I have a youtube channel, duh! I call it “adventures of Ed”. I have had a youtube channel since youtube practically existed. It covers a wide range of topics from infosec to gardening to self-sufficiency to living in a rural and very remote area to every day life and a lot of things about hiking (gear, trails, tips, etc). I never really ever pressed the issue of “getting subscribers” or “getting likes” because i did the entire youtube thing for fun and not a source of income. Therefore, even though I had a lot of youtube content as a content creator, I don’t rely on any advertising revenue to pay my bills, much like this website I have had for years and you won’t find a single ad on it … that means, i absorb the costs of web hosting, domain name registrations, etc.
So when youtube offered monetization on my channel (basically a share of the revenue generated by the ads they displayed), I decided I would use that money to give back to the people who watched my videos. I would just randomly add a comment in-video with some sort of trivia and then I would use a random number generator to pick a winner from those who commented with the correct answers. I never even promoted the give-a-ways because that attracts the people who simply watch 1 video on your channel ever, submit an answer and potentially win some item. I care about my listeners, so I wanted those dedicated to watching my channel to win whatever It was I was giving away that I purchased with youtubes advertising revenue.
So when youtube demonetized my channel, they didn’t hurt me … they hurt you. But the really sad thing is that youtube still injects ads into my videos that my supporters watch. And that means, I am still generating income for youtube aka Google who is too stingy to give small channel creators their fair share of that advertising revenue.
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