Good morning. This week we are mourning the loss of Jackie, one of the bald eagles featured on Big Bear’s five-year running eagle cam. Her passing inspired countless tributes from creators and organizations (including this one from NASA).
Fly high, Jackie.
Today’s lineup:
Inside YouTube’s new Partner Program eligibility
How Airrack’s clipping agency works
One creator’s advice for recovering a hacked channel
YouTube Changes Creator Monetization Eligibility
YouTube updates eligibility to the YouTube Partner Program / YouTube
This week YouTube introduced new requirements to earn AdSense through the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). Starting February 2, 2027, creators joining for the first time will still need 1,000 subscribers, but must now achieve 8,000 hours of public watch time from the past 365 days or 20M Shorts views from the past 90 days.
That’s double the current viewership requirements.
Why now? Though smaller creators already in YPP will be grandfathered into the new system, YouTube says the creator ecosystem has grown significantly since it last raised the threshold in 2018. Some creators are reading between the lines, blaming the rise of low-quality, AI-generated content for the new policy. But will raising the barrier actually solve the alleged issue?
Here’s what creators are saying →
“Maybe this does prove to be a valuable weapon against [AI-generated content],” MoistCr1TiKaL said in a YouTube video. “I also think this pushes normal people who are trying to pursue a YouTube channel [...] down the path of considering AI slop as a supplement to the content they’re making.”
“If you’ve been sitting on a YouTube channel waiting for the ‘right time,’ right now is the best window to monetize on YouTube before it gets way harder,” YouTube growth company VidIQ said on Instagram.
“There’s no way this doesn’t incentivize AI slop,” event commentary creator Amanda Golka said on TikTok. “What’s stopping someone from posting 50K Shorts to get that [20M] in the span of 90 days?”
How YPP has changed over time:
2007: YPP launches as a 30-creator, invite-only cohort—founding members included Smosh, Lonelygirl15, and Tay Zonday.
2017:YouTube introduces its first eligibility threshold: 10K lifetime views.
2018: YouTube requires 1K subscribers and 4K hours of watch time in the past 365 days to apply.
2023: YouTube introduces Shorts monetization, requiring 1K subscribers and 10M views over the course of 90 days.
2027: Watch hours and Shorts views double; the 1K subscriber requirement stays put.
What are your thoughts on the new YPP requirements? Does a higher monetization bar change how you think about building on YouTube? Hit reply and let us know.
Inside Airrack’s Clipping Machine
"What people don't realize is nearly 98% of the time you see a creator clip…this is a clip that's being paid for either by the creator, the platform, or the brand,” Eric “Airrack” Decker told us.
His clipping agency, ClipFarm, is a big reason why—over the last year it’s worked with brands and creators including Druski, MLB, and HBO Max, generating billions of views for campaigns.
Decker and ClipFarm cofounder Ryan Rugg told us how it works →
The network. ClipFarm has a network of 450K clippers and is growing by 100K per month, according to Rugg. A clipper is anyone who makes an account and posts—such as editors, creators, or fans.
The campaign. Brands and creators come to ClipFarm with a budget (the lowest starting around $10-20K) and ClipFarm gives them a views breakdown. “If you want to hit this many views, here’s the cost,” Rugg says. Clippers either build dedicated pages from scratch (ex: “Airrack Clips”) or existing pages share clips. Rugg told us one brand spent $1M in a week, which generated 1B views.
The payout. Clippers keep their platform ad revenue and earn a CPM of .50-$1.50 from ClipFarm. Rugg said one of the platform’s top clippers made $300K across two months working 24/7.
But paying for views comes with an obvious problem: It can incentivize everything from viewbotting (paying to artificially inflate views) to clips that gain reach but generate low, or outright negative, sentiment. ClipFarm says it vets for both.
Every clipper is screened through its tech partner ContentRewards (verifying age, email, location, and audience demo) and each clip carries a tracking link a staffer reviews before a clip is “green-checked” and paid—typically requiring a 40-60% US audience.
Videos must hit a client’s desired tone to be monetized. “Clippers are only rewarded if they achieve the desired sentiment. Not all publicity is good publicity,” Decker said.
How Airrack sees it: Clipping lets creators compete for attention without straying from their craft, borrowing the strategy that grew IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat across platforms without having to become a livestreamer.
Decker says he’s seen the difference firsthand. Airrack’s clips generated 30M views over the last two months, bringing in $25K in revenue.
"I hate to see a YouTuber get distracted with live streaming because it's such a different craft for most [creators],” Decker told us. “Ephemeralizing your content [via clipping] is a very important principle to take if you want to grow the business and be culturally relevant. I think it's a cheat code."
How we see it: The clipping boom is making views easy to manufacture, but harder to interpret. Between AI-generated videos breaking platform viewership records and an influx of paid clips on short-form feeds, we expect the value of a view will start to shift by format and platform.
Would you invest in clipping at scale?
Sponsored by CTB
How One of the World’s Top Podcasters Consistently Lands Game-Changing Guests
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How One Creator Recovered a Hacked YouTube Channel
Lizzie Peirce recovers her YouTube channel after being hacked / Lizzie Peirce
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen multiple creators come forward about recovering their hacked YouTube channels.
Photography creator Lizzie Peirce got her account hacked after engaging with a fake email for a brand partnership opportunity.
What helped save her channel? Her network.
“It's truly being well connected,” Peirce told us, sharing that a colleague in her network who worked at YouTube helped expedite the recovery process. “If someone from YouTube reaches out, keep their number in your phone.”
Her advice for making your channel less vulnerable:
Stay diligent when fielding brand partnership emails. If something doesn’t seem right, get a second pair of eyes on it.
Keep your business and personal emails separate from the email you use for your YouTube channel.
Diversify your revenue streams outside of your primary platform as much as possible.
🔥 Press Worthy
Spotify is rolling out a label for creators to identify if a music profile is an “AI Persona.”
Alix Earle invests in supplement brand Cymbiotika.
Colin and Samir are featured in Rolling Stone.
Veronika Slowikowska is starring in a movie produced by HBO’s John Wilson.
Disney+ is adding podcasts to its platform.
67% of creators make less than $10K per year, according to a CreatorIQ study.
Facebook launches a studio app for creator analytics.
