetization rules change. Now, um, for people who are doing long form, they were like, oh my god, 8,000 hours, that's so much big, bigger. But I counter, and but by the way, I'm not saying that YouTube's doing the right thing here, but I would counter by saying, you were gonna hit 8,000 watch hours anyway, right? If you're if you're actually hitting to 4,000, you were gonna hit 8,000, not that big of a deal. We were pulling some um some details uh because we have a ton of data. Um, I think it's still in the process of getting kind of worked through, but we you know, one of the things I had asked uh of our engineering team and and stuff was how long does it take for a lot of creators to go from 4,000 to 8,000? And again, we have a ton of data here at VidIQ, and uh it wasn't that long. Uh there were some instances where it was it was under like three months, uh, but it depends, like that varies. So in fairness, if it took you a very long time to get the 4,000 and you're not maybe following some of the things we're telling you to do to get you know more views and stuff, then maybe it's gonna take you a long time. But for people who are constantly making that 1% uh increase and fixing their things that they're maybe not as good at and making their videos better, it doesn't take that long. So for me, I look at it as an unfortunate thing. Yes, it will be longer. For most creators that are doing the right jobs, it will not be twice as long.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

I don't think so either. I I think what you'll find uh if and when you hit 4,000, assuming you keep up with it, a lot of people have said, I'm quitting. Uh I don't know if that'll ask or not. I hope they don't quit. But if you keep up with YouTube, what you'll find is that once you get over these various hurdles that are in front of you, these arbitrary numbers, 4,000 hours of watch time, it's not that it gets easier because it magically gets easier. It gets easier because you're learning. And that's why when people start like their fourth channel, right? Maybe their fourth attempt at YouTube, you'll notice that they grow a lot faster because they just have more experience under their belt. So that really is why it gets easier. And you know, I've seen channel, my own channel, like when I was like inactive on it, but I had uploaded a lot. I was getting uh I looked at my like 90-day thing, or maybe it was 28 days. I don't know. I was getting like 40,000 hours of watch time, and that was like without trying. And it's just because that was like a lot of my hard work from the past, kind of continuing to pay off while I took a break. Uh, it's just you know, you will get to that point and then you'll go, wow, I was why was I ever worried about this? And you'll be jaded just like us.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Right. And the other thing is um, you know, for it depends on what type of content you're doing as to how long it'll how many videos it'll take, because some people do three-minute videos. Well, the watch time on a three-minute video, if you're really good, is about one and one and a half to two minutes. So that takes a lot longer to get to that many hours. If you're doing a 10 or 20 minute long video and you're able to get like seven or eight or nine minutes of uh watch time, average view duration, it's not gonna take as long. So that there's a lot of um variables when it comes to this. It's not just a standard, oh, it's gonna take you twice as many videos or anything like that, it varies. Um yeah, so just don't feel crestfallen about it. Also, we have the race to 4K that we're helping out here at VidIQ. Make sure you check out the uh primary um vid iQ YouTube channel. By the way, if you're l watching uh on the YouTube channel or listening to audio only podcasts, Dan and I have gone live twice for these breaking news things, including once on for the first time ever on the podcast channel. You might have seen that in your alerts if you're what if you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. So if you're listening to Audio Only a podcast, hit that subscribe button on the YouTube channel so that when we go live next time that there's a big news event, and there will be at some point, you'll be able to be on the live stream and give your feedback. Because we actually answered some questions from the from the channel as or from the the live stream as well. But that was about the second thing. Actually, we went live on this second thing. What was that, Dan?

Views Now Count On First Frame

SPEAKER_01 5:50

So that was by the time you listen to this, it's probably the switch has probably been flipped. Uh, that was the change that YouTube has implemented, whereby views now count when someone sees the first frame of your video. And there's been a little more clarity around this. Basically, we're talking mostly about autoplay. If you're scrolling on your phone or you're using your mouse to scroll over videos on desktop, videos will start to play. That used to not count as a view. I assume if you watched a certain percentage of the video, it would count as a view. Now it's going to count as a view. Now, that is not an engaged view. We're going to have engaged views for long-form videos, just like we do for shorts. But we speculated at the time during that podcast, and as I've had time to like really stew on this now that I've like stopped reacting to it in real time. Um, I think I said like 20%. It probably goes up like 20%. I think it's probably even less than that. I I don't think this is going to have that much of an impact on publicly available views. Of course, it does mean that the publicly avail publicly available views could be manipulated a lot easier than they could be in the past, but that also assumes that YouTube is throwing away its detection system for fake views, which I don't think is what they're doing. So anyway, that's like the big, that's the synopsis of the next big change. Uh much, much uh smaller than the monetization one.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

