So this has been true of YouTube Red since the beginning. It’s one if the reasons I got it. But they use watch time as the way to divide your money out. It actually makes it extremely unfair split for people that make great but short content. It’s also why longer content became more popular around that time and those 24/7 streams run like that.

Also why creators started doing channels of just padded run time content of like building legos and eating things. It’s to secure better and funding.

The current setup is pretty busted and feels like the wheels are coming off again.