Often used to hear the same accusations when adsense was a bigger thing. Accounts with expected big payouts would always get banned a few days before payout. They would accept all traffic you send them for the month, then just before paying out, banned.
Perhaps a coincidence sure, but when accusations keep getting made about underhanded tactics, maybe there is somethig there
We're seeing a lot of sentiment similar to this on Quora as well, now that they pay question askers. This is the first time I've been on "the other side" and see what's actually going on, rather than just seeing blog posts about "I made $X and got banned a day before payout!"
At least in Quora's case, almost everyone making thousands and getting banned right before a payout are gaming/scamming the system to make those thousands, and just play the "right before I got paid!" card whenever they get caught because, well, there _was_ another payday coming... even though they should have been demonetized a long time prior.
The hypothesis is that the channel was only demonetized after a long period during which it generated ad revenue. Flipping the demonetization switch doesn't make that revenue disappear. Rather, that causes the revenue to stay in Google's pocket instead of being distributed to the channel owner.
The channel still gets the previous revenue leading up to the demonitization switch, so no, Google doesn't gain anything. In fact, they lose because they're now hosting videos that no longer generate revenue.
That happened to me too. Min payment was 120€ or so, and when I had amassed that amount (it took me like one year), bam, banned a few days before I could cash out. Obviously on purpose. That was ten years ago or so I think.
Perhaps a coincidence sure, but when accusations keep getting made about underhanded tactics, maybe there is somethig there
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