Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
One year after YouTube turned on revenue sharing for its shortform video feature, a growing chunk of creators are getting paid for it. More than 1 in 4 creators in YouTube’s Partner Program are now earning money with YouTube Shorts, the company announced on Thursday. Given there are over 3 million creators in YouTube’s ad sharing program, that amounts to roughly 750,000 Shorts creators in total.
The company doesn’t break out how much it has paid Shorts creators specifically. It has paid $70 billion to creators in total over the last three years, with the bulk of that going to longform content.
By all measures, Shorts are getting more popular. The number of Shorts uploaded on YouTube has grown by 50 percent year over year, and the…