To be very, very, very clear, is as soon as one frame of your video is shown to someone, it's considered a view now, which is not the way it was done before. Um, you know, sometimes you'll click on a video and quickly click out like, oh, I didn't want to watch that. That usually didn't count as a view. It does now. I've seen people ask, well, well, is this gonna uh affect click-through rate? It shouldn't affect it, not in the way you would think, because a click-through means you've actually clicked through. It has nothing to do with the view. What you might see is more views per percentage click-through rate, because what now when you're like hovering over, you get the view even though they didn't click. So that might do it. But again, to what Dan's saying, probably not a huge number. I don't know how many people it would be nice to know if they were doing this, like, well, then just break out how many of those were hover clicks. Because I don't think of these numbers, the vast majority are going to be someone who clicks in for half a second and clicks out. I don't think that's where the big number of this is gonna be. I think the percentage of whatever this is is mostly hover, to your point. Um, which is not it's hard to know how significant it is. Um, this would be primarily on the home page. You might see a little bit in search, maybe, but I think it's gonna be primarily on the home page when someone just kind of scrolls over. I know sometimes I'll watch the first five seconds by hovering over it. I know a lot of people do this now. Um and that now counts as a view, but not as a click-through. So this is a lot of people, and a lot of people panicked about all these. There's so many things going. That's two weeks, these two huge things. I think one's less big, that this this count thing is less big, but from the perspective of a creator and what you would think that the platform stands for, it's a big thing. Because you, you know, you want people to actually watch the video before you count it as a view. It's not like, oh, I saw a blip of a pixel, and now that's a view. No one who's a content creator thinks that that's a view. You nothing that you did was seen by the viewer. Why would you think that's a view? That's one thing.

Shorts Monetization Decoupling Fallout

SPEAKER_00 8:52

But the monetization thing has hit a lot of small creators very hard. And again, one of the things that you need to do in shorts to keep, because at once upon a time, which is now, as of now anyway, until February, you were able to have as soon as you made monetization, you made it for both. You made it for long form and short form. So if you just threw up a couple shorts every once in a while, you were gonna make some shekels from that. A little bit of money here and there. It was great. You didn't have to do, you didn't have to get the 10 million views from shorts, you just got it through long form. Next year, it's basically being decoupled. Basically, you have to keep them both going in some way, shape, or form. Uh-uh. I'm not, I'm just not gonna do it. Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. I think that's what most people are gonna say. Like, uh-uh. So for so just for people who don't know and maybe haven't understood this, when you get monetized, um, I think you I think if you get monetized long form, you still originally do you initially get the short form too? Like now?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Or I think so. I mean, I was I was monetized, then shorts came around, uh, you know, monetized before shorts were really around. Uh, and then I could make shorts uh once the revenue started after after they got over that part where it was like, oh, we have like a pool and we're gonna be up the money, you know, based on how many views you get. Once they made a proper ad monet ad-supported monetization, I was automatically just grandfathered in.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, so the change like we were talking about earlier is if you don't make a lot of videos that do very well in shorts, you're now not going to be paid for that. You can be monetized on long form, but not on short form. Currently, and for those who aren't monetized, you don't know, you can be monetized on both and get paid for both, even if you don't regularly show up uh upload a lot of shorts. But next year, that's not going to be the case. And as a matter of fact, someone wrote in about this. Let's talk about that. Um, we have two different ways you can write in. Of course, there's the boost at vidik.com. That's an email. And of course, you can text in if you're listening to Audio Only Podcast. There's a link in the show notes. And this one came in from our text. So if you're watching YouTube, you can see the text here. Hey Travis, the news about shorts for 2027 hit me hard. I'm not big enough, I'm not a big enough channel to hit the criteria they have planned for next year. With multiple kids and a busy life, I post as much as I possibly can. Here's a screenshot of how much I made on shorts in the last year. It's not a small amount of money, and it will hurt not having it. You can share the number. $1,765. Now, of course, over a course of a year, not a tremendous amount of money. And after tax is not a tremendous amount, but guess what? It's basically free money. Even if this was $75, if someone's saying, you can do the same stuff next year, I'm not giving you that $75 again. That sucks tremendously. And for this creator, they now were, you know, they were sprinkling a short, we'll probably stop doing shorts unless they just want to do it for fun. That is not an it, it's not an insignificant amount of money, no matter how you cut it. Because if someone said, I'm gonna give you $1,700 to make some short videos, uh, I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

