I Sold My Camera. I Quit chasing YouTube Monetization and finally gave up

Why I’m Walking Away

This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. It’s a farewell letter to a dream, and a reality check for anyone currently grinding out videos, hoping to hit that magical monetization button.

Today, I sold my camera. Not just packed it away in a closet, but actually sold the equipment that defined my journey as a creator. The reason is simple, agonizing, and brutally frustrating: I have finally given up on YouTube monetization.

I know what some of you are thinking. “Don’t quit! You’re so close!”

The truth is, I’m not close. I am staring across a chasm that feels less like a hurdle and more like an intentional wall designed to keep small creators out, while the platform continues to profit from their work.

Let’s talk numbers, because the numbers are the most damning part of this whole experience.

The Math That Breaks a Creator’s Spirit

I started this channel with passion, consistency, and a belief that if I provided value, the audience—and eventually, the algorithm—would reward the effort. My total watch time, after months of filming, editing, and uploading, currently sits at roughly $\text{90}$ hours.

I look at that $\text{90}$ hours, and then I look at the official gatekeeping metric for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). The number I saw felt like a cruel joke: $\text{8,000}$ hours required in $\text{365}$ days. While I know the official number is $\text{4,000}$ hours (a monumental task itself), the sheer impossibility of the goal, of needing to multiply my current watch time by almost a hundredfold in a single year, is what truly broke me.

It’s a gap that requires going viral multiple times, not just making good content. It requires a level of luck that simply cannot be manufactured through hard work alone. It requires a scale that most niche, thoughtful, or specialized channels will never achieve.

$\text{90}$ hours $\to$ $\text{4,000}$ hours (or the crushing $\text{8,000}$ hours I perceived). This is the creator’s treadmill, and I just stepped off.

And here is the raw, burning resentment that drove my final decision: YouTube is already monetizing my videos.

The Ad Revenue Gap: A One-Sided Relationship

If you watch one of my videos right now, you will almost certainly see ads. YouTube is showing pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll advertisements. They are generating revenue from my content, my effort, my time, and my equipment costs.

They get paid, and I get… a dashboard with an unachievable goal.

The platform says, “Your content is valuable enough to sell ads against, but not valuable enough to share the revenue with you, the person who made it.”

This fundamental unfairness is what makes the grind unsustainable. It is the core contradiction of the YouTube Partner Program for small creators:

1. YouTube shows ads on my videos without paying me. (The AdSense revenue is $\text{100\%}$ theirs until I meet the threshold).
2. The threshold for entry is so astronomically high that most creators provide the platform with free, revenue-generating content for years before having a chance to earn a single dollar back.

This setup is not a “partnership”; it is an exchange where the platform benefits from the initial $\text{99\%}$ of a creator’s journey, while only committing to a partnership after the creator has already done the hardest work of building a massive audience for free.

My camera was a tool for creating, but it was also a tool for chasing a goal that became financially illogical. Selling it is an admission of defeat, yes, but it’s also a declaration of freedom from a system that monetizes my hope.

The Mental Toll of the Monetization Mindset

The decision to quit wasn’t just about the numbers; it was about the mental health burden of the chase.

When you are chasing $\text{4,000}$ hours (or $\text{8,000}$ hours, as it felt to me), every video changes. It stops being about: “What is the most useful, creative, or fun thing I can make?” and starts becoming: “What video will go viral and get me the $\text{3,910}$ remaining watch hours I need?”

This shift in focus ruins the creative process. It forces creators into clickbait titles, repetitive trends, and longer, bloated videos designed to boost watch time, often at the expense of quality or audience satisfaction. The monetization requirement doesn’t incentivize quality; it incentivizes length and virality.

I want to make videos that help people, tell stories, or explore a niche. I do not want to become a cog in the YouTube watch-time machine. By stepping away from the monetization goal, I take back control of my creative output.

The Paradox: Small Channels are the Lifeblood

What YouTube and its monetization structure fail to recognize is that the small, niche, dedicated channels are the platform’s lifeblood. We are the ones providing content on the $\text{10,000}$ tiny, specific topics that make YouTube the ultimate search engine for video.

We make the videos on obscure history, $\text{3D}$ printing tips, regional cooking, and forgotten software. Big channels might get the views, but small channels provide the diversity. By making the barrier to entry for paid partnership so severe, YouTube risks driving away the very creators who make the platform valuable beyond the top $\text{1\%}$.

When a platform is making money from the work you put in, and you are not, that is a broken relationship. I refuse to be a content producer whose effort generates zero return for myself, but significant revenue for a multi-billion dollar corporation.

What Happens Now?

Selling the camera is symbolic. It means I will be relying on simpler equipment (my phone, perhaps a cheaper webcam) and fundamentally changing how I approach content creation.

1. Less Pressure, More Passion: I will make videos when I genuinely have something to say, not because the algorithm demands a weekly upload.
2. No More “Watch Time” Chasing: Videos will be as long as they need to be—$\text{30}$ seconds, $\text{5}$ minutes, or $\text{20}$ minutes—without the artificial pressure to pad them out.
3. Focus on Community, Not Cash: My goal is no longer monetization; it is to build a genuine, small, engaged community around a specific interest.

For those of you still grinding towards that $\text{4,000}$ hour mark: I respect your hustle, and I truly hope you make it. But please, be honest with yourself about the mental cost. Are you enjoying the creation, or are you just chasing a number?

A Message to YouTube

You have built an incredible platform. You have given a voice to billions. But your monetization system, particularly for the vast majority of small, dedicated creators, is fundamentally unfair. It is a system designed to extract maximum free labor until a creator can demonstrate a statistically improbable level of growth.

If a video is “safe” enough to show an ad on, the creator should receive a percentage of that revenue, regardless of subscriber count or watch hours. That is the only fair “Partner Program.” Until then, the deck is stacked, and the house always wins.

I may still make videos, but I am done playing the game. I am done trading my time, effort, and expensive equipment for the hope of one day earning money from content that is already making you money right now.

The camera is sold. The dream of monetization is over. And honestly? There is a strange, powerful sense of relief.

Thank you to everyone who watched, commented, and subscribed. I will still be around, but the race to the monetization finish line is officially done for me.

Creator Resources & Support

If you are currently struggling with the monetization requirements, remember you have options that don’t involve the YPP:

• Affiliate Marketing: Recommend products you use and love. This can be done at any size.
• Patreon/Ko-Fi: Ask your small, dedicated community for direct support. $\text{50}$ engaged fans paying $\text{\$5}$ per month is more reliable than chasing $\text{4,000}$ hours of anonymous watch time.
• Digital Products: Sell an eBook, a template, or a guide related to your niche.

Your value is not determined by the ad revenue you earn, but by the impact you have. Don’t let the algorithm take that away from you.

The sheer scale of the requirement—$\text{4,000}$ hours, or $\text{240,000}$ minutes of public watch time in $\text{365}$ days—translates to needing someone to watch your content for over $\text{16}$ full days, non-stop. When you are sitting at $\text{90}$ hours, that journey feels like scaling Everest in flip-flops. The cognitive dissonance of seeing ads run on your $\text{90}$ hours of content while being told your work is essentially worthless from a revenue-sharing standpoint is the biggest psychological hurdle. I couldn’t cross it.