A video showed up titled “NEW Platform Paying $50 Per Hour To Watch YouTube Videos From Your Phone.” I watched it in full. Then I recorded my reaction. Then I discovered the audio hadn’t saved, so I watched the whole thing again and recorded a second take. By the end of that second pass, I was not having a good time, and I want to tell you exactly why: the method does not work, the math does not hold up, and the person selling you this dream is collecting affiliate commissions every time you click the links in his description.
I am not going to leave you with just “this is a scam.” In this post I walk through every single step the original video teaches, show you the real payout numbers, explain what the presenter is actually selling, and then tell you what I think gives you a genuine shot at income online. Stick with me through the math section because that is where the entire method collapses completely.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- The exact five-step method the original video teaches, described clearly so you can evaluate it yourself
- The real Shrinkme.io payout rates and exactly how many views you would need to earn $50
- Why using IShowSpeed thumbnails on Pinterest is a waste of your time
- A clear picture of what actually happens when someone clicks a Shrinkme.io link
- Why 99% of people never make real money online and what the small percentage that does actually does differently
- A practical framework for building an income stream around something you already know
- Honest answers to the most common questions about watch-videos side hustles and link shortener income
- A free tool to match your existing skills and interests to an income path at finder.platformproof.com
The Headline That Gets the Clicks
Let’s start at the very beginning. The original video title says “NEW Platform.” The word “new” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, because as you will see, there is nothing new about any of this. The same five-step method has been recycled across dozens of videos for years. A new title, a fresh thumbnail, the same broken process underneath.
The proof of earnings the presenter shows is a screenshot of the highest payout on the platform. The number is $12.20. That is not $50. It is not even close to $50. It is not halfway to $50. And that $12.20 is in cryptocurrency, not US dollars. Cryptocurrency does not trade at a 1:1 rate with dollars, so the actual dollar value of that “proof” could be less than it appears on screen. When the strongest piece of evidence you have for the “$50 per hour” headline is a screenshot showing $12.20 in crypto, the claim has already failed before the method even starts.
One more thing worth noting before we get into the steps: the presenter is not demonstrating this method on his main YouTube channel. If you look at the top-right corner of his screen while he is walking through the tutorial, you can see he is logged into a secondary account. If the method produced the results the title implies, you would expect him to run it on his main presence, not a throwaway account he does not want associated with the actual outcome.
What This Method Actually Involves, Step by Step
Here is the complete process the video teaches. I’ll lay it out plainly so you can weigh each piece for yourself.
Step 1: Find viral YouTube videos. The presenter tells you to go to VidIQ to find trending content. He uses a video featuring the streamer IShowSpeed as his example.
Step 2: Grab the thumbnail. You are instructed to use a third-party website to download the thumbnail image from that YouTube video. The presenter uses a site that looks a little questionable, though there are free tools like TubeBuddy or VidIQ’s free tier that do the same thing more cleanly.
Step 3: Upload the thumbnail to Canva and make a Pinterest pin. You take the downloaded thumbnail and use it as the image for a new Pinterest pin. The presenter spends several minutes building this pin in Canva.
Step 4: Create a Shrinkme.io link for the YouTube video. Shrinkme.io is a link-shortening service that pays you a small amount when someone clicks your link and sits through an ad. The presenter creates a shortened link for the viral video he found.
Step 5: Wrap the Shrinkme.io link in a Bitly link, then post it to Pinterest. Because Pinterest is cautious about certain link shorteners, the presenter adds a second layer by running the Shrinkme.io URL through Bitly before dropping it into the Pinterest pin.
That is the entire method. Find a video made by someone else, take their thumbnail, make a Pinterest pin, run your link through two shorteners, and hope that Pinterest users click through an ad-loaded spam process before they can watch the video they were promised. Each of these steps has a serious problem, and I will walk through each one.
Step 1: VidIQ Is an Affiliate Link, Not a Neutral Recommendation
The presenter says to go to VidIQ to find trending content. He is an affiliate for VidIQ, meaning he earns a commission every time someone signs up through his link. This is not inherently wrong, but it means his recommendation carries a financial motive you should know about, especially because there is a free alternative that requires nothing from you.
YouTube has a built-in Trending page. Go to youtube.com, look in the left sidebar, and click Trending. You will see what is blowing up right now, organized by category. No signup, no credit card, no monthly subscription, no affiliate cut. The presenter skips this because pointing you to the free option pays him nothing.
This matters because it sets the tone for the entire video. Every tool the presenter recommends in a method like this is worth checking for an affiliate relationship before you sign up. It does not mean the tool is bad. VidIQ is genuinely useful for growing a YouTube channel. But when the recommendation is made for a financial reason and a free alternative exists for the specific step being described, you should know that before spending money.