That is $147 a month, give or take. And after taxes, depending on where you live in the world, that's that could just be your internet bill. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Absolutely. Hello, like literally paying for something. Um, and uh it's a shame that it's being taken away. And I don't they say it's to keep up with the growth of the of the YouTube says that it's to keep up with the growth of the uh platform. I don't understand how that makes sense. They also say that they're going, they expect to pay out more next year than they did this year. I would argue they were probably gonna do that anyway because YouTube keeps growing. So saying that, I don't want to hate on YouTube, but yeah, you were pro just because the platform keeps growing, you were gonna spend out more next year anyway. So, what is this? Oh, we're gonna pay out to creators more next year than this year. Okay, of course you were. But do you mean substantially more with these changes? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, in the same breath, they kind of alluded to the fact that, you know, premium lights coming, we're gonna have more shopping, this and that. I I guess it's just kind of, yeah, you're right. Like the way they kind of word that, it really, it really does seem like it's so easy for them to say that because they have been paying more. Shorts monetization when it first came around was fractions of pennies. It was laughable when you looked at your analytics. It's like, well, this will never amount to anything. And then we finally started getting RPMs that were like pretty decent. Like, okay, for shorts, yeah, this is great. And I gotta say, like, something that felt really awesome about making shorts on YouTube was the fact that even though I wasn't earning a lot from them, it was cool that a short that does objectively like not great by comparison, like to the stuff that's really viral. Like, we're talking like if I had a short that got like 30,000 views, that's pretty good for me, but in the grand scheme of things, terrible, like compared to uh the shorts people are actually sharing. I still made some money off of that. And if I had enough of those, you know, I'm like the creator that emailed you, like hey, extra like 500 bucks, thousand bucks. This is awesome for the for the year, you know. Like, just for doing a thing I was already doing, and YouTube encouraged me. Hey, you should take your live streams and clip them into fun little shorts. Like, okay, YouTube, I you know, I got you. And they are like from creators like myself who are primarily long form, they are kind of taking that away from me. And so it's not that I'm trying to be like a jerk and say, well, then I'm taking my ball and going home. It's like, well, no, I'm just gonna take this, I'm gonna try and see a silver lining, take this as an opportunity and go, Great, I I appreciate that you feel like you need to do that. I'm just gonna focus on long form then because I'm probably gonna get ahead in the long run anyway. If I was just focusing on long form the whole time and not distracting myself with making shorts, then I probably would be better off anyway. So you are now giving me the kick in the pants that I needed to go do that. But it didn't have to be that way. And I don't know in a year from now, or not a year, but next year, like I don't know what the shorts feed is gonna look like when creators like me, it sounds like a lot of people feel this way, when creators like me leave the the shorts platform, but how like what how what kind of shift are we gonna see? You know, who who's gonna be left making shorts? Because I like it or not, this is free for you to watch, sure, but like it or not, for people to do this at the level they are doing it, especially the big, you know, the big channels and and even the medium-sized channels, getting paid for it is what enables them to do it.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah, and to be clear, like it doesn't go from like a thousand dollars a year to five hundred dollars. Not that they're giving you a pay cut, they're just straight up cutting it. Like you just straight up don't get it. And if you could even make $100 a month like this last creator, you can reinvest that into the channel. I've talked to so many people on the channel about like how did what did they do with their first couple paychecks? They're like, I reinvested it in the channel. Get a better camera, get a better mic, you know, maybe even outsource your big video to an editor to get like a really spicy video going up. Like, there's so many things you can do that with, and they've taken it away. And more than ever, even though YouTube always has wanted you to put every type of content on one channel, live streams, shorts, regular videos. Now they're basically saying, yeah, you can still do that. We're just not gonna pay you for all of them unless you're like a superstar. And what that does is it does leave more money left for the people who do continue to hit that bar because again, there's people are still gonna be uploading. There might be people, and by we've actually said this on the mainstream, uh the main channel, will not hit monetization numbers. I want you to understand this. Our two million subscriber channel, even though we put out shorts all the time, will not hit what it needs to in order to stay monetized for shorts. Our two million subscriber channel. That's crazy go nuts. It's crazy go nuts.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

