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How history/tech YouTube channel Asianometry reached 270K subscribers, $5K/month
- anm89 4y agoAwesome channel, puts out consistently high quality content and I find the narrator to be better than a vast majority of similar channels who seem to all have the same annoying voice quirks which I think they do intentionally.
- aseemscreenlace 4y agoYep always positively surprised by the quality of the research done - almost always learn something new
- yellow_lead 4y agoLike Wendover? "However."
- loufe 4y agoWendover and Asianometry I would expect to both be exceptions. Wendover's delivery, especially for informative content, is among the best I've ever heard.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y agoLike RealLifeLore, extremely annoying clickbaity bullshit.
- ekianjo 4y agoGood channel but a bit lacking when you actually know the topic well yourself.
- iancmceachern 4y agoI haven't found this to be the case.
- rchaud 4y agoThat's every channel, eventually. It's also why I stopped reading The Economist on development economics and foreign aid issues.
- treme 4y agoDid you find better? Do share
- rchaud 4y agoYes, through personal experience in the field and maintaining communication and friendships with those still in the industry. I realized a long time ago that the Economist's material is entirely based on second-hand information (think tank, government and NGO reports), mixed in with a few sentences about market liberalization.
- jjk166 4y agoI work for a company that makes industrial water filtration systems and his video on water filtration systems for the semiconductor industry still taught me things.
- anm89 4y agoYeah I mean it's youtube. I know nothing about Semiconductors. I'm not looking for a doctoral thesis.
- treme 4y agoHe gets praised consistently for doing a solid job from people in the field.
- ekianjo 4y agoHe also gets corrected very often, no need to cherry pick your impressions to make it sound its perfect or something. When you only have access to third party sources there is no way you can get everything right.
- moino06 4y agoBig fan of the channel
- m00dy 4y agohalf of the revenue comes from Patreon. Looks like people want this guy to make videos seriously :)
- jasode 4y agoSince he mentioned the Discord benefit for Patreon, I'm guessing the ability to chat with him would be the biggest incentive. The audience really likes getting extra access to a creator and have 2-way communication instead of just being passive viewers. His other Patreon benefit for the highest tier is early access to videos but in observing other Youtube creators' explanations, it's the live chat that attracts Patreon payments. I do notice that some Youtubers do the reverse of Patreon tiers from Asianometry. E.g. Real Science: least expensive tiers have early access but no livestream chat; the highest tier has the chat Everybody's trying to figure out the right mix of incentives for Patreon.
- dncornholio 4y agoI backed a few YouTubers on Patreon, but never did it for the benefits, just wanted to give them some extra financial support.
- wdb 4y agoSocial Blade, suggests the channel earns more than that. Wondering how incorrect Social Blade is https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UC1LpsuAUaKoMzzJSEt5WImw https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UC1LpsuAUaKoMzzJSEt5...
- aseemscreenlace 4y agoI think SocialBlade just gives a range since RPMs vary wildly due to a ton of factors (e.g. geography, niche). I'd guess Asian viewers in the history/tech niche have lower RPMs compared to something like American viewers in the finance niche.
- mrtksn 4y agoThe earnings are strictly dependent on the audience profile(location, age, gender etc.) and the theme of the channel as the earnings are essentially a cut from the ad view and click costs. I've watched some videos from similarly sized youtubers disclosing their earnings and socialblade seem to be quite off the mark most of the time probably because they don't have a good way to estimate the profile of the audience accurately enough. Rule of the thumb is, a finance channel with American audience makes 10x-50x more per view than a Bangladeshi channel about gaming. So it's not easy to guestimate.
- restore_creole_ 4y ago$821 to $13,100 per month is a very wide range. The amount he actually does makes falls within that range but it would be hard not to.
- seydor 4y agoI don't think youtube pays its creators well
- coffeeblack 4y agoYt just hosts the creators. They get paid whatever the ad market pays for the niche they are in. Plus what they make from Patron or Locals subscriptions.
- seydor 4y agoI believe adsense witholds a sizeable portion of that ad revenue. Plus there is literally no transparency in adsense about which advertiser paid which channel. We are just supposed to take google's word for it
- vouaobrasil 4y agoI am transitioning to content creation and I already get paid for it. I used to just have an engineering job. Yes, I got paid WAY more in an engineering job but I look at it this way: the much higher salary I got in an engineering job is an exchange for having to do the work other people tell me to do, which I don't really find intrinsically interesting. It also means I have to commute sometimes, interact with others who might be incompetent, etc. Not worth the extra money at all.
