So, I went to my YouTube channel today to examine one of my older videos, and I noticed that before my video started, YouTube played an ad.

This surprised me. I had not signed up for the advertising/monetization program, so I had not expected to see any ads on my videos. To be honest, I had never wanted there to be any ads on my channel. I personally hate having to wait for one or more ads to play before I can watch what I want to watch.

So, I did some digging, and I came across this page on the YouTube help, which is titled, “I’m not a YouTube partner, so why am I seeing ads on my videos?” I took a screenshot, in case they change it. Here’s what it says:

I did some more digging, and basically, the way I understand it is that once my channel crossed the threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months, and I became eligible for the monetization program, YouTube automatically started playing ads on my videos, even though I didn’t sign up for the program.

Well, it’s their platform, and they can do what they want with it, I guess. But it’s disappointing. I had hoped to keep my channel ad-free for you guys, but since I have no control over that, and they’re going to play ads anyway, I went ahead and signed up for the monetization program. Maybe I can see a little trickle of revenue for it eventually.

Sorry about that, guys!