Your prayers to the gods of digital video have been answered. After countless tweets, blog posts and videos from creators, YouTube has finally begun their expansion of custom thumbnails to all partners. On the official YouTube Creator Blog, the video-sharing site announced, “Today, we’re expanding access to custom thumbnails for more YouTube partners, and over time, we aim to make them available to all partners in good standing.”

It’s been a long time coming and one of the most sought after perks of being a YouTube creator. A custom thumbnail is what stands between a future diehard fan and a passing stranger, because let’s face it, we all judge books by their covers.

Earlier this week, we wrote an article detailing why YouTube should allow all partners to have custom thumbnails in place of auto-generated choices. There are tons of good reasons as to why YouTube should give everyone access to custom thumbnails, but the primary reason was simply “Why the hell not?”

Luckily, it seems YouTube is listening, and in the blog post, they clearly explain why they just can’t offer everyone custom thumbnails.

YouTube’s number one reason for not giving custom thumbnail access to everyone is solely because they need to know that they can trust people with the privilege. The blog post explains, “When custom thumbnails do not accurately reflect the content they represent, they can annoy and disappoint viewers.” So, basically, YouTube is concerned about people scamming the system (*cough* reply girls).

YouTube is understandably concerned about giving channels with poor watch times the ability to lure in more gullible visitors with misleading thumbnails.

The custom thumbnail program will continue to roll out to creators in good standing over the next few weeks. YouTube makes it very clear that being in “good standing” is the key to gaining access to custom thumbnails.

Did YouTube open up custom thumbnails for your channel? If they didn’t, do you think you will get them soon?