Not that we needed a reminder of how garbage mega-corporations are, YouTube just decided to refresh our memory once more. The video streaming service, which used to be a bastion for small time creatives looking to put their content out into the world, has updated it’s Terms of Service to specify that it has the right to run ads on smaller, growing channels. Seems like a great idea, right? Maybe help those channels grow with small amount of ad revenue?

Well, that would be lovely but instead, YouTube is just being greedier than ever before as all money earned through those adverts goes back to them. Come on, YouTube. You don’t need to give those creators massive paychecks but if you’re gonna force adverts onto their channels, the least you could do is give them something.

So what about the YouTube Partner Program?

That’s a good question that many people have started asking. It used to be that in order to be a part of the YouTube Partner Program, creators would need to have 1,000 subscribers, have 4,000 hours watched in the last year and live in an eligible country. If you made partner, YouTube would run ads on your channel and you’d receive a small cut of the money.

Yet with the updated ToS, a channel isn’t required to be involved with YPP to show ads. Basically, the Partner Program has been rendered pointless as they can now just throw ads on any channel that is “ad-friendly” and make some cash.

It’s a pretty scummy approach to take given how YouTube is essentially exploiting growing channels that don’t meet their arbitrary standard of monetisation. It’s even more egregious when you consider how prevalent ads have become on the platform. It’s reaching the point where you’d probably spend as much time watching ads for pointless garbage on YouTube as you would on DStv and that’s… well, that’s just the absolute worst.

(Source: Engadget)