What YouTube’s New Monetization Policy Means for Creators
Smaller creators will be excited to learn that YouTube is making it easier for them to start monetizing their content. Let’s explain the details, what this change entails, who qualifies, and the creators who benefit most.
YouTube Makes Monetization More Accessible
As of June 13th, 2023, YouTube has expanded its monetization policy by adding earlier access to the YouTube Partner Program. Creators may qualify for fan funding if they meet the following criteria:
Specifically, this policy provides qualifying creators the following:
Ad Revenue Still Follows the Old Standards
While this news is fantastic for smaller creators for earning fan funding, the rules for monetization through ad revenue remain the same. A minimum of 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 watch hours within the past year or 10M public Shorts views within the past 90 days.
That said, creators who apply for early access to fan funding need not reapply when they qualify for full monetization.
Who Benefits the Most?
For many creators, ad revenue is the most sustainable form of monetization, as you don’t need to ask your community to financially support you. However, this new policy seems to especially benefit creators who primarily stream or create Shorts on YouTube.
Streamers tend to have high watch time relative to the number of followers or subscribers they have. On YouTube’s main competitor in streaming, Twitch, monetization is primarily through donations and paid subscriptions.
While Twitch has significantly lower requirements for its affiliate program, opening up channel memberships (the YouTube equivalent toTwitch subscriptions) for creators with only 500 subscribers makes YouTube more competitive as an alternative to Twitch for smaller streamers.
As streaming educator Lowco notes, watch time on streams does count towards the 3,000 watch hour requirement.
Shorts creators also benefit, as they tend to earn many views relative to their subscriber count. TikTok’s creator fund has a minimum eligibility of 10,000 followers compared to YouTube’s new 500 for monetization.
With thegrowth of YouTube Shorts' popularity, it makes sense that YouTube is making changes to be a more competitive platform.
YouTube Becomes More Competitive
These policy changes seem to only benefit creators, especially those who stream or create Shorts. It seems YouTube has its eyes set on not just dominating long-form video, but also competing in streams and short-form content against the likes of Twitch and TikTok.
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