- seydor 4y agothat's not an assessment about how much creators should be paid though
- eru 4y agoIn some sense it is. Lots of people want to be content creators. Just like lots of people want to be musicians or athletes (or pet vets or work with kids.) Or write novels or create video games. Many of these people are willing to take somewhat lower pay in return for doing something they love. Supply and demand do the rest.
- draw_down 4y ago
- hardware2win 4y agoI like his semico content
- MrDunham 4y agoClicking into the article you see that it was built over the course of five years. And from other comments it seems that ~half of his revenue is from Patreon. That means that five years of labor has netted a salary of $60K per year (only $30k from YouTube)… Almost certainly that’s top line revenue and not net profit. That’s… not much for the work involved. The benefit here is with this strong presence and smart thinking he can likely turn this into significantly more income. Perhaps as an affiliate for travel sites or packaging historical vacation packages. But it certainly dissuades me from any business model where showing ads is the primary revenue driver (unless you on a platform, of course, a la Google, Meta, et al.)
- comboy 4y agoBut it scales. If he keeps at it (while keeping the quality - I watch most videos), it's likely that each year will bring as much revenue as all previous years combined. It may saturate at few millions subs but at that point it's not a bad profit and revenue from potential partnerships increases. I'm not saying it's an easy money, but it could be much more rewarding than working for big tech. Of course having a yt cahnnel is still kind of working for big tech, but he seems to be smart about it, heavily promoting newsletter, presumably to be able to switch platform if necessary.
- fullshark 4y agoIt also could go to nothing any year, as audiences move on or a youtube algorithm change murders his watchtime (Patreon a little less risky here but it could shrink as watchtime/new audience shrinks).
- TheRealPomax 4y agoThe thing to remember is that it's a two-way door: current audiences move on, but we keep making more humans, and they keep "discovering" what youtube recommends to them, so realistically the threat is "leveling out" rather than "losing viewers" if you run a quality channel that isn't built on slagging others off. Plus, we're already seeing alternatives (or rather, in-parallels) becoming quite established, most notably Floatplane and Nebula as created-by-youtuber(s)-who-wanted-an-off-platform-alternative.
- dirtyid 4y agoGreat channel, but much less focus on general asian history now that tech history with economic / industrial policy focus is driving the eyeballs. Also sad his brief foray into shitpost style humor got slapped down by viewers.
- nottorp 4y agoThat is ... until google AI bans them for unspecified TOS violations.
- ForHackernews 4y ago"Hurting the feelings of the Chinese people"
- MichaelCollins 4y agoContext for those who aren't familiar with this; It's a political catchphrase of the CCP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurting_the_feelings_of_the_Chinese_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurting_the_feelings_of_the_Ch...
- bliteben 4y agoThe best is when they literally ban everything you've ever worked on. Love when 6 bans come in at 12:03 am like last week. I feel like pretty much anything I ever work on now is at risk of google randomly banning it. It sucks that it feels like you can't really escape it because a client always either wants an android app or google maps integration etc. I can't imagine a youtube creator is at any less risk somehow. Over a lifetime google will certainly find some reason to ban the creator. I understand they want to protect their business but the way they operate is especially harsh and can literally ruin people's lives.
- coffeeblack 4y agoAmazing how AdSense has been doing this since 2003 and Gg has still not fixed it.
- TrackerFF 4y agoHistory channels seem to be especially vulnerable to getting brigaded by some offended party.
- ikealampe200 4y agoAmazing channel, best of all is his very last advice "Don’t do gaming."
- KaoruAoiShiho 4y agoMostly Asian viewers is just not it from an income perspective. There are other youtube channels who are super successful and do niche Asian History content with mostly western viewers and I assume make a lot more money. Like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n1OU9p3fhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n1OU9p3fhM If OP is not aware of them maybe he should check them out and see what they do better. I have a feeling there's a bunch of things you can learn from it. I enjoy his semi videos but honestly general history should be more popular than semis, I think he just has to get their quality up to snuff. Don't assume your earlier less popular history videos is down to the topic rather than your earlier inexperience. The stuff you said about storytelling that you learned makes a huge difference.
- Bayart 4y agoI'm surprised he's got most of his views from Asia. I've always thought of Asianometry as being a window on East Asia for a more Western audience.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoI don’t know about his service but I run popular apps for asian language learning and have a lot of non-native immigrants / westerners who’ve moved there and are still learning (often life long), so you could still be right
- swyx 4y agoi think just putting asia in the title turns off most people from the west who have no interest. (no judgment, i do it too)
- wongarsu 4y agoJust like any video about Germany has countless German viewers. I think people generally enjoy an "outside" perspective on their own culture.