It's hard to imagine, like, yeah, because that is what it is for us. It's like a thousand bucks a month, I think, right now. Like, give just at this time of the year, it's gonna fluctuate, obviously. But when we checked, or was it in 90 days? I got those filters again. It was still like I the number was like a thousand dollars, and I'm like, someone else is getting that thousand dollars. Someone has to be. Someone has to be. It's and that is is that how they imagine people make more money? Is because once channels like ours aren't, you know, in the pool, more the RPMs can go up because there's more money available. You know, there's more high-value real estate for advertisers now. The the people who are left making shorts are the ones who were pulling in the most views, so they're the ones who are gonna get all the reward. And yeah, I I just and I see it from this other perspective too of well, the way it worked, you know, before is it was incentivizing people to upload a lot of slop. And I'm sure content farms and things like that are are things that YouTube is is trying to figure out like how to like how how do we fix this? So I can see that being one of the fixes, but it also doesn't sit right with me that to fix the content farm thing, because that's a lot of people are taking solace that that's why YouTube is doing this, and we're kind of assuming that, right? Like you you were in a call with them. I don't think they outright said that. So a lot of people are drawing that conclusion. I don't it doesn't sit right with me. It kind of feels like, well, you wouldn't want to punish everybody for the actions of just a few people. Um that seems like pretty obvious. So I think there's more going on with that decision, and I don't know, I'm uh when it comes to businesses as big as YouTube, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend and back, you know, armchair executive them or anything like that. But I can as a creator express my deep disappointment in that, but at the same time encourage people like, well, hey, here's the silver lining to this.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

And again, the my of all the things, the the counts probably have the least like overall impact. And I know this is gonna be a hot take, but I think also the 8,000 watch hours not quite as big of an impact as this shorts thing. I'll give you an example. Um, I just interviewed, and you know, you can watch on the YouTube channel if you've missed it, or listen to audio-only podcast of a homeless YouTuber who, to your point, like he had an existing channel where he kind of learned how uh to not well, not to not do things. He had a decent YouTube channel, averaging like a thousand, two thousand views, maybe a little bit less sometimes. He actually listened to this podcast, he was a listener of this podcast and heard the Nomad Push interview um like a year or so ago when I did that, and then started a new channel when he came back to America and he was uh monetized in two weeks. Uh, as a homeless guy, hello, doesn't have a home, and he managed to get monetized in two weeks. You have no so he just does it on his phone. You have no excuse. If you have a home and a phone, you're already ahead of what this guy has. He still does not have a home. Um, really awesome interview, by the way. Make sure you check that out. So I I don't feel as though of the impacts of these three things, if I had to rate them, the most impact is actually shorts, I believe. The second most impact would be then, of course, long form 8,000. And then I think finally the views, uh, I I think some people look at that as a as a just a plus altogether, like, oh, it's just a plus, I just get more views. I mean, you do, but you don't, but okay. So that's the way I rate

