YouTube videos commonly sport end cards that point viewers to a producer’s Patreon or other crowdfunding platform, other works, partners, and other such pages, but a new change in the rules, effective immediately, requires that YouTube content creators have to join the YouTube Partner Program in order to use those end cards. That means that a channel must have verifiable personal information linked to it, must be set up for monetization, and must have at least 10,000 views. Even with this restriction, however, creators can still put whatever links they like in the video descriptions so long as they comply with community standards, and can still creatively tell viewers how to support them without actually providing links. It is worth noting that creators do not have to actually monetize videos in order to use end cards.
YouTubers trying to enable end cards and links inside their videos are greeted with a prompt to enable monetization, if they haven’t already. Naturally, this requires at least 10,000 views. If a user has not amassed this many views, YouTube is not at that point entirely certain that the content on the channel is genuine, and thus will not allow monetization. While the user can simply post links in the video description, this method does not put the links right in the viewer’s face, and the links will be missed altogether if a user is on mobile with autoplay enabled, if their device is turned sideways. Likewise, actually showing or telling viewers where to go, such as adding a mini-song to the end of a cover video talking about where you sell music online, requires work on the user’s part to find your monetization channels.
This move ties into the video giant’s recent efforts to curb things like copyright infringement and hate speech all in one fell swoop. With 10,000 views required for monetization, it is not a large logical leap to assume that only channels producing legitimate content and lots of it will be able to monetize. This makes competition in the field that much fiercer, and eliminates the challenge of making little money due to your small audience by raising the barrier of entry.