I saw no thread for it, which led me to think that I should start one, so... tada, I guess?
Mod note:
- LegalEagle now has its own discussion thread
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- Chuggaaconroy now has its own discussion thread
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Edited by Mrph1 on Aug 16th 2024 at 1:55:14 PM
Most YouTubers of size seem to diversify their income streams pretty quickly. The main ones are setting up a Patreon, taking sponsorships, doing streams on Twitch and selling merch, plenty of edutainment ones are also on Nebula while gaming ones seem to often go into game development, one I follow has even just written a (fiction) book.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranLike I said, the main issue with youtube when you reach sustainable size, is that income is not predictable. Youtube can decide to tweak the algorithm and bury your views, or cut down the revenue sharing, or decide to demonetize your video. Some asshole may decide to copyright claim your shit or false DMCA you out of spite or mass report your videos.
So yeah, it's absolutely smart to diversify. That's true of alot of stuff when you're not on a salaried/payroll job. Don't put your eggs all in the same basket.
Youtube, by itself, is not a job. It's a networking opportunity. You make money on Youtube the same way you would start a small business, attracting enough attention to your product or service. If you get enough foot traffic, that by itself can be leveraged for other opportunities. It changes from time to time but I believe the bare minimum for adsense is 1,000 subscribers and 3 videos every 90 days.
Unless you already have a business you are trying to promote, it's not a smart idea to start getting into Youtube as a business venture. You're better off using it as a hobby, and then you might start getting kickbacks that helps pay for the hobby. Those who go into it purely for a financial opportunity often get stuck focusing on the one thing that brings money rather than finding a more stable business plan. And while a lot of kids say they want to be an influencer, it's like other small business owners where you are pulling 70 hours weeks with no days off. It's not free money with only an hour and a half of work.
Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.I mean much of that's correct but still kind of avoiding the main point. "YouTuber" or "content creator" or "video host/producer" is still a job. The videos are the product.
It is true that going into it for financial gain is an awful idea. I think most creators I follow started it as a hobby and only transition to full-time video production if and when they're already making enough money and have a good plan for sustainability. It's not always clear/public information but I assume most still aren't full-time. I've heard vague tales of plenty of people trying to become full-time content creators, quitting their jobs too early and failing badly, although I'm not aware of any specific cases.
Yeah, the smart way to be a YouTuber is to have it start as a passion and a hobby, separate from your main source of income. For practical reasons (you aren't going to start off making a lot of money on YouTube and the idea it will ever be a major source of income for you is rare) and also for personal reasons (you aren't going to be a happy YouTuber if you aren't making content you are passionate about). I watch many smaller creators and while having YouTube be their main career is an aspiration, at the moment they use it purely as a hobby and an extra (small) source of income.
Unless you're a very frugal person or your channel reaches the top end of views and subscribers (which, for 99% of people, won't happen), YouTube alone probably isn't enough to support you even if you have it as your main job. I'm no expert, but I think it's clear that you need to use your YouTube to make money from other avenues. Patreon. Merch. Personal projects. It still links back to YouTube because your following on there is what allows you to make money form these other avenues, but it isn't directly from YouTube. It's not dissimilar to actors who make a lot of their money from conventions, signings, online events etc. Their success as an actor is what opens those opportunities for them, but it's money that doesn't directly come from their acting.
The argument being made is that unlike Uber or Grubhub, you don't just sign in, do a few projects and earn money right away. Most Youtubers and Streamers have said they typically spent a couple years before they could even consider it a job, a source of income, and not just recording their hobby. As others have said, assuming no other qualifiers (independently wealthy, an audience is already cultivated, substantial material is available to you) quitting your job and committing yourself to Youtube full-time is not a viable option.
Again, the stats change but the rule of thumb seems to be is if you get 1 million views a month that's about $10,000 of adsense revenue. That's plenty for a single person just ranting at the camera, but if there is any actual budget to the video, a crew to pay or views are down one month that's not a stable income.
Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.It's also not just dependent on a crew and equipment, but also the work you put in the video.
Do you do research? That's work time on your video. Editing? That's time. Scripting? Hella time.
If it takes you 120 hours of work to make a video from research all the way to editing, your revenue gets thinned accordingly.
And that's without going into how youtube's algorithm values regular, punctual uploads. It doesn't like sporadic uploads months apart, especially if you don't have a giant audience to begin with.
The above means that youtube as a job is very hostile to vacations. You should be making content to maintain your upload schedule.
Edited by Ghilz on Nov 7th 2025 at 1:35:01 PM
The ability to do timed uploads has made short holidays somewhat viable for certain types of creations where content can be pre-produced, though obviously that means front loading the work for that time period (or having an output schedule such that your normally producing more content than you actually upload).
Streaming is even worse, as as constant drip of new subscribers is normally needed to mitigate loss even once sustainability is hit, holiday obviously cuts off that supply.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranStreaming does have the benefit that you can do it while on holidays abroad, bring a laptop and a camera.
A lot of streamers, including those of many vtuber agencies, hold a more normal job, and I think sometimes it's full time. (Hololive is the exception, employing all talents full-time.) What makes it feasible to do two jobs is that they consider streaming a way to relax, which shows once more that it's only sustainable if you enjoy it. It's no coincidence that most successful streamers, for various reasons, rarely leave their homes.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.Sorta? It depends on the production values you have. Like, a hotel room - especially one you've never been to before, is gonna have _way_ worse acoustics than a dedicated studio space one might use with sound dampening installed to reduce the echoes. You're also at the mercy of whatever the hotel wifi quality is. If you're streaming games, it also means you probably want to bring a second monitor too to have chat and what not on it.
Like, it's by no means doable, but if you're someone that's worked hard on your streaming setup, doing it on holidays is gonna be a marked downgrade in quality.

The market is saturated, no new entrants are likely to make much of anything out of it.
Not that even many of the early entrants made much either, it's like professional sports, only a tiny fraction of people will make anything out of it.