What has happened to YouTube? Thank goodness for DTube!

For several years I have thought of starting a YouTube channel. You see, I plan to retire in the Philippines in mid 2019. During the last couple of years I have enjoyed several YouTube channels about life as an expat in the Philippines. I had thought that when I retire, I can also start creating content and posting videos. Part of the draw has been with the ability to make a little bit of money while capturing events from our life in the Philippines as an American expat, my Filipina wife and our two small children.

I got an early start on this with my visit to the Philippines in the summer of 2017. I created about 40 videos during our visit. These videos were covering several topics ranging from reviewing our resort to several restaurant reviews to enjoying time with friends and family.

When I created the channel, I realized that before you can monetize your videos, you must have 10,000 lifetime views on your channel. That seemed pretty reasonable, because you will likely need over 100,000 monetized views before you can start seeing any payout. So I posted my videos and slowly started gaining views. I did this with the realization that I would not see any significant growth until I actually retire and can begin making Philippine Expat videos on a regular basis.

As I began to get close to the 10,000 views threshold, YouTube decided to change the rules and require a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and at least 4,000 hours of view time within a 12 month period. In addition to the new rules there seems to be a huge amount of videos that are being demonetized by YouTube for many of the creators that I follow. Based on the new rules and the massive demonetization, it seems YouTube is trying to drive out the smaller channels and discourage new start ups.

Moving forward, I really didn't know what I was going to do.

That is, until last week, when I stumbled across Steemit based on a comment in a YouTube video from one of the YouTube content creators that I follow. In that video, he had basically given up on YouTube based on their recent changes and demonetization.

I began by creating a Steemit account and patiently waited until my account was authorized. During that time, I also found out about DTube. It seems that with Steemit and DTube we have additional options for posting content and possibly gaining a little bit of profit from this enjoyable work. I have created a DTube account and will start posting content here.

I plan to take another trip to the Philippines when summer rolls around. For the videos I capture during this upcoming trip, I may just abandon YouTube and move exclusively into the Steemit and DTube community.