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5 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 co

• tomcam 4y ago
  This is assuming they don’t run afoul of YouTube algorithms
• spiderfarmer 4y ago
  Getting 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 ago
    Is 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 ago
      removed
      • stepanhruda 4y ago
        Not 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 ago
      Entirely depends on your tastes.
      • lotsofpulp 4y ago
        I would assume a meaningful definition of luxury involves at least abundant space, food, energy, and time. For example, working 100 hours per week is not luxurious, nor living in a Hong Kong pod, nor having to eat ramen because you cannot afford fruits and vegetables.
    • xeromal 4y ago
      The countryside in peru.
      • lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Would you have access to broadband internet to upload HD video? Clean water? Sewage? Healthcare? Education? Supposedly, median household income in Peru is $17k, and that is skewed higher to urban residents, so let’s say two earners earning $24k total in rural Peru would be 2x median income of the surrounding families. Maybe it can be “luxurious”, but I would want more proof that you can get access to reliably energy, high quality network connectivity, and access to other goods/services one would normally associate with luxury.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
        • adventured 4y ago
          The median household income in Peru is far lower than that figure. The typical monthly salary in Lima is going to be in the $300-$400 range (minimum wage is ~$270). You could get to that $17k number if you had four incomes in one household though.
          • lotsofpulp 4y ago
            I have no clue, I just quickly searched and found a snippet of this website: https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/median-household-income-in-peru/ https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/media... Seemed like a high enough number that would still validate my point.
            • skinnymuch 4y ago
              It’s lower if looking at overall gdp. Not PPP as your link does. Normal gdp per capita is under $7K/year.
      • missedthecue 4y ago
    • eru 4y ago
      The author's equipment isn't all that expensive. Taiwan (where the author lives) has lower cost of living than the US, but 1000 USD per month isn't quite luxury even there.
      • shalmanese 4y ago
        It was the starting wage of a university undergraduate at TSMC in 2019: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3925769 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3925769
• wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Are there compelling examples of youtubers making money in ways that can break this cycle? Patreon requires the same grind.
  • z7 4y ago
    I recently stumbled over this guy: https://www.youtube.com/c/hbomberguy/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/hbomberguy/videos He seems to release about 2 videos a year and has more than 10k patrons. If he gets 2$ on average from each per month that makes 240k a year or about one million after four years.
  • adolph 4y ago
    Does merchandise/outside sales count as breaking the cycle? This guy (a glimpse inside) talks about how YT became a sales lead generator for his woodworking in this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKiWVQK-YJE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKiWVQK-YJE
• grecy 4y ago
  His RPM and CPM are very, VERY low. With that much view time he should be making 10x what he is straight from YouTube.
  • ransom1538 4y ago
    Exactly. If these videos were "Asian financial advice" - this post would be about how to hire a video production team. The crazy good youtube money is in finance: realestate, 401ks, investing, etc. You want to be in a market with advertisers with deep pockets.
    • chii 4y ago
      i watch this channel because the videos are not just trash topics solely engineered to gain ad revenue. A lot of his topics in the video are not related to any advertising, and thus the CPM is low. I'm glad he's stuck through it, because the content is excellent. i'm glad to hear that majority revenue actually comes from patreon - this means people do realize the value of the video, and there's enough willing to donate.
    • mizzao 4y ago
      Yep, CPM for finance/fintech ads are among the highest.
    • MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > hire a video production team That's a good way to kill the authenticity of a channel, and race to the bottom creating flashy but shallow content. I don't begrudge a youtuber merely hiring a cameraman, but the more people they hire on a permanent basis, the more pressure there is to optimize for monetary success. This means flashy well produced videos, but very shallow content that is more accessible to a wider audience.
• phphphphp 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s the YouTube economy so much as it is the creative economy. If you produce creative content, you are at the mercy of the whims of your audience. Even in profitable or well-funded businesses, there’s a constant existential threat associated with the whims of the audience changing. The problem is especially visible on YouTube because so many creators are small, and so have a connection with their audience but don’t have the resources to absorb the costs and risks of trying to keep up with a constantly changing audience, but it’s not a problem specific to or even especially pronounced on YouTube.