Step 2: Why IShowSpeed Thumbnails Will Not Work on Pinterest
The presenter picks IShowSpeed as his example because IShowSpeed is one of the most widely recognized creators on YouTube. The logic is that a famous person’s face generates clicks. That logic is true on YouTube, where the audience already knows who he is. It falls apart entirely on Pinterest.
Pinterest has a very different audience from YouTube. Roughly 70% of Pinterest’s active users are women. Pinterest users browse for recipes, home decor, fashion, DIY projects, travel ideas, and similar content. IShowSpeed is a gaming and reaction streamer whose audience is mostly younger males on YouTube and Twitch. The overlap between his fanbase and the average Pinterest user is minimal. Someone scrolling through Pinterest looking for dinner ideas is not going to stop and click a pin featuring a gaming streamer they have never heard of.
The presenter himself says at one point that “Pinterest is a search engine,” which is accurate. But the title he creates for the pin is “OMG The Last IRL of Korea.” Nobody on Pinterest is searching for that phrase. Nobody. If Pinterest is a search engine, the correct move is to write a title that matches actual search behavior, something like “easy weeknight dinners” or “home office setup ideas.” Writing a title about a streaming event that has no audience on that platform and calling it a Pinterest strategy reveals that the method has no real foundation in how Pinterest works.
You would need to pick topics that Pinterest users actually search for and create genuinely helpful pins around those topics. That is real Pinterest strategy. It takes work and consistency, but it can produce traffic over time. Repurposing a gaming thumbnail with a clickbait title is not it.
Step 3: The Shrinkme.io Payout Math You Need to See
This is where the “$50 per hour” claim gets completely dismantled. Shrinkme.io pays you when someone clicks your link and successfully sits through an ad. Payouts are calculated per 1,000 views, and they vary by country. Here are the actual rates from the platform:
- Greenland: $22 per 1,000 views
- Ireland: $16 per 1,000 views
- United States: $11 per 1,000 views
- Most other countries: $5 or less per 1,000 views
Now run the math. To make $50 at the US rate of $11 per 1,000 views, you need approximately 4,545 successful view completions. To earn $50 in one hour at that rate, you would need 4,545 people from the United States to click your link, sit through the ad process, and reach the destination, all within 60 minutes. That works out to roughly 76 successful completions per minute, sustained for an entire hour.
If your traffic comes from most countries outside the US, Ireland, or a small group of high-paying regions, your rate drops to $5 or less per 1,000 views. At $5 per 1,000, making $50 in an hour requires 10,000 successful completions in 60 minutes, meaning about 167 per minute. On a single Pinterest pin featuring gaming content that has no audience on the platform.
The Greenland rate looks attractive at $22 per 1,000 until you check the population. Greenland had approximately 56,000 residents as of 2022. Even if you somehow reached every internet-connected person in the country, you have a total addressable population smaller than a mid-sized suburb. The high payout rate exists precisely because the audience is so small that the scenario of generating meaningful volume from it is essentially impossible. The rate is high to attract publishers. The payout ceiling from that market is a few dollars at most before the population runs out.
The presenter shows no evidence that he personally earned $50 per hour using this method. His best screenshot shows $12.20, which at the US rate represents just over 1,100 successful view completions. That number likely accumulated over multiple days or weeks, not in a single hour. The headline of “$50 per hour” is not supported by any of the evidence shown in the video.
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Step 4: What Actually Happens When You Click a Shrinkme.io Link
The method assumes that when a Pinterest user clicks your link, they watch an ad and you get paid. Here is what actually happens when someone clicks a Shrinkme.io link.
You land on a page that says you may need to complete a human verification to watch the video. The page immediately shows pop-up ads. If you press “Continue,” you land on a second page full of more ads, not the YouTube video. If you click “Download Now,” you get redirected to a promotional page. If you click “Play Now,” you are sent to yet another ad placement. If you click “I Am Not a Robot, Click Here to Continue,” you land on another pop-up or redirect. At no point in this process does clicking the link quickly and smoothly take you to the YouTube video you were promised.
Think about your own browsing behavior. If you clicked a link that claimed to take you to a YouTube video and were immediately asked to verify you’re human, would you keep going? Most people close the tab the instant the experience feels suspicious or annoying. That is not a failure on the part of the user. That is a reasonable reaction to something that looks and behaves like a scam.
For Shrinkme.io to pay you, a real person needs to sit through the full ad process and reach the destination. The platform’s entire business model depends on enough users tolerating that friction. In practice, the completion rate is so low that generating even basic payout thresholds requires a massive volume of initial clicks. A Pinterest pin of gaming content that has no audience on the platform is not going to generate that volume.
