I was once an SEO writer for a blog, over 11 years ago. This was when stuffs like Ad sense and Google ads were relatively new.
Google paid people for dropping Ads on their blogs and website and I was lucky to land a job that paid weekly for content creation on a job website, although it wasn't a lot of money but that was the time that taught me the essence of creativity.
You could not senselessly add keywords, you needed to blend them well enough so it wouldn't look like you're trying to spam or chase the money, also you had to write so well that search terms would reference your website, or customise your contents to that effect.
It was the golden age of content creating and people referenced Google a lot more than they actually did with YouTube and it was something.
Fast forward to 2026 you actually now need to do more, there are lots of people who are even more creative when it comes to content, this means that the expectation out there is now higher and platforms like YouTube or Facebook are being to optimise their platform to this effect.
Someone told me they demonitized the channel of another person they know on YouTube, and when I looked at channel I laughed because I just knew the reason why their content was demonitized.
This isn't to say we're not all guilty of being "un-creative" sometimes, it just means that if everyone knew that they would need to offer a lot more in this digital age, they would have done a few different things in their hay days. A lot of us have been guilty of not predicting that it'll get tougher to compete.
A lot of people in the game of making money have taken it upon themselves to be better and this means that they'll milk the possibilities available to them to even make more money and make opportunities difficult for those who didn't upgrade or become better.
Of course, upgrading, improving or becoming better is not as comfortable. Some people will upgrade, others will not, and this means that the game will become difficult for those who do not upgrade and take away their ability to earn, make money, stay relevant and remain in business.
It's 2026
The game got harder
In 2025 alone, a lot of YouTube accounts were demonitized and that was because a lot of creators saw loopholes to abuse the system and that made a lot of money from this, unfortunately YouTube shutdown this loopholes, making it very difficult for these guy to continue taking advantage of that infinite money glitch.
Of course if everyone was shipping this type of content then YouTube would lose all its creators, but it was everyone, infact, on the contrary a lot of people already bettered their art or craft and took advantage of the already available audience and exploded their pages.
Is it a good thing?
Well this is subjective. A lot of us had opportunities in the past and we didn't tag advantage of them, now these opportunities are almost no longer available, are now too saturated or the rules of the game gave changed.
It's what it is, and most times you have to be updated, upgraded and you need to become very creative to actually continue to compete. The competition is crazy in 2026, it's no longer the golden age of infinite money glitch, nowadays you need to do a lot more to actually get a little.
Almost 7 years ago I started a YouTube channel, I was done with so many of goals I got 200+ subscribes lot of views. But leave for lake of confidence.
Confidence is the main thing if you're learning any of skill.
The more time passes the more effort you need to put to be noted but it's normal, people don't want repetitive things unless you are the best in a field