  • Goronmon 4y ago
    I don’t think it’s the YouTube economy so much as it is the creative economy. If you produce creative content, you are at the mercy of the whims of your audience. Even in profitable or well-funded businesses, there’s a constant existential threat associated with the whims of the audience changing. Yup. Generally speaking, people value content like this as pretty much having, well, no value at all. They don't want to pay for it, and they'll go out of there way to make sure they pay as little as possible for it. In fact, I would even go further and suggest that many people feel that all jobs, except for whatever job/industry they are in, as having little to no value and should be done for nothing.
    • jlarocco 4y ago
      > Yup. Generally speaking, people value content like this as pretty much having, well, no value at all. They don't want to pay for it, and they'll go out of there way to make sure they pay as little as possible for it. A lot of the blame goes to the content creators, though. They were the ones who set the expectations for "free content" by giving their creation away for "free". And in that context, making $5k a month is pretty good. If I have a garage sale, put $0 price tags on everything, and end up with $5k afterwards, then that's amazing. > In fact, I would even go further and suggest that many people feel that all jobs, except for whatever job/industry they are in, as having little to no value and should be done for nothing. That seems a little far fetched.
      • 4y ago
• madeofpalk 4y ago
  I wonder how much they would have made without Youtube. If they had to host/stream the videos themselves, didn't have magical algorithms to push a % of viewers to them, had to market and discover their own audience completely on their own, had to sort out ads/subscriptions themselves, etc.
  • seydor 4y ago
    34M video/page views at the very very least, how much would it make You re leaving out the part that without youtube, users would be seeking out this content, like they did with blogs before facebook. I think he should do that. Host his own content and use youtube for trailers only, a-la onlyfans
    • judge2020 4y ago
      > without youtube, users would be seeking out this content, like they did with blogs before facebook. Would they really though? His top viewed videos are "Why the Soviet Computer Failed" and "What Eating the Rich Did for Japan". If those were headlines for a personally-hosted video blog, the biggest group I can see eating that up is the Twitter mob, which, all things considered, doesn't generate much value and is unlikely to translate into a dedicated follower base. In addition, those are kind of two different interest groups: I'd imagine less than 50% of people interested in the Soviet Computer topic are interested in viewing/reading a pro-"eat the rich" content piece. With YouTube, their recommendations allow the user to only be fed the content that correlates with what they want to see (and this is more apparent in other parts of YouTube, eg. Channel Awesome[0] where anything that's not in their Nostalgia Critic or Untitled Review Show series tends to get comparatively few views). 0: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChannelAwesome/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/ChannelAwesome/videos
      • seydor 4y ago
        > doesn't generate much value and is unlikely to translate into a dedicated follower base It seems to work for 'onlyfaners' who use twitter and instagram to advertise their content
• Schweigi 4y ago
  He doesn’t do paid sponsorships. That would probably double the revenue when looking at other creators who published their numbers. As per article it’s because of the day job who doesn’t leave too much time handling those and that the video making is a hobby to him - I read from it he doesn’t want to make it a job?
  • HWR_14 4y ago
    > He doesn’t do paid sponsorships. That would probably double the revenue when looking at other creators who published their numbers. Assuming everything else remained constant. I've seen creators comment that adding sponsorships really hurt their growth numbers.
    • bombcar 4y ago
      It depends on the type of content, really. Someone who is reviewing tools could be hurt by getting sponsored by a tool brand, because of the obvious possible conflict of interest. But that same person getting sponsored by one of the damn VPN providers might affect it less. It also depends on where they put the sponsorship and how easy it is to skip.
    • JCharante 4y ago
      It depends on the type of sponsorship. A friend turned [cooking in a niche cuisine tiktoker] does sponsorships where for example if the cooking step is to fry something in a pan, you just include the 1-2 seconds of adding the oil so that viewers see what type of oil (and brand) you're using. They get stuff sent to them like, use our toaster in your video and all you literally have to do is show yourself putting the bread in the toaster if you're making a video about like avocado toast or something. If they scaled it up properly they could easily clear $3k/month before counting the amount of growth that comes from uploading frequently (they've experimented with how much they grow per video but kinda get tired of doing it). I do see other tiktokers do it poorly, like having a long lingering shot on the label that makes you realized the video is an ad. Somehow they still get views but their videos are really really boring.
