I'm posting this so that we all know what the true ramifications of this "#Adpocalypse" are. Any time someone says the Youtube's demonetization spree is not a big deal I'm going to link them to this topic and you should too. I doubt this would even be covered on other sites, but since I'm subscribed to this guy I'm going to spread this story as far as I can and I hope you do too because this is loving sickening.
So I don't know how many of you are familiar with ZNA Productions. He's like
JoergSprave and
michaelcthulhu, someone who makes weapons in their garage/shed for fun and for demo tests. ZNA Productions's weapons, however, have an "apoc" bent, being usually made of diamond plating and the like. He's made some pretty badass stuff, like
ice-skate wristblades and
a shield that can electrocute things it bumps up against. I've been using his armor for references for drawing bandits because of how great it looks.
ZNA is a one-man team, Eli, who makes all the things and edits the videos together of him doing it. This means that he releases on a weekly schedule, unless something goes wrong, in which case he usually releases it a few weeks later. Again, he's a one-man team. All of his videos are actually pretty relaxing to watch because of how he edits them. None of the videos have swearing in them and there are only a couple videos with gore. His catch-phrase is literally "heck". This is important because of the parade YouTube has taken him on.
Let's get right down to business. He posted this video yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRwEU6tOEtcEntitled "We're Just Not Safe Here Anymore", talking about both YouTube and their real-life location.
Here's the TL;DR for the video if you can't sit and watch an eight-minute video:
A couple months ago,
Eli made a crossbow in his garage and made a video on it. It took him two weeks of hard work and a week of editing and the building all took place in a garage with no insulation, meaning he was working in below 30-degree-Fahrenheit temperatures and had to take breaks. Upon uploading the video, it was immediately demonetized. Due to this, the
sequel video finalizing the build was a sarcastic jab by him at the moderators, with all the times he said "crossbow" in the video being replaced by a jarring sound clip of him saying "toy". Upon releasing the video, nothing happened. Three months later, however, Eli got an email from YouTube saying that they had looked at his video and found it okay for monetization, even though it was already making money. The night before making his most recent video, however, he got ANOTHER email from YouTube saying that they had looked at his video AGAIN and had decided it was NOT suitable for advertisers. YouTube's decisions on whether something is monetizable in ZNA Productions's case seems to exclusively be "either it's demonetized or it WILL be monetized after the massive influx of views that would make up the majority of the incoming profits".
Worse, Eli is worried that YouTube is going to become a place where he can't even post his content. He is not a wealthy guy: in fact, he's quite poor.
He was able to buy a moderately-sized house with his fiance/wife/girlfriend for supposedly $250k a few months ago, but because of this incident if YouTube decided to delete his channel, even if he and his girlfriend got jobs they'd barely be able to pay for their mortgage and wouldn't be able to pay for anything else besides that. They wouldn't be able to even feed their cats.
What does this mean? It means that Eli's going to have to go to trade school and take a job as a serviceman like a plumber, electrician, etc, meaning less videos. It also means that the couple is selling the house. The same house that
they made several videos on showing off renovations they were doing to make it their own, they are now going to sell because of the way YouTube is treating them. So yes, the thread title is 100% accurate. ZNA Productions is being forced away from YouTube.
By looking at his channel stats, this should not be happening. ZNA Productions has over a million subscribers. The channel's views have been on a consistent upward trend for months. It's ridiculous how much money they're actually earning compared to what they SHOULD be earning. In comparison,
Skallagrim and
Lindybeige, two channels I'm also subscribed to and two channels who put out very similar content to ZNA Productions (weapons/demos), both have fewer subscribers and Lindybeige, in particular, has only a smidgeon more views than ZNA Productions yet both channels make SUBSTANTIALLY more money. You could say that's only an estimate but both Skalla and Lindy have not been openly worried about finances like Eli has so I beg to differ.
You can look at the comparisons here. It's loving jarring.
So yeah. Good job, YouTube, you're actually driving away creators because of how loving handicapped you are. I'm actually pissed right now. I'm not just sitting back in my chair laughing my ass off like other times. This is actually infuriating.
motherloving /discuss