- loufe 4y agoI am a very happy Asianometry subscriber. He has a bit of a monotone delivery but the content consists of fantastic dives into the world of electronics manufacturing, science, and technology in general. He deserves his success.
- DecoPerson 4y agoI’m a fan of the monotone delivery. My brain understands the words better when it’s like that.
- typon 4y agoIt's a welcome break from the exaggerated emotions, fast breaks/cuts, and general dopamine triggers that are littered in your average youtube video. It's like watching Bob Ross. I love Asianometery!
- eru 4y agoI am subscribed too. He's sometimes a bit too (economically) left-wing for me, but I generally sticks to well-researched facts, so it has never been an issue that would impair my enjoyment.
- DecoPerson 4y agoHaha, in his recent video on Australia’s LNG export dilemma [1], I thought he was a bit too right-wing! But like you said, he provides a lot of well-researched facts that allow a viewer to form their own opinion. [1] https://youtu.be/2PGV8fAyIrE https://youtu.be/2PGV8fAyIrE
- eru 4y agoI listened to the same, but had the impression that he deviated from mainstream economics' free market consensus. (That's probably a better term than the rather imprecise left/right shorthand.) He seems to have a soft spot for 'industrial policy'. Eg when he discussed the rise of Chinese photovoltaic, and the relative decline of German efforts.
- gizmo 4y ago5 years and 300+ well researched videos results in $5k/mo revenue, mostly patreon. This shows how brutally unforgiving the youtube economy is, even when your content is excellent. I fully expect this channel to grow to $50k/mo in the next couple of years, but still, the stamina required to get there amazes me.
- tomcam 4y agoThis is assuming they don’t run afoul of YouTube algorithms
- spiderfarmer 4y agoGetting there is a lot easier if you don’t live in expensive areas and 1000 dollars per month means you’re living in luxury.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoIs there anywhere on Earth that allows for luxury on $1k per month? The price of equipment to make the video is not going to be less.
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoremoved
- stepanhruda 4y agoNot a sunk cost but a fixed cost.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago>Also, why sink down to 1k/month? Because the comment I replied to claimed “luxury” for $1k per month.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoEntirely depends on your tastes.
- eshack94 4y agoI love his channel and his narration style. It's a super informational channel with no clickbait and just tons of quality content about semiconductors and other technology. Would highly recommend.
- stewx 4y ago335k subscribers now, since this article was posted < 2mos. ago
- nix23 4y agoYeah well that's not much for being one of the most informed (in tech, history and politics) and kick-ass creators on the net. A really great channel. Shame on you Youtube!
- ladyattis 4y agoI really enjoyed his videos on semiconductor developments since it's often hard to parse what's really going on since I'm not an electrical engineer, so none of it really makes sense to me. :)
- jerrygoyal 4y ago"I realized that if I wanted to last, I needed to make this enjoyable."
- iancmceachern 4y agoAsianometry has become one of my absolute favorite YouTube channels. I love it.
- omwow 4y agoLove a behind-the-scenes peak of a creator like this one, it's fascinating to see. But yeah, $5k / month for the amount of work and talent that went into this seems disproportionate, but then I could also see this growing exponentially, where if he keeps at it, it will make ridiculous amounts of money that's just as, if not more disproportionate to effort invested, except this time in his favor. Which is what I wish for him.
- spoonjim 4y agoThis is why you learn to code. Because just showing up and doing what you’re told you make 3 times as much.
- dopeboy 4y agoTwo things: * his ability to scale is greater than yours * his work nets income even when he is sleeping
- bemmu 4y agoInteresting that he is willing to deal with receiving money from AdSense, but not willing to deal with receiving money from sponsors. Sounds like an opening for an AdSense-like middleman except for sponsorships, so he could just receive money from one place instead of dealing with multiple customers.
- kiicia 4y agoplease don't do that, those sponsored ads are bad already as it is
- andreygrehov 4y agoI started a Youtube channel about Dynamic Programming. This was out of frustration of doing nothing during the COVID isolation. To my surprise, I reached 1,000 subscribers relatively quickly. I posted my first video on Apr 14, 2020. By Jul 13, 2020 the channel had 1k+ subscribers. So, it took 3 months. The videos have extremely good (IMHO) like/dislike ratio. I somewhat proud of it :) I've never had monetization enabled, so never made a cent out of this journey. On the other hand, it was crazy fulfilling. Since I joined AWS, I barely have time to reply to comments, let alone publish new videos. Wish I had more time... I stopped releasing new videos on Feb 8, 2021. By that time I had 4k subscribers. It's passively grown to 4.5k since then. If anyone is interested, here is the channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnwNEngsXoIp_tgJ2jZWfw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnwNEngsXoIp_tgJ2jZWfw
- andreygrehov 4y agoThe comment received several dislikes. I'm extremely interested to know why. If anyone dislikes, don't hesitate to explain the motivation behind it. The motivation behind my original comment was to throw a channel growth data point.