• mizzao 4y ago
  Yes...geez, that's an insane amount of work to get to $60k/year pre-tax.
  • vouaobrasil 4y ago
    It is but there is a huge upside to it: no bosses breathing down your neck (even if they are nice and hands-off, you still have to do what they tell you), no 9-5, no nauseating business corporate language, no commuting, interacting with coworkers, etc. I am a content creator myself, get paid way less than I could at a 9-5 job, and would never go back simply because there's nothing better than doing exactly what you love without having to waste time doing what other people want you to do.
    • fasthands9 4y ago
      I always wonder what his returns would be if he just stopped posting but kept the old videos up. I realize it probably declines faster than you'd think - but imagine over the course of 5 years he'd prob still hit 100k in residual value. Which must be a nice safety blanket to have.
    • onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
      Assuming your time is worth minimum wage - you haven't even broken even yet. This is a very, very long term play. You have to bank on YouTube still being a dominate market, not getting too greedy with it's algorithms or revenue sharing, and your old videos continuing to attract a large number of views. If any one of those goes wrong - you're basically working for below minimum wage.
      • charcircuit 4y ago
        >You have to bank on YouTube still being a dominate market No, you can just upload your videos on the next big platform. The content isn't exclusive.
    • nkozyra 4y ago
      And also you'll continue to make money off of previous work. That video you did two years ago will still contribute Adsense revenue.
• seydor 4y ago
  Oh the joys of monopoly
  • lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Which monopoly? The video creator is free to host their video on whichever machine they want.
    • seydor 4y ago
      So where else would asianometry content fit?
      • eru 4y ago
        Nebula perhaps? Or self-hosted? I'm not sure that makes YouTube a monopoly. Just like some games work best on the Nintendo Switch doesn't mean Nintendo has a monopoly on console gaming.
    • pessimizer 4y ago
      By that standard, there's no such thing as monopoly. If you think there is one, you're always free to start your own country.
      • Valakas_ 4y ago
        He clearly doesn't know what a monopoly is.
• 3pt14159 4y ago
  The thing is, when it comes to content this is basically the whole game. I once, after a disagreement with a friend of mine who is a designer about the difficulty of designing a non-doubly symmetric gear icon, burned around eight hours on designing some icons and put them up on The Noun Project. I'm not a designer, a structural engineer trained software dev with a decent eye, but no real training or work experience in design. Over years the money kept coming in. I think I calculated it out to about $20 an hour after four or five years. I literally could have looked at this as a sort of bond, did the net present value accounting on it, and realized better gains than with software over the next 70 years of copyright. This is with no automation or market research or experience or training.
• rchaud 4y ago
  You're not supposed to be running on the Youtube hamster wheel forever. Build your subscriber base, then try to pitch the idea to a network capable of paying to commission an actual show.
• musha68k 4y ago
  This is why you need to own the content delivery channel itself. Dick Dale preached a lot about this with regards to the music industry.
  • rchaud 4y ago
    You'll also need to own and pay for marketing and distribution in that case. I don't know of any indie consumer video-based product that got popular without being on Youtube. Note that I am excluding "video courses". Most people can't do the marketing, it requires too much time to learn and implement, time that cuts into video production. For a lot of people, it's better to delegate it to the platform itself.
• acchow 4y ago
  You can make a shit-ton more on YouTube just cracking jokes or being a confident liar
  • olyjohn 4y ago
    Or just buying expensive items and smashing them or blowing them up.
• themagician 4y ago
  The YouTube economy isn't always unforgiving. YouTube allows you access to a the world's largest group of suckers as well as those in poverty who are desperate. If you create content that targets these people, you can make bank… and fast. While someone creating high-end education content might get $1-$2 CPMs, someone creating targeted scam content can make 10x—yes, $10-$20 CPMs are possible. Content about personal finance, coaching, "selling online", affiliate spam, MLM and pyramid schemes, dropshipping, and meta-content about being a "creator" all makes unbelievable bank.
• beambot 4y ago
  I would love to see some of the better educational YouTube channels get picked up by Netflix and the like... And hopefully find a good audience & better compensation too.
  • mianos 4y ago
    I agree, to me, some of these documentaries are better than the ones on Netflix at the moment. The Netflix 'docuseries' Explained is so bad it would not be viable on youtube!