What A View Means Now

SPEAKER_00 19:24

these. I don't know about you, but that's that's how I rate them.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah, I'm I'm in agreement. I'm definitely in agreement. And I to the point of like, well, I get more views with the other update. Like, yeah. Yeah, I mean, what is a view now? That's what worries me is, you know, I I hope that people don't try to see this as some way to like inflate their social proof or something like that. Because what what what that could, you know, now now I'm like scared of the slippery slope thing, right? Like what this could lead to is YouTube hiding view counts altogether. That's what I was about to say next. And I I I I know you I think you're you're in favor that I'm not. I like seeing views, I like to I like the social proof of it all. And I also just like to see like it it helped. It just helps me as a YouTuber understand that like that topic did really well for them. And I know that that's probably not how YouTube wants people to think about things, but that's just how we do it. That's just that's just how we think about things. That video did well, and I actually have a take on that exact same thing. Maybe it's the opposite take. I'm not it's not about copying their video, I'm literally just seeing what people what are what's resonating with people and reacting to it. That's just how the internet works, you know. When things trend, it's because they have lots of likes or views or whatever that might be. So I don't know. It's just it's imagine a world where videos are trending on YouTube and you have no way of knowing like why they're trending, the views are hidden, and so it's like, is this trending? Remember back in the day with like talk shows and things like that, people were like really suspicious that they were colluding with YouTube because why are they always in the trending feed? And and regular creators aren't. And that was like a whole argument. Like, are we gonna go back to that place with hidden views where people are like, gosh, like there's a lot of clips from these really big entities, and it feels like small creators can't make it, and we don't even know how they're actually doing, and then it's conspiracies everywhere because we can't see the views. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

I'm just well, I mean, you pulling a lot of different weird threads here, but but the thing is you can buy views, you can buy engagement. So I I again I'm not heavily I feel like a video should be able to stand on its own. Thumbnail, title, topic, boom. I shouldn't I shouldn't be influenced, although I am too because I'm a human in what the view number is. And I said this on a previous podcast. Sometimes videos get successful because they're successful, not because they're good. And that happens a lot. Someone will look at a video thumbnail, about to click something else and go, wait a minute, this has three million views. Let me just click it. Why are people like they don't have an interest in it? It just has three million views. So it's successful because it's successful. And I don't believe in that as like a good thing. I don't think it's a good thing. That's why I love the idea of being able to hide views and subscriber numbers and just let the video stand on its own. Just let it stand on its own. And sometimes in certain uh devices and platforms, when they're doing testing, some of that stuff has already been done. They've hidden different things, views and stuff. Just I think they're testing it, right? I actually, it's funny because you were saying that this might lead to that. I actually think this leads to the opposite. I think it keeps them, it makes them further away from ever hiding views because then now the numbers are inflated. So of course they're going to want to show it. This is their version of hiding views, kind of. Yeah, but not. Like it's it's it I think it does the same thing that it they were doing with the the the shorts count when that changed originally from engaged views to whatever the hell it is now. Um, and it's just like we have the bigger number, we better. Big number, good, we better. And yeah, that that's true.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

There is a there they have a vested interest in the numbers being visible as well. Yeah, exactly. They're competing with a couple other platforms.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

So that makes sense. And for a while, like I said in the live stream, this is gonna be great for larger creators or creators my even my size with sponsors, because now my video is gonna look like it's doing a lot better than it is. Uh, and sponsors like to see the big number. So, I mean, they would prefer to see people buy their product, but sometimes they don't even care. They just want the exposure. And it's um it's really interesting because this is it's it's for me, it's I understand that they're saying they want to keep everything the same. They want because it was weird to have shorts counted one way and long forms counted another. I get that. But I just think they shouldn't have jumped that that they shouldn't have gone there in the first place, shouldn't have gone there and made it just as soon as someone sees something that's a view. Because in what way is that I'm like, I dare you to have someone look at a frame of a video and then tell, say, hey, okay, we're gonna quiz you on what this video was about. And they're like, I don't know what it was about. I saw uh one pixel. I don't know what this it's like, well, then is that what I spent hours making this video about? Like, is that make me feel like it was seen? I just don't, I just don't feel and this this is not about feeling. I I get it, it's a business, and you need to make the number big number mean good, is where we're at on this.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I I tried to make this point on the live stream the other day, and I think I was just like still reacting to everything and didn't get it across. Maybe I can say it more clearly now, but back in the day, like YouTube was the one that decided in the first place to make it so you had to watch like a percentage of the video or whatever it is to detect a view. Like, it doesn't just detect a view because you watched one frame of the video, and YouTube is the one that decided this is something we should probably do, right? Like you're the ones who made us care about this in the first place. And I I just I don't know. I think it's just is it history that's gonna repeat itself? Do they have to relearn this lesson of what happens when public view counts are so sensitive to you know manipulation? And we'll probably learn that well, it's different now because they have tools to better detect that manipulation. And either way, I just I just find it so odd that they would implement this. And it's odd that they would do this. It's also odd that people care so much because it really I the effect of it should be very minimal uh to public views, but all of it's just very weird. And it's gonna be a good thing. So what's next?

