Youtube removing my monetisation

This came out of the blue, I've had an email from Youtube stating they're applying changes to the YouTube partner program. This is a program that Youtube users can sign into and apply banner adverts, etc, to their videos and make a small revenue from that.

To give you an idea, my videos aren't doing huge numbers of hits, but over the years they've done OK, and every few months I do receive payment from Youtube. It's only around £50 but it's a welcome addition, and a bit of a thank you from all those people watching my HOWTO videos and information, so makes me enthusiastic to make more.

So now, Youtube has stated:

"Under the new eligibility requirements announced today, your YouTube channel, Andy Brown, is no longer eligible for monetisation because it does not meet the new threshold of 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers. As a result, your channel will lose access to all monetisation tools and features associated with the YouTube Partner Program on 20 February 2018"

Which is a little sad. I believe I'm getting the number of hours watching (at times), but unfortunately up until now I've not chased after subscribers really because it's not been important to me. I'm happy that people search and find my videos, repairing cars, dishwashers, washing machines, talking about electronics and generally just whatever I'm working on features.

So now I need to gain subscribers and don't really know how other than pleading with the general public, or anybody that watches my videos to subscribe so I can receive this very small advertising revenue to help pay for the video cameras, tripods, microphones and other kit that I use for making my videos!

And YouTube if you're listening, this is a pretty poor move. The smaller providers are the ones that grow and provide you with good revenue, why cut off the people just starting off? Surely incentivising us small content producers will make us WANT to do more on your platform? I'm seriously looking at alternative distribution platforms now, such as Patreon which is gaining momentum now.

So if you do want to help me along, please do subscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/andybrown21 and hopefully I can meet their targets!

Also, support me on Patreon to help me create more videos and content you want! https://www.patreon.com/andyb2000