Youtube is doubling what it takes to get monetized, and theres a shorts rule in there most people skipped

youtube announced this in august and it kicks in february 1 2027. new channels will need 8,000 watch hours in the last 365 days, up from 4,000, or 20 million shorts views in the last 90 days, up from 10 million. the 1,000 subscriber bar stays. if youre already in the partner program youre grandfathered in, you just have to accept the new terms in studio by january 31 to keep earning on the affected features

thats the headline everyone ran. the line i almost missed is on youtubes own help page. to earn from the shorts creator pool each month, creators will need to maintain 10 million qualified shorts views over the last 90 days. the page doesnt spell out whether that part hits people already in the program the same way

10 million every 90 days is a lot for a shorts channel doing fine but not great. you could be monetized on paper and still get nothing from the shorts pool in a slow stretch

youtube says the point is to fund new incentive programs for creator growth. my read is the long tail of small shorts channels just got priced out of the pool and whatever was spread across them ends up with the top channels

anyone here in ypp mostly on shorts, are you clearing 10 million a quarter right now