Like a lot of people, I’m in front of a computer a lot. So to pass the hours, I often have YouTube running in the background, on my Home Hub or phone for some entertainment. In the middle of 2019, there was a fairly significant issue for a lot of content creators. The platform advertising pathways were changed that resulted in demonetisation for many of them. This is in part being addressed with a new feature allowing viewers to applaud their favourite creators.
The applause is a donation that you can purchase through your G Pay account and when you applaud creators they’re given a $2 donation. If you’re not seeing the feature yet you’re not alone as there’s boxes to tick before you can.
- Creators need to enable the applause on their end
- Creators need to be part of the YouTube Partner program.
- The rollout is underway, not yet complete to a number of countries including Australia
VidIQ has done an outline of the new feature from its beta testing days.
Much like the Play Store and App Store for Apple, the creators will get 70% of the donation.
YouTube will skim some cream (30%) off the top since they own the platform and host the videos – plus I’m not a creator on the platform losing revenue – I don’t think that’s unfair.
The feature is only available on the desktop interface for YouTube but like other features is likely to come to Mobile.
