Google-owned YouTube has published new, stricter guidelines on the videos it allows to be monetized with ads, making it more difficult to earn money on the site.
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YouTube videos become even harder to monetize (GOOGL)
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YouTube is under pressure to improve its advertising environment after facing a controversial brand boycott when campaigns were found to be running alongside extremist and offensive content. However, by raising the level of scrutiny over ad-friendly videos, YouTube risks alienating creators.
This puts YouTube in a precarious position — it has to improve brand safety, but doing so it may inhibit content creation on its platform. The biggest risk to YouTube is that its most popular personalities set up shop on other video sites in search of greater financial reward, and if the viewers follow, YouTube won’t have as large an audience base to tout to advertisers. Of course, the possibility of this having a substantial impact on YouTube’s bottom line is slim given that site has over 1 billion monthly users. Nevertheless, reduced financial incentives on YouTube act as fodder to empower the video platform’s rivals, like Twitch and Facebook.
That said, brands aren't the only ones who feel aggrieved by the environment on YouTube. Consumers also don't trust the platform. YouTube ranked dead last for consumer safety in a BI Intelligence survey, which asked people which platform they felt safest participating in or posting on.
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Only 4% of respondents chose YouTube as the safest platform, making it by far the least chosen option. This suggests another threat to YouTube — if another video site can provide a hospitable environment for consumers, as well as succeed in luring creators to its platform, then it may be able to compete with the Google-owned video site.
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