Hey, what’s up?
Yesterday, I reached the YouTube monetization requirements to have ads on my videos, and that’s what I wanted to talk about today.
If you’re currently on that path as well, if you’re curious or if you’re simply wondering if it’s worth the time investment, then this could be for you.
1- YOUTUBE REQUIREMENTS
As of today, the YouTube requirements for monetization for ad revenue are 4000 watch hours and 1000 subscribers. There are other perks before that, but they are less intuitive. I think these requirements are slowly getting harder and harder to reach because so many videos are getting uploaded all the time and I feel like YouTube is ignoring the newer and smaller creators. Maybe that’s just me.
2- MY JOURNEY
If you look at my oldest videos, you’ll see that my first video was on November 22, 2022. That’s actually not true. In reality, I posted my video in May 2022 a bit more than 2 years ago.
I actually deleted most of my very early videos because they were some sort of tests. I found them of low quality and relevance. They were very random and not serious.
I deleted many videos that were not related to tech. Looking back, I think that was a mistake. Even if a video isn’t related to my field of expertise, I believe I should have kept them alive for the simple reason that they were part of my journey. Without the very first video that I deleted, I wouldn’t be here today years later, reaching monetization. It was part of my evolution.
When I started making these videos, I never thought about making money and monetization. Since early in my childhood, I’ve always watched YouTube videos. Watching videos on the Internet have always been an important aspect of my life. I started making videos because I thought it would be cool, and I had lots of free time. It just made sense at that time.
An important to keep in mind is that I was doing it for fun in my free time and when I had something relevant to talk about. I never considered it a full-time job, and I am not a video editing or anything. In fact, up to this point, I never made money from YouTube. It was some sort of hobby and I learned everything from scratch. I had other businesses that I was working on that actually made me money. Mostly print-on-demand and food delivery.
I started taking YouTube and video creation more seriously when a company first reached out to me asking for advices and recommendations. That actually blew my mind because at the time, I didn’t know it could be possible for me. Today, I can tell with confidence that it happens more and more frequently. I even get gifted things from time to time.
Script
If you look at my most viewed and popular videos, it’s often about Linux, Merch by Amazon, Print-on-Demand, business and free and open source. I will obviously keep making videos about those.
3- Monetization
When you meet the requirements, monetization from YouTube comes from ads. Now, personally, I hate and dislike ads. I always have an AdBlock extension enabled in my web browser that removes everything.
Even though you might now see ads in my videos and I might make money from them, I don’t recommend you to watch them. I think it’s a bad experience.
You should definitely use an ad blocker or watch my video elsewhere like PeerTube (that I will make available soon). I can live without showing ads. I’ve been doing fine so far.
4- OTHER PLATFORMS
Launched in 2005, YouTube was the first video platform where anybody could share anything they wanted. Today, it is very successful and owned by one of the biggest tech company: Google. Which, by the way, recently got accused of being an illegal monopoly. So yeah, very successful, but illegal and unethical.
That being said, since then, many other platforms and alternatives were built. I believe they also deserve recognition and attention, despite YouTube being the most popular video platform.
In particular, I first wanted to talk about Rumble, which I think is the closest competitor to YouTube. Rumble doesn’t have any monetization requirement. You simply upload your videos using the right license, and you can start getting paid right away. In fact, as of right now, I made a few dollars on Rumble from ads, which is technically more than I made on YouTube so far. You can check it out HERE.
Another platform that I wanted to talk about is PeerTube. PeerTube has a difference approach where you literally built your own video platform on your server or instance. That allows you to be in complete freedom and full control of your data, compared to platforms from corporations. You also get to enter the Fediverse. It requires a bit more technical skills, but you get to create and grow your very own video platform, leading to different rewards. So far, I created an account on Freediverse and I will be making my videos available there soon. If you want an ad-free experience, that will probably be the best place. You can check it out HERE.
4- WAS IT WORTH IT?
Honestly, I don’t know. I love creating videos and sharing the things that I do. From that perspective, I believe it was. From a financial perspective, probably not. I spent so many hours researching and editing my videos without receiving any monetary compensation from them. Was it worth it? Only the future will tell.
If you’re going to create videos, I would recommend that you obviously upload to YouTube because it is the most popular video platform. But please, also consider other ones. They could grow and become more valuable as time goes, making them worth it on the longer term. I named two of my favorites, but there are many others that you might want to consider, depending on your goals.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I reached the YouTube monetization requirements a little but more than 2 years into it. That being said, I was considering video creation as a hobby and something on the side. I was prioritizing other businesses that were paying me money and will probably still do.
If you’re into video creation, YouTube is definitely one of the most popular platform, but there are other ones that could worth investigating such as Rumble, PeerTube and many more.
Overall, I think it was worth because I love creating videos, being on the internet, using my computer and sharing the things that I do. I’ve been consuming videos on the internet since a very young age, and it just makes sense for me. From a financial perspective, only the future will tell if it was actually worth it, or not.
From now on, my videos on YouTube will have ad and will generate revenue for me. If you want to avoid those, I would suggest you to use an ad-blocker or watch my videos on PeerTube. They are not there yet, but I will make them available soon.
If you want to personally support me, you can go to my Patreon or Liberapay. It would be greatly appreciated.
So that’s pretty much it, I hope this was helpful to you. If this blog was valuable to you, you could consider following me on social media and if you have any thoughts or comments, you can leave them below.
I hope this helps, peace!
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