[YouTube’s Partnership Program] is thus an attempt to get the UGC videos that actually could make money to actually make money, by wrapping them in a program that is safe to advertise against, and has proven its quality by the quantity of hits. Videos are more expensive to serve than searches, owing to their bigger file size, so the transaction return per Ad has to be higher - hence the curation only of the “hit head” UGC videos.

By the way, if a proof of the general economic uselessness of the Long Tail in current new media was needed*, this is it. Follow the money, as they say…… in venality veritas.