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Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
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Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#2For a select few: Yes.
For most: No.
Joining that select few is extremely hard, and becomes harder as the space gets more crowded. The winners approach it as a business with a lot of effort, money, and even risky bets poured into making it work.
The real money doesn’t come from YouTube any more. It comes from sponsorships. You have to be able to invest the years it takes to build an audience of millions before you can get decent sponsorship money.
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#3possible yet improbable
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#4For a select few: Yes. For most: No. Joining that select few is extremely hard, and becomes harder as the space gets more crowded. The winners approach it as a business with a lot of effort, money, and even risky bets poured into making it work. The real money doesn’t come from YouTube any more. It comes from sponsorships. You have to be able to invest the years it takes to build an audience of millions before you ca…
How do these sponsorships even work? Do the content creators work directly with companies or does some agency negotiate on their behalf?
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#5It’s certainly possible to make a living off of YouTube/Twitch streaming but you certainly won’t “make it”. It’s basically the same as asking if you can make a living off of being a musician or a painter. The competition is so fierce and the market is so saturated that it will take a miracle to get noticed and be popular. Don’t get me wrong, if it’s something you enjoy doing then give it a shot. But realize just how much of a longshot it will be and be prepared to move on to something else.
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#6Viable technically yes. Someone I’ve been following for a few years was a under 1k viewers on Twitch with a decent but niche YouTube audience when he went full time and now he’s doing very well & building a house with money earned almost entirely on Twitch.
On the other hand my ex girlfriend did it full time but couldn’t get partnered and ultimately made less than minimum wage anyways, she just didn’t want to actually work.
For the vast majority of people it’s actually worse than both of these examples and you shouldn’t even attempt it full time unless you are already approaching the level of income from it you need while you still have a job.
I recommend starting with YouTube as a hobby if you’re interested though — discoverability on Twitch is terrible and you’re going to have a hard time even hitting a monthly payout there without something like a YouTube presence that can drive traffic to your channel.
Also I feel like I might get some negative reaction to saying this BUT it is much easier to monetize on Twitch at the low end as a woman even without sexualizing your content. They simply have an easier time getting viewers and higher revenue per viewer on the low to mid end of things. Of course they also have to deal with a lot of really creepy harassment & they’re underrepresented in the top 0.1% or so as well so it’s not like this is strictly an advantage. But statistically speaking you’d have better odds of it being worth your time.
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#7Absolutely! Don't rely on ads, though.
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#8For a select few: Yes. For most: No. Joining that select few is extremely hard, and becomes harder as the space gets more crowded. The winners approach it as a business with a lot of effort, money, and even risky bets poured into making it work. The real money doesn’t come from YouTube any more. It comes from sponsorships. You have to be able to invest the years it takes to build an audience of millions before you ca…
Or just get a thousand followers who care enough about what you make that many will pay for more. That's what I did.
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#9For a select few: Yes. For most: No. Joining that select few is extremely hard, and becomes harder as the space gets more crowded. The winners approach it as a business with a lot of effort, money, and even risky bets poured into making it work. The real money doesn’t come from YouTube any more. It comes from sponsorships. You have to be able to invest the years it takes to build an audience of millions before you ca…
How do these sponsorships even work? Do the content creators work directly with companies or does some agency negotiate on their behalf?
Twitch has a kind of internal programme for sponsorships (as a twitch partner is basically a worker for Amazon), some streamers get approached directly but larger streamers have agencies to do the work for them which seems more effective. Some of the old school eSports teams are now also agencies for streamers.
Re: Ask HN: Is making a living off YouTube/Twitch viable?
#10I know quite a few low profile streamers on twitch that are barely scraping a living (i.e. ~$1k a month), with average viewership at ~1-200 in niche topics (Geoguessr for instance).
There are a lot more youtubers making a living, but very few (probably less than 5%) make it to a reasonable income. So as others mentioned, it's best to do it as a hobby and switch to it full time when/if it takes off. If you're under pressure to deliver your content will be negatively impacted.