YouTube paid over 30 billion to content creators in the past 3 years

Every year, giant tech companies that run social media sites and other platforms spend more and more on paying content producers. They have to because there would be no reason to visit the pages they manage without them.

Google-controlled and owned YouTube has now reminded everyone that they are not stingy companies and are spending more and more to reward videographers. Over the past three years, the video-sharing site has made more than $30 billion (~$8.9 trillion) in payments. The number of users participating in various partner programs has exceeded two million.

YouTube originally started spending some of its advertising revenue on content creators in 2007. The result was a diverse partner program that allows users who create videos to monetize their viewership.

This was an utterly timely decision on the part of the video portal at the time, as advertisers in those days began boycotting the site because of the many videos they thought were inappropriate.

In 2018, there were tightening restrictions and reduced the number of channels receiving ad revenue. The rules were tightened, but now the number of participants in the partnership program seems to be increasing again. You could analyze the role of the global pandemic in this, but this is a very complex topic that deserves a separate article.

There are challenges on the market, such as TikTok, Facebook, and even Instagram, who are also trying to make huge payments to users who are receptive to content. Still, they have not yet been permanently seduced, and YouTube remains the most popular platform for publishing video content.

By the way, YouTube also rewards traditional media outlets for posting videos on the site, but it’s not television channels or big multi-companies that break up the most. According to experts, independent content producers still benefit the most, with the bulk of advertising money going to them.