This is the point in the video where the presenter stops being analytical and starts just being honest: he has done this method multiple times because multiple people keep making the same video about it. Every time he tests it, the result is the same. It does not produce meaningful income, and the user experience is bad enough that completion rates are very low.
Step 5: Why the Bitly Wrapper Gets Flagged on Pinterest
The presenter’s solution to Pinterest being suspicious of Shrinkme.io links is to wrap them inside a Bitly URL. Bitly is a link-masking tool. You put in a long URL and get back a shorter one that hides the original destination. The presenter’s logic is that Pinterest will not detect the Shrinkme.io link if it is hidden behind a Bitly address.
Pinterest is aware of this technique. The platform has policies against links that obscure their final destination, and it actively checks where shortened links resolve to. Posting a Bitly URL that leads to a Shrinkme.io spam process is not a reliable workaround. Pinterest can and does flag accounts that post these kinds of links. The likely outcome is that your Pinterest account gets suspended before you ever generate enough clicks to see a meaningful payout. You would then be starting completely over, with no audience and nothing to show for the time you spent building pins.
Even if the wrapping worked in the short term, Pinterest regularly updates its detection methods. Any workaround that depends on getting around a platform’s safety systems has an expiration date built in. You are not building on solid ground when your income depends on staying one step ahead of a platform’s spam filters.
Honest Drawbacks of the Entire Link-Shortener Side Hustle Category
Link shortener income methods have been circulating online for years. The core issues are consistent across all of them:
- Payout rates are fractions of a cent per click. Even in high-paying countries, you need thousands of successful completions to earn meaningful money. Generating that volume consistently on social media requires substantial effort, which is the opposite of the “easy money from your phone” pitch.
- The user experience is deliberately bad. Link shorteners that pay publishers are funded by intrusive advertising. The more intrusive the ads, the more people abandon the process, and the lower your actual earnings per link posted.
- Platforms fight against it. Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and others have terms of service that prohibit monetized redirects and spam-like posting. Accounts pushing these links at any meaningful scale get flagged and removed.
- You own nothing at the end. After weeks or months of building pins and posting links, you have no audience, no email list, no content catalog, no relationship with anyone who followed your work. If the platform bans you or shifts its algorithm, everything disappears.
- The method requires someone else’s content. You are not creating anything. You are taking a thumbnail from a video someone else made and redistributing it to capture clicks. That is not a business. It is a short-term arbitrage that closes itself once the content goes stale or the platform catches on.
What Actually Builds Income Online: The Real Answer
After watching another version of the same method that has never worked, here is what I genuinely believe produces real results, based on watching thousands of creators build income and testing strategies myself.
People who earn real money online create original content about something they actually know and care about. That does not mean you have to teach people how to make money online. It means finding the intersection of what you know, what you enjoy, and what an audience is actively searching for. That could be bookkeeping tips for small business owners. It could be aquarium care for beginners. It could be productivity tools for teachers, budget meal prep for families, fitness advice for people over 50, or scrapbooking tutorials. There is a real audience for almost every topic, and the creators who serve those audiences with consistent, genuine content are the ones who build lasting income.
Notice that the presenter himself is doing exactly this. He is creating original video content consistently, reviewing and testing methods so his audience does not have to. His YouTube channel is earning him money through ad revenue, sponsorships, and affiliate income. The method that is actually working for him is creating original content consistently. The method he is selling you, the Pinterest link shortener process, is not the method he uses to run his business.
The single variable that separates the people who make money online from the people who do not is consistency. Not talent, not the right niche, not a secret tool. Consistency. Most people who say they have been consistent for two years, when you look at what they actually produced, posted occasionally over two years. Consistency means showing up every day for six months, treating it the way you would treat a job, and not quitting after the first two weeks when no money has appeared yet. Six months of daily effort will put you in a meaningfully different position than you are in today. The method that gets you there is building around something you actually know and care about, not chasing a method built on someone else’s content and a broken link shortener.
Find Your X
If you are not sure what topic or skill to build around, that is a solvable problem. The Platform Proof Finder asks you a few questions about what you already know, what you enjoy, and how much time you realistically have. It matches you with an income path built on your actual situation, not someone else’s repackaged method. No affiliate links buried in the results, no upsell waiting three steps in. Just a direction that makes sense for where you are right now.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is there any legitimate way to make money by watching videos online?
