Is the Youtube Partner Program a scam?

Becoming a partner can be a great thing -- you get banners, unlimited run times on your videos, channel enhancements including a branding box, and you have the potential to passively make money of of your videos. All of this sounds brilliant, but at what cost?

For the person watching your videos, they have to now tolerate ads that are placed to the right of your video and inside the bottom margin of the video player. The advert to the right is harmless, but the other advert that is inside of your video is the problem.

You see, most people don't like the popup, or should I call it the "popin," advert.
And this is where the scam starts.

Before I go on, I should explain how a partner makes money on these ads. It's pretty simple really; they get a small amount of money, usually 1-5 cents per click. Per CLICK, not view, but click.

Now back to the part that I look at as a scam. When a viewer is watching your videos and the popin comes up, the viewer is going to naturally try to click the little X in the upper right corner of the advert. Usually, they hit the X, and the ad minimizes. But sometimes, they miss the X by a few millimeters, and that miss -- that mistake of hand-eye coordination -- becomes a click through. And that's how most ad content on YouTube generates money, by taking advantage of the fact that the average user will miss that X between 1-2% of the time.

This reminds me of, how a few years ago, if you clicked or opened the wrong web page, you'd be bombarded by 20 new windows full of boobs, penises and weight-loss pills. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against boobs or penises, but I really don't need to see them unless I go looking for them.

Google AdSense isn't nearly as annoying as those sex ads were, but they operate on the same basis, which is opening a new window/tab based on a user's mistake.

The good side of the popins is that they can sometimes be hilarious. I can't tell you how many videos I've watched of someone being serious, maybe they just broke up with a gf or bf, or they're going through some other drama in life, and an ad for a hoagie pops up. Or someone making a video about coming out of the closet (in the gay sense), and then seeing an ad for ADD/ADHD.

If I were to be a YouTube partner, I'd probably enable ads, because hell, I don't mind free money, so I can't fault any partner that does the same. But until then, I just have to learn how to be a more precise clicker.