For any wannabe YouTubers the first sign of your success is when you reach the two magic numbers of 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours in a year. From then on, you can apply for a Goggle AdSense account and start to monetize your content. I started to build my YouTube channel in the summer of 2020 and within 4 months, I managed to reach these magic numbers. I wouldn't say I'm successful, rather lucky. My videos were targeted at very specific audience on a very topical subject for which I was qualified to talk about. Let's just say I was at the right place at the right time.
Since then I've received about £190 from Google for the adverts placed on my YouTube videos. That's for two years of work. Truth to be told, the time and effort I put in to make a video is a lot lot more than the time it takes me to write a post on Hive. Yet the earnings is a lot lot less than the Hive rewards.
There are three main reasons people become YouTubers. First, they're the top tier earners who can earn thousands or even millions from YouTube. Second, they make a name for themselves on YouTube and get a lot of sponsorship, collaboration or endorsement deals. And third, which is the majority of the YouTubers, they do it because they love making videos.
I got lucky last year and was approached by a Swedish firm that does backpacks. They offered me products worth £170 and in return I had to talk about their product in my video. It was a no brainer as their product was very cool and I didn't mind doing it. The value of the endorsement doubled my earnings from YouTube. However, most of the time, I fall in the last category. I knew could I genuinely add value to that particular topic two years ago, especially when it was very topical in the first year. In the past 8 or 9 months things have cooled down a bit and I have spent less and less time on my YouTube channel. The returns simple aren't worth my time and effort.
So what's the rant you ask?
This!!
Wtf!!! A couple day ago I got this message from Google. They cancelled my AdSense account with no warning and no explanation. That meant I was no longer able to monetize my content on YouTube anymore. They even said this in their email.
We understand that you may want to know more about the issues that we’ve detected. Because this information could be used to circumvent our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with information about specific account activity.
I have absolutely no freaking idea what the issue is, and they won't tell me. My YouTube channel has been pretty much inactive since last year, I don't promote it anywhere, and the traffic is constant at around 100 hours every month, no spikes or any abnormal spike. So wtf are they on about?
Then I remembered I have AdSense on my WordPress blog and in recent months I've noticed a lot of spam comments from pharmaceutical websites (nearly 100 when I checked) on one particular post. I wrote back through the appeal process explaining how bewildered I was about this whole thing, and perhaps those spam comments was a cause of concen. They were very quick responding, just three hours in fact, and on a Saturday afternoon.
"Thank you for understanding"
What da fxxk am I supposed to understand?? Quality team your arxx 🤬
A lot of people rant about the treatment they get from Hivewatchers on Hive. Their mode of operation and tone may not be to everyone's liking, but at least they tell you what the issue is. And even if they blacklist you, you can still earn rewards on Hive (note to Hive abusers, if you get no rewards that's because you write shit content, didn't grow your stake, and haven't bothered to build your support network. Not because HW blacklisted you.)
With Google, they just single handedly cancel your account with zero notice and reason, and that's what pisses me off. As I said, I couldn't care less about the earnings. YouTube earnings are just a drop in the ocean for me. I pay out more in prize money in my HPUD Guessing Contest every month than what I earned from them.
Google can stick their freaking AdSense up their chimney, from bottom up as far as I'm concerned.