It's still looks like they may have demonetized it and the pending money doesn't go through until the appeal is successfully made.
Also totally nevermind that a patent troll and an angsty WSJ journalist both are gloating over this shit with their own agendas.
"Bu-but they could have made $7.90 for a few days while the video was up (which they wouldn't even have profited off of unless they made a few hundred minimum)!! Ethan is totally an anti-media/alt-right/GG apologizer for believing this!! Hope he gets sued!"
I had a feeling H3H3 wasn't really painting the full picture, because he takes a simplistic and convenient outlook. It looks like he may have jumped on something enticing without examining it fully and now comes off looking pretty foolish. Worth noting he ended up getting debunked by source code found in web archives, so it's not like it was something obvious, but his blinded eagerness was a bad move nevertheless. Then again, I still don't fully understand what happened, so maybe even that's not the case. Another thing I noticed is that his willingness to openly retracting his video is seen as weakness, even though doubling down would be seen malicious ignorance
As you described it, my problem with the thread has little to do whether H3H3 got it right or not. There is an internet-wide obsession to turn your opponents into acceptable targets (what I called out) and punish them in any way possible (YouTube monetization falling apart is seen as a good thing), then bask in the schadenfreude as a reward (latter part of the thread and dozen other threads). So, in GAF's case, there's really nothing wrong with YouTube's ad ecosystem falling apart even if it's due to dubious motives and means, because it is "justice" if the bad people (an ever-growing category) get punished. Cue ten pages of "dying" on "hills" if anyone disagrees with it. There is something very primitive and universal about it all, so I sometimes wonder if the ideology is just an excuse.