Yes, but the amounts are small. Reward apps like Swagbucks and InboxDollars do pay users for watching video content. Realistic earnings are a few dollars per month, not per hour. These work best as a way to earn gift cards or small supplemental cash, not as a side hustle that replaces meaningful income. Anyone claiming you can earn $50 per hour watching videos is either overstating the numbers dramatically or using a method that will get your account banned. The honest answer is that watching other people’s content pays very little, and the platforms that pay the most require you to be the one creating.
What is Shrinkme.io and how does it actually pay out?
Shrinkme.io is a link-shortening platform that pays publishers when people click their links and view ads. Payouts are calculated per 1,000 views rather than per individual click. Rates range from roughly $5 per 1,000 in most countries to $22 per 1,000 in high-paying regions like Greenland. Greenland’s high rate reflects the fact that almost nobody lives there, so the scenario of generating real volume from it is not realistic. US traffic pays $11 per 1,000, meaning you need thousands of successful completions before you see meaningful earnings. Most users who try link shortener methods earn a few cents or nothing before giving up or getting flagged.
Why does the original video show $12.20 as proof of a $50 per hour claim?
The presenter shows the highest single payout on the platform as his evidence for the headline. $12.20 is not $50, and it is denominated in cryptocurrency rather than dollars. This type of proof-by-screenshot is a common pattern in make-money-online content because screenshots cannot be independently verified, can be taken out of context, and can represent earnings built up over days or weeks rather than the time frame the title implies. A credible income claim would include the method used, the exact time period, the traffic source, and ideally some form of third-party verification. A single small screenshot proves almost nothing about what is actually possible for someone following the method today.
Can you actually make money on Pinterest?
Yes. Pinterest is a real traffic source that drives income for many creators, but not through link shorteners. Creators who earn from Pinterest build focused boards around specific topics, create original pins with genuinely useful content, and drive traffic to a blog, a product, or an affiliate offer with real value. Because Pinterest functions as a visual search engine, content that matches what people are actively searching for can generate consistent, long-term traffic. Gaming thumbnails with clickbait titles are not what the Pinterest audience is searching for. Matching your pins to actual search intent on the platform is the difference between traffic and silence.
Why does the presenter recommend VidIQ when you can find trending videos on YouTube for free?
VidIQ has an affiliate program, so the presenter earns a commission when you sign up through his link. YouTube’s own Trending page shows you the same viral content at no cost. This does not make VidIQ a bad product, it is genuinely useful for channel growth analytics, but for the specific task of finding trending videos, the free option does the same job. When you watch any tutorial that recommends a paid tool, it is worth spending thirty seconds checking whether a free built-in alternative exists and whether the presenter has an affiliate relationship with the tool being recommended.
What is the real risk of trying this method?
The primary risks are a Pinterest account suspension for posting spam-style links, zero earnings after spending hours creating pins, and the frustration of failing at yet another method that was designed to fail. Beyond the practical waste of time, there is a psychological cost to repeatedly trying methods that do not work. Each failure can push someone toward a more desperate attempt next time. The financial risk is low since the method requires no investment, but the time cost and the impact on your motivation to keep trying can add up quickly over multiple failed experiments.
How long does it realistically take to make money online by creating original content?
Most creators who stay consistent see meaningful results between six and twelve months. The first three months often produce very little visible traction. The second three months start to show real growth. By the six-month mark, with daily or near-daily effort, you typically have an audience, early income, and enough data to understand what is resonating. This timeline feels long compared to the “earn $50 per hour today from your phone” pitch, and that gap in expectations is exactly why most people never reach the six-month mark. The ones who push through without quitting are the ones who end up with something real.
Why do videos like this keep getting made if the method doesn’t work?
Because they work extremely well for the person making them, just not in the way the title suggests. The presenter earns through YouTube ad revenue on the video itself, affiliate commissions on every tool he links in the description, and sponsor payments like the unrelated sponsored segment dropped into the middle of this particular video. The model of “make a video promising easy money, send viewers to affiliate tools, earn from YouTube and commissions” is a fully functional business. The problem is not with the presenter’s income strategy. The problem is that the method being taught in the video, the one you are supposed to follow, does not produce the results the title promises. The presenter builds income by creating content. He earns when you try to copy someone else’s.
Read Next
If this breakdown was useful, here is another “get paid to watch” method I tested with real numbers and reported back on.
I Tried It: Get Paid $1.45 Watching Google Ads (Here’s What Really Happened)
Sources
- Shrinkme.io publisher payout rate table (reviewed directly in the original video being debunked)
- Population of Greenland: approximately 56,000 as of 2022 (cited and verified during the video)
- Pinterest audience demographics: approximately 70% female active users (cited in video commentary)
- YouTube Trending page: youtube.com (free built-in alternative to VidIQ for finding viral content)
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.