In April of 2017, YouTube changed. According to video game and internet culture website Polygon, "if creators can't monetize their videos, it becomes increasingly more difficult to earn a living from making videos full-time."
Google and YouTube are both working hand-in-hand to attempt to advertise on YouTube to compete with cable TV. Something else that caused the "adpocolypse" is that ads on YouTube videos were more random, which allowed inappropriate ads to be placed on any videos. When multiple top companies threatened to remove their ads from YouTube, the website began to use more careful algorithms to choose what ads went to certain creators.
It benefits only the corporations without allowing YouTubers to work as they've been working for over 10 years. For someone like PewDiePie, the demonetization has been difficult. What once started out as a channel to upload gameplay on, has turned into PewDiePie standing in front of his camera and talking about pop culture and memes. It hasn't been the same.
PewDiePie has openly addressed his disdain about the demonetization on his channel. His refusal to use ads on his videos limited the amount of revenue his millions of video views generated. He has three games out now and is censoring his videos to attempt to receive some sort of pay. Even so, however, PewDiePie has had to re-upload various videos due to copyright or ad issues.
In one of his videos, PewDiePie explains that the demonetization happened without prior notice to creators. He also shows that he is extremely angry by the new rules because of the majority of his videos not being "family friendly."
"I don't know why YouTube treats everyone on YouTube like they're a f*****g child," PewDiePie says in his video "UNMONETIZED." "I'll be fine, but there's a ton of other channels, smaller channels, whose livelihood depends on this and you just go ahead and add this without telling anyone."
YouTube used to be a fun and inclusive community. I do believe YouTube should prevent malicious content when it comes to ads, but I don't believe they have a right to censor and silence creators. There's a difference between preventing hurtful ads from getting to audiences and preventing creators at doing what they do best; creating content for us to enjoy.
