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My Youtube earnings

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Re: My Youtube earnings

#211
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Also this is not counting their sponsorships, merch sales, etc.)

Which is much higher than ad revenue through Google. I know it because I have a friend with a YouTube channel +5mln and he has external team handling these issues. He told me revenue from sponsorships is 4 times more from what he makes from Google and his viewers are mostly from US. However his sponsorships are really well placed and match the content. Also listening t these ads is not as painful as Linux Tech Tips,…

I am a full-time YouTuber. This is spot on, only the figure can be much greater than 4X Adsense.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#212
post #181

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. Th…

> still 100% depends on youtube’s algorithm. That's the scary part. He spends years building a channel and it can be wiped out in a day. He needs to diversify. Sponsorships/ads won't help, they'd die with the channel. I'm not in this space, but maybe patreon? Does onlyfans do non-porn? Vimeo? How does one minimize risk to this $150k/year revenue stream?

Patreon works, but only as a monetization platform; while it's a channel that can offer early access to e.g. new videos, in practice the vast majority of views will still be on youtube and unless it's something critical, patrons will wait until it's on youtube anyway (citation needed).

Onlyfans doesn't do porn, nu-uh, where did you even get that idea? It doesn't market specifically to adult content, is what I mean, lol. Its current home page does not appeal at all though; it currently shows me a dull kitchen / food channel, some real estate agent, and some model eating caviar.

Anyway, patreon, merchandise and in-video sponsorships are common ways to diversify income. Some big players have expanded to clothing brands or, weirdly enough, doing wrestling / boxing matches.

I think the current biggest alternative to Youtube is Twitch, but that's mainly aimed at gaming channels and live broadcasting.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#213
post #68
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…

> (this) information is extremely valuable Estimating earnings based on views/subs is helpful to prospective youtubers, letting them make wise decisions about whether they pursue that path or do something else with their time (it will probably dissuade more than it will encourage, but that's a good thing if in aggregate people are making sounder career decisions).

I immediately noticed a dark dynamic based on the analytics. Lucky for OP, they are making Lego videos. However, if you are in the business of selling your opinion or sexuality, and you start to see that people click on certain hot takes or less-clothes on, you will start to morph to cater to that traffic. I wonder how this destroys a person (the greed).

Totally taking the convo in the darker direction, but you can see this dynamic in play with Rogan‘s podcast. He’s a liberal, but those hot button right wing takes are probably what brings in the clicks. Every trans critique he makes caters to that traffic, so he milks that audience often.

What does one become when you effectively sell out to the analytics?

Your thoughts and perspective are no longer driven by your convictions or experience, but by this shit.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#214
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can earn a similar deal by getting a part time tech job and buying lottery tickets with some of that.

A part time tech job that paid 150k per year seems dreamy. Is this a real thing? If so, where do I look? What if I'm not risk averse, do contracting gigs that net 150k a year exist? Are they attainable to jr devs?

Only if you live in the Valley, where the house prices are so high you’ll swallow your tongue or just laugh yourself to death.

There are people who contract and then just take a few months off between contracts. If you can work the health insurance it’s okay.

I think there’s a world where contracting houses have certain specialized individuals who work 15 hours a week on three projects, but if those places exist I haven’t worked for any of them. In that hypothetical environment you should be able to get 30 or 20 hours a week if you wanted. Or 55 for that matter.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile when I wrote disparate blog articles, I went from $2/month, to $20, to $200 to $2000, and it’s because Google search sent you to me. Not because you bookmarked me. What methods did you use to monetize your blog?

> Meanwhile when I wrote disparate blog articles, I went from $2/month, to $20, to $200 to $2000, and it’s because Google search sent you to me. Imagine if Google trained an LLM on its index and started providing answers without ever sending users your way… Actually, we have a suitable example of just that being done. /s I bookmarked this as a vivid illustration of my gripe with LLMs, and more specifically their crea…

Your prediction seems depressing but I can't think of a solid argument against it. Already there are sites that pay people to copy content from other sites or scrape & paste it. They rank higher than the original site by combining relevant data from multiple sites. AI that can copy-paste articles will make that business infinitely scalable and harder to detect.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#216
post #82

Just a personal note of praise for YouTube itself. I’ve watched videos on YouTube since it began, but it’s only in the past few years that I’ve come to appreciate what a great medium it has become. By allowing people to share content on all sorts of niche subjects and potentially make money at it, YouTube has become a fantastic resource for both education and entertainment. For someone like me who grew up with access…

> it’s only in the past few years that I’ve come to appreciate what a great medium it has become.

I also love YouTube as there is a lot of high-quality content. But I'm sometimes a bit disappointed with the more recent phenomenon of professional YouTubers (sponsoring of videos, "please comment below") and also a lot of them getting uninspired after some time. Now that I think of it, I don't know if professional YouTubers are those who add more value to the platform.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#218
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most important secret sauce is the recommender system. It takes into account transcripts, color historgrams of frames, actions and activities recognized in videos, frame cuts frequency, key personalities and entities recognized and what not. That's my humble guess.

Sadly that secret sauce has become fairly poor. Recommendation issues is the biggest problem with YouTube right now. I can open YouTube on any given day and will be given recommendations for things I've never shown the slightest bit of interest in. For example, right now I've got: - A clip for the big bang theory - Never watched anything on that show on youtube - "Why does italy have 6000 ghost towns (Hidden Italy)"…

I think this is a focused attempt to diversify the videos you watch and to avoid getting into a bubble. Journalists have dug into it and discovered that youtube's previous algorithms really seemed to automatically steer people towards the alt-right bubble. Before that, there was a bizarre trend of what looked like mass- or AI-produced kids' shows, but a lot of them had weird grooming shit in them like getting injections and getting pregnant.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#219
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Makes me wonder how YouTube channels like Linus Tech Tips are able to seemingly hire around one-hundred full time staff? Linus Tech Tips posted their youtube revenue just the other day[0]. For posterity, it's about 4.6 million, and only shows March-December. I can't find the original tweet that is the source of this information. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/100fmgx/linu...

(Also this is not counting their sponsorships, merch sales, etc.)

^ I can imagine the vast majority of their income is through websites / webshops, sponsorships, referrals, etc. If the channel promotes a product there will be significantly increased sales.

Re: My Youtube earnings

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably because advertisers demand that their ads are not placed on “bad” content. By limiting ads to 1000+ subscriber channels, it’s much more likely the content isn’t in violation of the YouTube rules.

I imagine it's more to do with reducing the administrative burden of processing payments for $3 to thousands of people who have one vaguely useful video.

If I'm not mistaken they set a minimum payment amount either way to avoid that issue.
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