YouTube's ADPOCALYPSE: the consequences.

I am sure you have heard of it but for those that don't know, What was/is the Adpocalyse?

Well, in a sentence it was a series of "improvements" to allow advertisers to pull or customise where their ads would and wouldn't be placed, to allow their ads to be better received and more effective. This did not turnout as planned, what actually happened is that many prominent and not so prominent YouTubers found they had a drop in ads and massive drops of ad revenue.

This change was obviously taken very poorly, A for the lack of warning given to creators and B the rather inconsistent and some would say unfair drops of income, Some would experience a drop of 80% in earnings were some would find no drop at all for very similar content. There was some serious outrage that i am sure you have seen.

The fallout

While it has taken some time for the effects to be clear, In my honest opinion the Adpocalypse could be the end of Youtube for several reasons.

It is more unfair to the smaller YouTubers trying to get started than the bigger ones regardless of content, like channels like Pewdiepie, Jackspeticeye etc are not largely affected they were earning so much that they could take a 50% drop in earnings and still be earning millions per year but smaller channels like N&B Gaming who were planning to go full time have had increasing subs increasing views yet his ad revenue has recently crashed and is now reliant on his job, twitch and has had to start a patreon to make up the difference.

It has changed the nature of YouTube, youtube was something different it allowed people to be paid for the content they produce on the platform they publish it. but this change it has had a two fold effect, firstly some creators have started to try and conform to the new rules which made a lot of new content hollow, pointless and Clickbait.

Secondly it has made the majority of creators (i watch) have to supplement their income with another source be that twitch, patreon etc and while that's fine now in time maybe soon channels won't be reliant on Youtube ads at all, Youtube was made viable since the creator and the site got a share of ad revenue, if creators don't need youtube ads then YouTube will have shot themselves in the foot since the creators will be earning enough money without having to bend to the confines of youtube monetisation.

As an example Take Bindwave, one of if not my favourite content creator, they use Youtube, twitch and Patreon. They have reached an amazing milestone, they just reached their $25k a month patreon milestone which is for them to create their original content alongside their current content they are even planning a feature film if their support grows.


They reached this with a youtube subscriber base of just 200k just to put in perspective Miniladd a Youtuber that has a 4 million subscriber base who just uses youtube for income is estimated to get $85k per month. If youtube became so restrictive then Blindwave have the means and the backing to start their own site, People like KSI and Markiplier have more than enough following to do the same.


YouTube have reduced themselves to a website rather than a business partner, In a sentence, YouTube has started to make YouTubers cut out the middle man instead of companies paying youtube to pay creators for ad views on content, now viewers are now paying creators for quality content, except Youtube don't get a cut. Youtube have unwittingly given the YouTuber (the good ones with actual original and(or) entertaining content) not only the option but the incentive to become independent of Youtube.

If Youtube has gone the way of facebook, they believe themselves more important than the content where they, in fact, aren't and now find themselves facing content creators abandoning ships for more fiscally stable ground.