Why The YouTube Dream is Dead - At Least For Now!

Following Google's latest announcement that they were once again raising the eligibility requirements for creators to join the YouTube Partner Program, the initial response of creators like myself and others on the platform was to lash out at Google. Since then, the sense of morale among creators has truly fallen to an all time low. But if creators think that not getting accepted into the program is the worst to come, I'm sorry to tell them they're going to be in for a real surprise once they do accepted. As you're about to see, the YouTube dream is officially dead, and for more reasons than one.

For starters, creators have long turned to the YouTube platform in hopes of trailing on the past successes of mega channels who turned their creativity into a means of making a living. While its true that YouTube was once a social platform where creative minds of the web could profit from sharing their creative ideas with the wider world, changes in economic conditions, followed by poorly designed policies on the part of Google, have been real game changers in the current ability for creators to succeed on the platform.

Creators on YouTube often have the mindset that the platform's ads are going to be an instant means to an end. But, after having implemented the ads and tested them out for a considerable amount of time myself, I've come to realize they're hardly worth counting on.

After reviewing my gaming channel's analytics from December, I could clearly see that over 17,000 views and close to 600 hours of watch time earned me a lousy $7, enough to eat a small meal at Taco Bell. This is we got for producing close to 400 videos over the course of the last year and a half, and what amounts to thousands upon thousands of hours of hard work.

While 17,000 views may not seem like much, neither is $7 for so many views! The point I'm trying to make is that unless you're getting a quarter million views a day, you probably aren't going to make a living on YouTube anymore.

The view counts are not a big deal either. If you create enough good quality content, you can reap the rewards traffic wise. In fact, despite the fact its been 2 weeks since I last posted a new video, my channel is now up over 1,000 more views over the previous month. We now have 499 videos on Gamers Bay's channel at the time of this writing, making it easy for us to continue to raise our traffic levels over time.

However, its kind of unrealistic to assume we're magically going to get a hundreds of thousands of views a day over time. This is where things fall apart. Let's face it, trying to retain a quarter million views a day is not a simple task for any creator, and you probably have better odds of winning the lottery to be honest.

Falling Ad Rates:

So, let's just say you did manage to retain the quarter million views a day mark, well then you're set right? Not so fast. See, the ad rates on the YouTube platform have been falling for years! Back in 2013 the average channel earned about $4 to $6 for every 1,000 views. Today, you're going to be lucky to earn $1, and sometimes much less for 1K views.

Why are the ad rates falling? Its very simple, a stale U.S economy has driven companies both large and small to cut their marketing budgets year after year. Given the fact that advertising on platforms like YouTube is based on an auction market place where advertisers bid for keywords, audiences, etc, the less competition there is for ad space, the lower the payout for creators as well.

The current minimum bid to advertise for CPC (Cost Per Click) based ads on YouTube remains at a paltry 5 cents. Meanwhile, CPM (Cost Per Measure) based ads, such as pre-roll video ads, still have a minimum bid of just $1 for 1,000 views.

In a good economy, competition between businesses who're seeking to target certain audiences on the web would drive those bids much higher, and creators would earn more as a result.

The even bigger cause for concern here isn't just the lack of competition in the ad market place, but the fact Google's ad rates are hardly relevant given today's economy where a single $1 is almost totally worthless. Google's ad rates have stayed the same for over a decade now, and they're the same rates that have always been applied to publishers who make use of Adsense as well.

Just think of it this way, with an ad rate of $1 for 1,000 views, that means creators can expect to earn 1/10 of 1 cent for every view. Meanwhile, Google takes their 45% share, meaning you didn't even earn that.

Likewise, because of bad economical conditions in the U.S, Google can no longer secure enough ads to go around. This is why they created "Preferred Advertising Lists", which are channels that Google recommends to advertisers and the clients they represent. Unless you're a mega channel, you're going to get the sloppy seconds, meaning less ads will be served within your content.

You see, Google doesn't show ads on every view either. Getting 1,000 views on a given video doesn't mean those views were all monetized. For example, viewing the analytics from Gamers Bay's channel, and I can see that out of well over 118,000+ views over the previous year, only 17,000 of those views were actually monetized. Meaning, we earned no revenue at all for over 100,000 views!

Now, because of YouTube's and Adsense terms of service, I cannot show exact figures of how much we earned for those 17,000 views, so I'll give an approximation instead. It was definitely well over $100, but keep in mind, only 17,000 out of more than 118,000 views were actually monetized.

Now, after viewing those diagrams you're probably wondering how I was able to earn over $100 for just 17,000 views. Part of the reason is because ad rates again are dictated by competition in the market place, but I do have a trick up my sleeve as well. What is that trick you ask? Its good old fashioned search engine optimization!

You see, advertisers typically bid for keywords, among other targeting features, and the more relevant your content and its associated keywords are to advertisers ads, the higher the cost will be for marketers to advertise on your content. All I had to do to drive up the ad rates was to implement good descriptions in all of my videos, something the average channel rarely does.

Now, while earning over $100 for just 17,000 views may sound great, the simple fact is that over 100,000 of my views were never monetized at all. Again, this is partially the result of Google's inability to secure enough ads to go around, and as you're about to see there's another serious problem with creators reliance on serving ads as a means to earning from their work, and its ad blockers!

So, in order for me to earn $100 a day, I would have to secure at least 118,000 views a day, because only 17,000 are monetized on average.

Ad Blockers Hurt Creators Too:

Besides the junk ad rates and crap economy that drive the prices of ads down, creators on YouTube should also be concerned with the explosive growth of ad blockers. If the junk ad rates don't put a damper on things for creators, the use of ad blockers will. Its not odd to see ad blocking rates on YouTube that eclipse the 60% mark today, and the problem is only going to get worse as time moves forward.

Remember how I stated that only 17,000 views out of more than 100,000 were actually monetized, ad blockers are partially to blame for this. Besides the lack of available ads, its easy to see from viewing my channel's analytics that that tens of thousands of my viewers are blocking ads on my videos.

Finding Alternatives:

All being said, the traditional ad models that creators on platforms like YouTube once relied upon are quickly dying. Even if creators followed my advice and implemented better descriptions in their videos to drive up the competition among advertisers and the ad rates that followed, I wouldn't count on the adoption ad blockers to slow down anytime soon. Add in the fact the U.S and many other countries have long been stuck in a stagnant state economically, and you have a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.

At this point its really in the best interest of creators to start thinking outside the box and seeking alternatives to what is increasingly becoming a web that is no longer supported by ad revenues. Some of the initiatives I've taken myself to combat issues like this is to implement Patreon accounts for brands like Gamers Bay, to make use of incentivized social media platforms like Steemit, DTube, and DLive, and to consider the possibility of selling off some of the media I built over the years.

Nonetheless, YouTube is still a great platform to build an audience with, but a terrible place for creators to earn a living. As for the alternatives, there are no guarantees with these either, but having the willingness to try new things opens the doors to new possibilities, and raises our likelihood of finding success from our work on the web.

Written and published by Daniel Imbellino, Feel free to connect with me on Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DanielImbellino