YouTube sent me a demonetization email - now what?
YouTube sent me an email informing me that they were demonetizing my channel because I haven't been posting any new content. I recently wrote about my decision to quit YouTube, even though I had 5700 subscribers and made some very good side income from affiliate sales.
Now most of you know you need 4000 hours of watch time and at least 1000 subscribers to get monetized. People put a ton of emphasis on this when they start a channel, but the truth is that if you don't have tens of thousands of views during the month, what you make from displaying ads during your videos is chump change.
My immediate gut reaction was I'd better throw up some kind of content on my now "dead" channel but I quickly checked that feeling. The last thing I wanted to do is get back into the YouTube rat race.
The other thing I'm really beginning to dislike is YouTube changing into just another cable TV channel. For example, try and find good, original content that isn't sponsored. I don't care what anyone says, when you start taking sponsorship money it has to color your views on a product.
I see this all of the time in the digital camera arena where every new product release goes to influencers who tell me they've received the product for free to review, but in no way does it influence their view on a product. If that's the case, why is EVERY review so glowing?
While I'd love to believe that, I used to do sponsored content. If you dump on some company's new product, trust me. It's pretty doubtful you'll be getting more items to review. So you find some way to spin negatives into positives.
I just resisted the urge to save my YouTube monetization status knowing I could spend the time I used to use for video creation to follow my real interests... writing, photography, drumming and just enjoying life on my terms. And I felt good about not letting YouTube pull me back into the content creation rat race.
Peace :-)