YouTube creates confusion by herding creators into partner program to fight ‘abuse’ (update)

YouTube creators are still dealing with the ramifications of the adpocalypse brought on in part by superstar PewDiePie repeatedly making jokes sympathetic toward Nazis. That made it more difficult for people to earn revenue on Google’s video platform, and now YouTube has changed its policy so that creators have to agree to its partnership program in order to add links to any external site, such as Patreon. This is a new obstacle that may cost creators revenue from sources outside of Google’s provided avenues, and YouTube’s mixed messaging is causing anxiety for those creators.

When creators upload a video, they can select to add an “endscreen” on YouTube the provides dynamic links to other YouTube videos or external websites. But if you are not a partner, you will now see a warning that this option is “not enabled” for you. If you click through to the support page about this, Google said your channel had to be monetizing.