Prediction: Forced Livestream Mid-Rolls

SPEAKER_01 25:03

What is next? What is the next thing you think they might actually do? Okay. I don't know what the next thing they're gonna do is, but I had a prediction just before the live stream today, all right, and I'll tell you what this is. I think by like sometime between now and a year from now, I think, and I don't want this, they're going to force streamers to have mid-rolls on their live stream, like it or not. And I think this because for like almost a year now or something, I've been streaming on YouTube a lot. They have a banner that pops up whenever you're about to go live. It's in your creator studio, and it's like, hey, did you know if you turn on ads, you can make it's always worded a little differently, like you could make 20% more income, you could do this, and it's trying to entice you to just hit a button and it's like, don't worry, we'll take care of the ads while you're live. So I tried that one time. I'm like, sure, you keep bugging me about this, let me try it. Every single time an ad break showed up, I lost viewers. And by the time my stream finally climbed back to where it was when I when the initial ad played, another ad would play, and I lose them again. And so I'm like, well, never mind this. And Twitch has this now. Twitch has mid-rolls. You can you can do very, very little to manipulate ads on your live streams on Twitch, but there's a big difference on Twitch. If someone subscribes to a specific streamer, ads go away. And it is that's the exchange. Like I subscribe to my favorite streamer, I get to support a creator I like, and I don't have to watch ads. That's cool. As streamers, we have memberships, and that's where you get the majority of your new members' live streams, but they do not get the same perk. The only way you get rid of ads is premium or premium light. Ironically, Twitch also has Twitch Turbo, which allows you to, for very cheap by comparison, get rid of all the ads on Twitch, and you don't have to subscribe to a single individual streamer. So both of those things exist on Twitch side by side, but YouTube won't do that. And so therefore I've decided I'm not going to roll mid-rolls on my stream while it's live because I keep losing viewers and they don't seem to feel like they have a way to get like recourse from that. If I could say, hey, if you become a member, you get rid of the ads, maybe I can create that relationship with them. But that's not the tools I've been given. So I'm not doing that. Now, the reason I say this is like coming around today is because we streamed today, on the day we're recording this. I see the banner pop up. You know what I don't see? A little X to make it go away. It could have been a visual bug, it could have just been, you know, could just be a bad day. Uh, YouTube's been having weird visual bugs in the studio the last couple days for me. So maybe, maybe. But it doesn't surprise me. I don't even know where the little X would have been the way the banner was designed. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like the next step. Now this banner is sitting here the entire time we're live asking us in the background to please turn on the ads. And I gotta say, as a streamer, it's it that's a that's a very sensitive topic. We don't want ads interrupting in the middle of a live stream unless we choose to do it. We we like to be able to hit a button and say, hey, I'm gonna go take a quick break. Um, please leave the ads running, it supports me, blah, blah, blah. Like we like to have that relationship, and that's how I like to use it. I've asked my viewers, hey guys, um, do you mind if I run ads? I've run a poll, like, and people actually say, okay. Like they, and I've gotten comments appreciating that I even asked. And that's the kind of relationship I want to have with my viewers when it comes to ads on streams. But that's my big scary prediction. I don't think it's the next thing they do, but I do think it's coming because we've just been like moving in this direction where YouTube is just finding more ways to kind of monetize. And that's the one I'm most afraid of. And I know when you speak your fears out loud, that's that's definitely how they never come true, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

If you're watching this on YouTube, put in the comments what do you think the next thing that's going to happen on YouTube is heck, it might happen next week. I put it, I floated the uh the conspiracy theory that you know most companies when they have large um announcements, they do them week by week, a lot of times to keep them in the news cycle, but also sometimes to spread over the potential pain. Uh, I would not be surprised if there's another announcement next week. I'm not saying there is, but I would not be surprised if there was. Um that's got that's the only thing I'm gonna

