YouTube Partnership Program Rule Change Rant

So, I am going to rant for just a bit, bear with me…

-Mounts Soapbox –

“Ahem… I set a goal to be a better filmmaker, content provider, and maker five months ago.  Part of that goal was to reach the 10,000 view threshold to monetize my YouTube account.  I did not plan to quit my J-O-B, or be internet famous, I just wanted to use it as a milestone for progress toward the goal and I nailed it on January 4th!  10,000 views!!  I was so stoked that I woke my wife up way too late one night to tell her.  My account was under review for 2 weeks and I was finally officially monetized for two days – two WHOLE days – before BAM!!  I was demonetized with a huge group of small and smaller content providers.  Son of a…

While this was a while in coming, it looks like the process/decision was sped up when a guy with 15+ million subscribers named Logan Paul posted a video of a suicide victim. 1st, what a fucking privileged asshat.  WTF is wrong with people?!  He should be forever ashamed, and spend a great deal of his YouTube revenue on suicide prevention and advocacy.  What should’ve happened following the public and advertiser outrage was YouTube suspending or deleting his channel, but that dude generates SERIOUS ad revenue, so… What happened instead was that YouTube took him off the top-tier ad group and YouTube punished the SHIT out of the small folks by demonetizing channels with less than 4000 hours of watch-time AND less than1000 subscribers to ‘protect their core values’? Makes zero sense and this guy will continue to post and earn $$$ even at the lower tier.

OK, fine, fuck’em.  I was not doing this for some mythical pot of gold.  This setback is just going to make me dig deeper.  I am 10% to the new threshold and I will keep slogging on. Keep making and doing. Post better and better content.  This will make me leaner, stronger, bigger, better, more… A better speaker, better filmmaker, I will get lighting and sound for my videos dialed, have awesome content, and be a better person from it all. Success doesn’t teach half as much as adversity.

To all effected by the YouTube demonetization BS: Don’t quit! Keep slogging on. Keep making and doing. You too will be all the better for it. Send me your channel and I will follow you and help with the watch hour threshold. As I said, I had just hit the monetization before all of this and we will get there again.  It will take some hard work but, we can all help each other out.”

– Dismount Soapbox –

 

One year plan…

So, I have a One Year Plan to make my site and web content better and at the very least self-supporting.  I have had this site for 16 years and it is not free.  I would like for it to at least generate enough income to pay for the software updates, registration fees, equipment, and hosting costs.  A Great Leap Forward without the Maoist philosophy, mass-starvation, mass-migration, and such. It is multi-pronged and here it is:

Shop:

  • Stop eschewing progress for perfection.
  • Get it set and start working and building and doing!
  • Finish current Jeep projects

Website:

  • More regular updates
  • Split my personal BLOG/website and my “commercial” one
  • More video content for this site and commercial site (trying REALLY hard to buy Matt of Many Trades from its current owner – see blurb below)
  • Use as a funnel to increase my YouTube traffic

YouTube:

  • Monetize Account
  • Branding
    • Change the page name
  • Focus on specific content – craft and making stuff
  • Split art, travel, family, cycling and kayaking videos onto second YouTube channel
  • Become a better filmmaker
  • Spend time in front of the camera
  • Use better tools
    • Lenses
    • Lighting!
    • Microphones
    • Drones/software
    • Camera Mounts
  • Make better videos
  • Make some of my own music for videos

To kick this off right and so to as not to make plans without follow through, I have now re-branded my YouTube Channel from “matt talley” to “Matt of Many Trades”  to match my Instagram User Name.  I have used the name for about 25 years and even considered it for a company name (I was building decks, doing some trim carpentry, concrete forming, wiring HVAC systems, residential electrical, welding on red steel, and doing some light remodeling) while in college to pay tuition/groceries/rent.  I even have an OLD shirt I had silk screened with a hammer and cutting torch crossed with the name in an arch above.  It is about accurate branding and I do/make/build/fix/break a bunch of random crap 🙂 and it is time to embrace accurate branding.