How viable is Youube as a means of income nowadays?

C

Cyath

Active Member
So I'm at a crossroads in my life and I'm brainstorming various things that I want to do...YT being one of them. I have so many ideas I am bursting at the seams...I want to sing, I want to dance, I want to make game videos, etc etc. But I only have 24 hours a day, I have to sleep and eat and do other things, and well, in the Real World I do need money to survive. :)

So the short version - like my topic says, how viable do you think YT really is? How many streamers actually make enough money to do it fulltime? I think we can safely say that we are past the Golden Age of YT, and now with the advent of technology, everybody can technically be a YTer...but there are lots of things to consider, like audio-visual equipment, space needed to record - and a million other things.

I've heard various time frames and numbers tossed around - 6 months, 10,00 subscribers and all that. Have Googled some as well, but the issue here is too much information, not too little. Would just like to know what the folk here think.
 
I think counting on AdSense revenue at this point is probably a losing battle for most. From almost all of the bigger YouTube creators I talked to and listened to on panels this past weekend and over the past year, you should use YouTube as one of many platforms in order to get yourself situated into a place where you can have many different income streams. This includes AdSense, for sure, but also being able to make a Patreon account, get brand deals, sponsorships, make your own merchandise, publish, have podcasts with direct advertising, etc., etc., etc. AdSense is less and less reliable and the rules for it can change at any moment, so I'd say that YouTube can be a way of getting yourself in front of people or companies that can pay you, but just putting videos on YouTube won't do it as easily (or even at all) like it did several years ago.
 
Personally I think its too risky unless you have a Million subs and a Million views a day. Only then would I quit my day job.

With the recent Ad Boycott I have seen my revenue more than half. Now if I was relying on this income I would be in a real bad position right now.
 
I'm far from an expert but like the above says it's risky times with what's been going on and I certainly wouldn't give up any meaningful job you have now. I would only get into it if you have a passion for it as it can be incredibly hard work with the recording, editing, marketing and coming up with new and fresh ideas. Hundreds and thousands of videos get uploaded to YT daily so it's an uphill battle.
Although don't let me put you off as it's really great fun to interact with people and even with my 57 subs it's great to think that they subbed because they enjoyed what I made which is incredibly rewarding :)
 
Good point here in this thread and I totally agree...counting on AdSense revenue alone is very stupid IMO.. But there are still lots of ways to get a staedy income from a YouTube channel (Patreon, brand deals and sponsorships has been mentioned) and I think is the biggest income source.
But again (and this goes without saying) you GOT to have subscribers to do that.....And a lot of them:)
 
As said earlier, relying just on adsense doesn´t make youtube viable. You need to expand on multiple platforms to have stable income.
More and more are relying on Patreon, sponsorships, merchandise amongst other things.
I wouldn´t use Patreon though!
 
Everyone else pretty much covered it. Adsense can be way up one month and way down the next so you need to find ways to use that audience to generate other revenue streams to help stabilize it.

In one of the groups I worked in at VidCon we talked quite a lot about affiliate links. Depending on what your channel is about they can be a great way to supplement your ad revenue. Sponsorship are tough to get into until later on is my impression. Merchandise specific to your channel would also be tough to sell at the start I would think. A lot of gamers stream on twitch or YouTube and use that as "filler" income during time when they don't feel like working.

Specific other notes I have on my phone from VidCon that are relevant
- like I said everyone was talking glowingly about the potential for affiliate links, I didn't hear specifically what products they had success with however. I would assume things that relate to your video content.
- someone, maybe it was Tim mentioned that he was making like 10k a month with 3,000 subscribers by using his channel that had useful real estate information on it to refer people to his real estate business and gaining many more clients than he had before. So if you do other things outside YouTube that are relevant to your videos they could benefit as well.
- diversifying income streams is very very important if you want YouTube to be viable full-time in the long term
- Famebit (which is owned by YouTube now) can help for sponsorships and brand deals
- Barbara, who spoke at the creator keynote and works at YouTube, highly recommended using Super Chat if you stream on YouTube. Apparently it generates money from viewers... haven't tried it myself.
- gaining a reputation in a particular community could lead to paid speaking opportunities IRL

- not from VidCon, but product shout outs or spoken ads in a video. Linus Tech Tips is a great example, he does a combo of this and referral/affiliate stuff SO well.

Everyone seems to think YouTube is in this downward spiral and not viable but I think there is still plenty of opportunity to be had if you do your research and make smart decisions.
 
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@OrbitGuy Thanks for the feedback from VidCon!

Regarding the original post from @Cyath ,if you want to approach YouTube as a business then you will have a far greater chance of success if you have a business plan.

You need to have a clear idea of what your videos will be about, who your target audience are, what other social media platforms you will use to build your brand recognition, and above all what other revenue streams you can generate beyond adsense. Develop your ability to produce engaging videos, be humble enough and objective enough to take criticism on board and adjust accordingly, and monitor what works and what does not.

Like any other new business it will probably take years before you become profitable, and like any other business you can still fail even if you do everything right...so make sure you have something to fall back on!

(By the way...as I wrote this, my daughters new kitten kept jumping all over my keyboard and pulling the cable out. If I had videoed THAT and put it on my YouTube channel I probably would have doubled my views and subs overnight.
So much for business plans...)
 
I'm a small YouTuber and make some decent money at the moment, but even if I had a million subscribers I wouldn't make it my main source of income. I don't think any source of income is safe even if you're in a full time job you could still be fired tomorrow. I would much rather have several decent incomes.
 

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Hey thanks for all the replies. They are all really well-thought out and informative. I appreciate it. Hugs to all!

Lest I give anyone the wrong impression, I am not approaching this blindly and without lots and lots of backup plans. :) Firstly my monthly expenditure is pretty low, so I am not in danger of starving anytime soon. I don't have a day job, but with some passive income and freelance work I can get by. And I am well aware of fluctuations in YT subs and income streams...I mean, everything is always changing right? You can be up one day and down the next, and vice versa.

I think looking at it as a business is probably the right idea. I would be looking to use YT synergistically with a webpage, a blog and other social networking tools (Facebook, Instagram etc) My content would be spread out among all of them, and not specifically focus on YT itself.

But strictly in terms of revenue, doesn't YT itself pay you once you have more than 1000 subs? I've seen Patreon mooted as a useful tool, but I haven't made the jump there yet. I don't think AdSense enough is sufficient either.

Just picking your brains here, generally as a ballpark -

1. How many subs would you say is sufficient? Views?

2. What kind of recording gear would you need? Honestly all I have at present is a webcam. Though I have decent audio stuff.

3. I'm wary of spreading myself too thin...from the YTers I've seen, they tend to focus on maybe 4-6 topics max, and most of those are related. Would you say to go with a single topic, or more than one?

A lot of YT seems to be a crapshoot though...I've been through many channels trying to figure out why or why not someone might be popular, and it seems more random than anything sometimes. Take PewDiePie for instance...I would rather have my fingernails pulled than watch him, but he has millions of viewers. I can't be the only one that feels this way? :)
 
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