Retro Gaming Channel Strategy Q&A

SPEAKER_00 29:03

say. Um, if you want to send us a message, whenever Dan and I or Rob and I get on here, you know, we can answer some questions. You can send an email to theboost at vo.q.com, and this one came through on email from Colton. Hey Travis, I don't know if you guys still answer emails in your podcast videos anymore. Well, we do. Uh, but I had a question about what to do when starting a new channel from the ground up in a niche I'm really interested in. I really want to make videos on retro games from the N64 and PS2 to Xbox 360 and even old web uh browser games. But I don't know how or where to start. Would it be better to start in a broader niche, retro games, see what does well, or and hone in on whatever niche topic does better, for example, PlayStation 2 games, or start within a sub-niche like PlayStation 2 games, and uh once my audience has grown to a good size, start experimenting in a broader niche? This is a great question, and I'm glad Dan is here. I'm sure he'll have a lot of thoughts about this since this is a passion of yours. I also have a passion for retro video games. A lot of people don't know that. You might have seen the arcades in my background in the case.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

You would have if you didn't take away all the arcade machines.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

I yeah, I only got two left because I've thought I was trying to move. But um, I'm passionate about this too. I I have some thoughts about this, but Dan, what are your thoughts about he wants to start a brand new channel? He likes, he loves retro, and he's just not sure if he should start super niche or broad. I think my what I'm gonna say is probably not what most people think. Go ahead and uh tell us what you think.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

Uh I'm gonna go, I might go in a direction that this this creator is like, what he's not even answering the question. This is not what I asked, but uh, we'll see. I like okay, so right now I'm following a few different channels that are like really scratching that itch for me as a viewer. There's one channel I've told you about. Um, it's called Memory Card. This guy is rebuilding his PS2 collection with zero dollars. That's the pitch of the entire channel slash series that he's doing. He's already been on YouTube for a while. He's got a much larger channel where he like converts vans and things like that. So he's he knows what he's doing. Super fun to watch. Um, if you just type in like um memory card uh PS2, it'll pop right up. And what I love about it is just how story-based it is. He, you know, he starts the series by talking about how he, you know, what you know, he was in the uh, I don't want to get the branch wrong. He's in the army uh or you know, in the military, I don't know what branch. And you know, when he came back, he, you know, it's time to rebuild his game collection. I guess some I can't remember. He says he says what happens. It's been a long time since I saw the first episode. Anyway, uh it's been quite the journey because now he's back and he's ready to rebuild this, and he's trying to buy retro games from all these different sources. So each video, he's like, today I'm gonna check out some garage sales, or I'm going to this thrift store I heard about. And the videos are are a good length and they tell good stories. And then he's he learned that he can repair consoles and flip them for more money. The zero dollars thing is him like getting a really good deal and then turning around, flipping it to buy the thing he actually wants. And it's all focused on PS2 because that was the thing he decided to collect. So you could go that route of the collecting angle, or you could go the route of the other channel. Um, shoot, I can't remember their name, but uh, this channel is trying to beat every N64 game. And I think they're called like I'll pull them up in the background here. That is their thing. So they're playing retro games, but you know, if you just played a random N64 game, that's not going to get you the views, right? You know, today I'm playing Blast Corpse. Like, that's or is it Blast Corp? That's not gonna get you the views. Uh, but everyone knows what an N64 game is. So beat every N64 game, uh, you're gonna have a much more clear value proposition. They're called the The Beast, the with an A, uh, 721. And they have all these videos that are about 15 to 20 minutes long where they're beating every N64 game. That's the title, and then they have the name of the game, Turok Rage Wars, and then they have the number. They're on right now, their latest one was 251 out of 394 games. So they're committed, and they they stream it and they do, there's live right now, actually. They they're just like fully committed to this. So, my my pitch to you basically, after saying all that, is find yourself an angle. Don't worry about the niche of the type of game. It might help to go into a console and call that your niche or or even a manufacturer like Nintendo or Sony, but I would say find your unique way of playing retro games because if you just do let's plays on games that are 100 years old, like no one's searching for that, and you can't rely on search. But if you find a novel way to bring these games into a relevant conversation, such as there's Grand Theft Auto 6 coming, so you went back and played every Grand Theft Auto game. Like that would be kind of what I would do. Is it the that's there you go? That's three different ideas, three, three completely different tracks you could take. But uh, all of those I think are very watchable and discoverable.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Absolutely. And I think um uh I guess for my answer, I would say, believe it or not, I would say do a little bit broad. I I love what Dan said because it actually does make sense. You need your own angle, you need to be have a unique angle, and that channel he's talking about where he's trying to re recreate it with no that's a fantastic idea. That it's always about the idea. So definitely start there. I would start wider in retro just because you don't know what's gonna pop off. Like you could assume that like maybe Zelda games or whatever are just gonna pop off or N64 games, and then you try that for a year, nothing comes off. And the very first Xbox 360 video you do pops off. You're like, I could have been doing that for the entire year. That's why I think maybe in your particular case, start retro with the angle that Dan

