Many of you probably noticed it has been rather quiet here for the last couple of months. It has been quite busy time for myself and the family and I have not been out stalking as much as I would like. But also, there has been some changes affecting shooting and hunting community on YouTube, including my channel.
When I was starting out on YouTube in 2009 it was a free platform for anyone that wanted to share their work. YouTube also allowed video monetization and that way encouraged investing time and effort in creating new and better quality content. It never was much and I never aimed to drop my day job and become a YouTube celebrity, but it was enough to pay for domain fees, hosting of my websites, help to save and get better camera etc.
However, things changed and Google (owner of YouTube) started discriminating shooting/hunting channels by restricting or removing their content. Also, in 2H2017 Google stopped monetizing most of the shooting related content claiming it was “unsuitable for most advertisers”. This did not only limit any income to negligible amount, but also restricted traffic. I saw some of my popular videos, previously generating 100,000 views per month, drop to 1,000 views per month…
Hunting is my real passion, but also filming became an integral part of that. I am going to continue filming my hunts and sharing them with all of you, but am considering moving away from YouTube (if an alternative platform appears) and eventually disabling any Google advertising on my videos. To help out with the expenses I created a Patreon account. If you like what I am doing and you think it is worth “something”, please support me via Patreon. In exchange you will get access to videos before they are publicly available.
Cheers,
RoeStalker
https://www.patreon.com/roestalker