- beiller 4y agoMaybe it could be interpreted at shilling your channel. I however thought it was a perfectly cromulent comment.
- jhallenworld 4y agoAn interesting channel is Will Prowse's Off Grid Solar Channel. He was living in his van (in CA, no surprise) until the youtube money allowed him to buy a house (in Vegas), which he recently paid off. https://www.youtube.com/c/WillProwse/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/WillProwse/videos House related videos: Sets goal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j1ZVnfjKyM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j1ZVnfjKyM Buys house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhtN01Hc95U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhtN01Hc95U Pays off house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALDuMufycMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALDuMufycMY "I paid 34k every month for 10 months to pay off this house. " Anyway, so it's possible, but you need to have the right topic. I think reviews and how-tos of expensive things you are about to buy is a lucrative place to be.
- ahsusbzuxbsbe 4y agoLove how he mooches California's resources when he isn't a tax payer, but once he gets money off to the tax haven if Nevada! What a scumbag
- devteambravo 4y agoIt's amazing that some right wing forum helped you spread historical knowledge. Plants can grown on the darn(d?)est of things.
- dmingod666 4y agoWell, he has well researched high quality content with no fluff. Totally deserves it.
- Joe_Boogz 4y agoI really enjoy channels like Asianometry & actively share this channel with friends. Any others like it?
- NCC1701DEngage 4y agoI'm working on a team to build alternative YouTube recommendations. You can search a channel to get a list of similar channels. Our list for Asianometry includes the Asia Society's official channel which has videos of public talks on Asian geopolitics, TechTechPotato which covers semiconductor chips, and Dongfang Hour covering the Chinese space program, as well as dozens more channels covering hardware and asian geopolitics (sometimes both!): https://channelgalaxy.com/id%3DUC1LpsuAUaKoMzzJSEt5WImw/ https://channelgalaxy.com/id%3DUC1LpsuAUaKoMzzJSEt5WImw/
- csa 4y agoThere are many comments about how little he makes from this channel, but it seems like he’s not really focusing on maximizing his revenue. Specifically: - he does not do sponsored videos (too much work he doesn’t want to do) - he has not monetized with his own product(s) (tried merch, but it didn’t work) - he does not promote the videos After taking a look at some of his video titles, I’m fairly certain he could make an absolute bucketload of money just by doing lead gen for folks who specialize in Asian trade (either as boots on the ground or as advisors). As an example, a recent video on Chinese semi-conductors has 161k views — that’s the high side of his normal range. I can imagine finance companies wanting to be connected to the “real” local experts on this topic (not the blowhards who are a dime a dozen, but the real folks who like to get their hands dirty with the details) — that connection could be worth millions. I can imagine chip buyers just wanting to know which consultants will give them a reasonable deal. I can imagine finance/investing newsletters tripping over themselves for access to local experts with specialized knowledge that would provide insights to their readers. The list goes on. Being able to facilitate these connections would be a huge business, imho. The problem is that this would require some scut work… but I imagine it would be very lucrative scut work, most of which could be wrapped into the research phase of his videos. tl;dr — I think he could make a lot more loner from his channel, but he doesn’t seem interested in or knowledgeable about the type of work that would generate high levels of revenue.
- meesterdude 4y agoI watch every episode! Good for him. I wish he would stop pumping the newsletter. I like that he's promoting his own stuff, but he doesn't understand why i watch his channel - it's because they are informative videos, and give me something meaningful to watch when i eat dinner. I'd love a westernamatry channel, or something similar in being a sister channel. Maybe shorter episodes. maybe just reading news articles and reflecting on them. Lots of formats that could work. the stories he tells are unique and intriguing - for me that's the value.
- alpineidyll3 4y agoBy being an indispensable, well-researched, source of information! That's how. I catch every bit of content from this person. I can't believe they choose to operate in China, I'd love an entire video just on that. Wish them the best.
- ahmadmijot 4y agoWow. I stumbled his channel few months back when I tried to learn about semiconductor industry. Really happy about his success