Eligibility Window And Closing Advice

SPEAKER_00 34:25

said. Um okay, before we go, I do want to do something that I don't normally do. I'm gonna uh look at some of the comments because there's been some great comments on the podcast channel lately. And this one came from the last time you and I were on uh Dan. So I'm gonna real quick share my screen to show you uh one of those questions. And this one comes from uh 64 Square official. I'll make that a little bit bigger. Uh I restarted uploading videos to my channel in June, but with the most recent changes uh expected to come into effect for 2027, this is the monetization we were talking about. I have a doubt about how YouTube will calculate the one-year eligibility period. For example, if my channel is not monetized by February 1st of 2027, how will the 20 the 12-month watch hour requirement be calculated? Will YouTube consider the watch hours accumulated from June, meaning I would need to start the requirement by June 2027? Well, I have to start from February 1st, 2028 to reach the required out. I think he's overcomplicating this. It's 12 months. So on February 1st of 2027, it's 12 months behind you. So if you make eight, and by the way, if you you have right now, as of what we're doing this, we're doing this in August. He's got 753 subscribers, he's almost at the subscriber goal. There's no reason he can't get um monetized this year and not have to worry about this at all. I I believe 64 Square official, if you're starting to upload now, there's no reason if you're doing the right things and following some of the things we tell you, there's no reason you wouldn't be monetized and you won't even have to worry about the answer to this question. But the answer to this question is it's 12 months behind you. So basically, you know, a year from February last year when it gets to February.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

It's a moving window. Every every day, you know, it's it's just moving along with you. So that's that's the way to think about it. It's not like, oh, the 12 month starts in January every year, except now it's moving to February, uh, which I can see why that would be a little confusing. Yeah, it's not a calendar year, it's yeah, it's 365 days. So yeah, you you need to get 4,000 hours between 12 months from now and today.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

We're doing hashtag 12 months behind you and today.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

12 months in the past, so you know, back to the future. Uh we're doing uh hashtag race to 4K for all of you trying to grow your YouTube channel, and some of the advice we've given you here, and then other things on the podcast channel as well as the main channel are helping you grow and get to the 4,000 watch hours that you need. Of course, 1,000 subscribers you'll need as well. We can help you out with all those things. There'll be links in the description and the show notes for some of our tools. There's a special deal in there going on, all types of great things going on here at VidIQ. And y'all seem to love it when Nadan and I talk. Rob will be on an episode. We're changing up the cadence of like what videos go every week. So you'll be seeing more of myself, Dan, and Rob, I believe, from week to week, uh, with like uh uh, you know, an interview with a special guest um coming up. And there's some really cool guests that I have that I've recorded. Like I interviewed Legal Eagle, uh, I've I've talked to um I've talked to so many people, I've literally lost track. I think there's like 15 episodes that are actually already recorded and uploaded. So I don't remember. And some of them happened weeks ago, but they're ready to go, and you'll be able to watch them and listen to them. So if you're new here, feel free to hit that subscribe button. You're at the end, you might as well. You were going to anyway, so just go ahead and do it now, and we'll see y'all in the next one.