“But our ad revenue is pretty much a quarter of what it was in March.”
Mr. Green, who helped launch a nonprofit called the Internet Creators Guild to protect
and guide people in the industry last year, said it would be helpful for YouTube to disclose which channels and categories had been most affected by the recent changes, and whether the shifts were being driven by the platform or advertisers.
“But if somebody’s making an extra $1,000 a month and that’s helping them pay the grocery bills, those people might not have access to that.”
Alayna Fender, a 25-year-old in Vancouver, British Columbia, said she had been bringing in an average of 700 Canadian dollars (approximately $513) from ads on her videos each month,
and saw that drop to 130 Canadian dollars in the past month.
Mr. Wood, who lives in San Francisco with his fiancée
and their infant, said his channel had brought in at least $6,000 a month in revenue last year — which helped pay for travel to site locations, the production of his videos and his other day-to-day bills.
She wanted an explanation for why ad revenue had dried up on her series “I Don’t Bi It” and a video of her describing her lesbian crushes on YouTube, while it had remained steady on videos titled “Top 15 Canadian Stereotypes” and “Bleaching My Hair Blonde.” While YouTube’s guidelines say
that “sexually suggestive content” and “sexual humor” are not advertiser-friendly, Ms. Fender said the videos in question were still running ads, but for far less money.
In the meantime, several YouTube creators say they are getting fewer ads on their videos,
but are not certain whether the changes are a result of less money in the system, new buying methods from advertisers or new algorithms from YouTube that have flagged their content.
“We’ll continue to work closely with both advertisers and creators to get things right.”
To replace the ad money, several creators have been turning to Patreon, a crowdfunding site where people can pay them directly by video or per month.
