YouTube Wants to Pay $100M to People to Do This As it Rivals Against TikTok

Video giant YouTube is planning to pay people $100 million to make popular videos that would rival against its competitor TikTok.

The company is launching a fund that would pay its most popular users on its Shorts product to make such videos.

Shorts is YouTube’s new social network platform that uses short-form videos. The platform is garnering 6.5 billion daily views, according to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

“The Shorts Fund is just the first step in our journey to build a long-term monetization model for Shorts on YouTube,” YouTube said in a blog post.

The Alphabet-owned company has said that the fund will be launched in the coming months and will go through 2022.

Alphabet had reported in the first quarter that YouTube had generated $6.01 billion in advertising revenue. This is up almost 50% on a YOY basis from $4 billion.

YouTube had launched Shorts to all U.S. users earlier this month, after launching in beta at the beginning of the year.

Anyone is eligible to participate in the fund by creating “unique” Shorts that “delight the YouTube community,” according to the blog post.

YouTube said it would be reaching out to thousands of creators every month who received the most engagement and views. It’ll also ask those creators to share feedback on the platform.

According to the blog post, the Shorts Fund is not limited to just creators in the YouTube Partner Program. Creators will be eligible to participate if they create original content for Shorts and adhere to the company’s Community Guidelines.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.