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My Youtube earnings

brickexperimentchannel.wordpress.com

21–30 of 422 posts

Re: My Youtube earnings

#21
post #7

So they make around $150K/year but likely pay more tax, higher overheads, and have to fund their own benefits out of that. Depending on where they live this could either be a very good income or only marginally higher than tech wages with much higher risk/stress. That's on 2M-6M viewers too. Makes me wonder how YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips are able to seemingly hire around one-hundred full time staff? I have…

For the larger channels such as LTT, the YouTube ad revenue is likely approaching rounding error compared to their sponsorship/merch/platform revenue.

[deleted]

Re: My Youtube earnings

#22
post #7

So they make around $150K/year but likely pay more tax, higher overheads, and have to fund their own benefits out of that. Depending on where they live this could either be a very good income or only marginally higher than tech wages with much higher risk/stress. That's on 2M-6M viewers too. Makes me wonder how YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips are able to seemingly hire around one-hundred full time staff? I have…

For the larger channels such as LTT, the YouTube ad revenue is likely approaching rounding error compared to their sponsorship/merch/platform revenue.

LTT uploaded at least a couple of videos explaining how they make money:

https://youtu.be/-zt57TWkTF4 https://youtu.be/Rh5hL47z2us

Re: My Youtube earnings

#23
post #5

The transparency of this is really amazing; big respect. It's interesting to think that this information was quietly posted to their low-traffic blog with little notice, meanwhile the information contained is actually extremely valuable (and itself would have probably made a highly valuable youtube video itself with 10s of millions of views). I wonder how much other information exists on the web that is extremely val…

I don't think YouTube allows you to make videos showing your revenue, but I could be wrong

Many years ago you were prohibited from sharing warnings by virtue of YouTube monetisation being through AdSense but, as far as I know, there’s no longer such a restriction. Lots of people publish their earnings nowadays, very common amongst finance channels.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#25
The most impressive part is the creator gets to have a probably comfortable living from a channel that grew organically and still 100% depends on youtube’s algorithm.

I follow the channel for years now, anyone not familiar should have a look [0]. It’s not “viral” targeted videos with crazy face thumbnails, borderline clickbaity titles, ABtested through a week, no “I got to stick to the schedule” weekly videos etc.

The videos are really straightforward and focused, and derive all the entertainment from sheer viewer curiosity and the creator’s humor shining through. When I see the 100h average per video, It looks like they really nail down what actually matters and got to ignore the rest.

IMO there’s very few channels that stayed very basic and true to their form while enjoying a comfortable success, I think this is the kind Youtube probably wanted to encourage the most, and hope many more thrive in places I never heard of.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/BrickExperimentChannel

Re: My Youtube earnings

#26

I could be wrong but I don't think YouTube TOS allows publicizing this kind of information. I would be afraid of my channel being de-monetized. I believe they have a similar policy for AdSense.

I think such policy is illegal in many countries. An employer cannot prohibit workers from discussing salaries. This is often a measure to combat against gender discrimination at a workplace. I’m not sure how this affects contractors, but I would be surprised if these laws wouldn’t cover contractors as well.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#27
post #8

> mostly middle-aged males No, most viewers were 18-44. "Middle-aged" is 45-65.

65 is only middle-aged if you plan to live to 130...

While 65 is pushing it, middle age does not mean ”half way to death”[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_age

Re: My Youtube earnings

#28

So they make around $150K/year but likely pay more tax, higher overheads, and have to fund their own benefits out of that. Depending on where they live this could either be a very good income or only marginally higher than tech wages with much higher risk/stress. That's on 2M-6M viewers too. Makes me wonder how YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips are able to seemingly hire around one-hundred full time staff? I have…

> only marginally higher than tech wages with much higher risk/stress

nonsense, not having to deal with corporate life is easily worth $50k on its own

no dumb meetings

no imbeciles imposing their will on you just because they started before you

no moronic company brainwashing, thought-policing, bossware etc etc

Re: My Youtube earnings

#29
post #7

So they make around $150K/year but likely pay more tax, higher overheads, and have to fund their own benefits out of that. Depending on where they live this could either be a very good income or only marginally higher than tech wages with much higher risk/stress. That's on 2M-6M viewers too. Makes me wonder how YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips are able to seemingly hire around one-hundred full time staff? I have…

For the larger channels such as LTT, the YouTube ad revenue is likely approaching rounding error compared to their sponsorship/merch/platform revenue.

It's not. He's made videos of their revenue breakdown before and from what I remember AdSense still accounts for ~30% of revenue, which is significant.

E: seems like I was a bit off. AdSense accounted for 18% of their 2021 revenue. Still a significant portion though. 30% might be closer to their 2020 AdSense revenue given the growth of their merch over the last few years.

https://twitter.com/linustech/status/1486918784401088515

Re: My Youtube earnings

#30
post #5

The transparency of this is really amazing; big respect. It's interesting to think that this information was quietly posted to their low-traffic blog with little notice, meanwhile the information contained is actually extremely valuable (and itself would have probably made a highly valuable youtube video itself with 10s of millions of views). I wonder how much other information exists on the web that is extremely val…

I don't think YouTube allows you to make videos showing your revenue, but I could be wrong

Linus tech tips did a video sharing their YouTube earnings last year
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