What is Success to you?

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How do you define success for your channel? High subcount? High views? Making money? An engaged audience and active community? All of the above?

I've never made money from YouTube so I'm not eager to get that. Although an engaged community is what I want the most. Being able to interact with people and to share work with those who care is what I am aiming for. Whether that's 1000 subs or 20k or 100. Having a buzzing comment section is what I'm all about.

I think goals are important and we forget, sometimes get a little frustrated, because our hard work is not showing results. These are the times where it's best to remind ourselves what we are doing this for. I hope you will comment and let us all know what your goals are.
 
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First of all, I love how your name is Quick Question and you're always asking these thought-provoking questions about the philosophy of our YouTube channels on this site. xD

But yeah, what I consider success is your option of all of the above. A high subcount, I think, or at least a subcount that meets your preferences is necessary. When someone subs to your channel, to me, I view it as like someone sending you a friend request on Facebook or something of the like. Because that shows that person is actually interested in you. Your channel. Your personality. It's one thing to love a video, but to love an entire channel is entirely motivating on its own.

High views are also very important for success. I'm kind of at this awkward phrase on my channel. I get pretty decent comments when I upload, but very little views because of the algorithm not liking my content. I appreciate and love the hell out of the community I currently have, but not being able to broaden your horizon with new, fresh, views from people who aren't subscribed.. I can't really consider that successful.

And then making money.. YouTube shouldn't be ALL about money. But it's still important for success, if your goal is to do YouTube full-time. Because the fact is, if you have lots of bills to pay, and are stressing over quite a few jobs, it's going to show in your content. And YouTube won't really be fun anymore. It'll eventually seem like a chore, even if it's something you love doing. Because YouTube, even if you're not paid, is like a full-time job.

And lastly engaged audience and active community.. You nailed that right on the head with the hammer. The community is what I love most about YouTube. Seeing the fanart people make, the fangames, the funny comments, knowing that someone laughed at a joke or edit I made.. That stuff means the world. That stuff reminds you that all your hard work and months of grinding was worth it. This is a bit cliche, but I want my viewers to see me as like a friend talking to them and joking around with them. I don't want to be fake on camera or make it too blatantly obvious I'm just doing a video.

All of these combined, within reason of course (I don't think anyone really wants as much fame as PewDiePie, for example. Having the media constantly focusing on you and the entire YouTube community going to you every time something goes wrong? No one ever really asks for that, starting YouTube.), are what make a channel successful, at least in my opinion.
 
I think eventually the bottom line is daily views. An increasing numbers of daily views will drive the growth of a channel in terms of new subs, comments, shares, social media following, money and sponsorship and many other opportunties away from Youtube.

I often hear people say they don't care about the numbers - that they love making videos anyway. But eventually over time, that enthusiasm and passion disappears if their channel isn't getting any views. That's not a criticism. It's human nature and totally understandable. Eventually they will move on and find another more rewarding hobby. - If people are honest, that's what YouTubers all want - an audience and the bigger the better. If it were only about the pleasure of making videos, then there's no need to upload to Youtube. The videos could just be saved on the hard drive after editing. ^^
 
Views.
Usually when I post the popular artists/songs I get a lot of views (duh) but I mainly want to provide some spotlight to the little (Underrated) guys, so the more views I get for a video, the likelier the chance that someone admired the song/artist enough to check out more of their work, and that's what success is to me. :)
 
People viewing my channel and subbing is success to me. But also watching myself get better at recording and making stuff I think turned out good. I lack self-esteem and have social anxiety, so when I overcome that stuff, I feel good. I could never have the success of Pewdiepie or Jenna. I wouldn't handle it well.

I just enjoy the community and being able to do it with my husband. But I have to agree that if nobody watches our videos, I would probably give up eventually. I mean, that is kinda the point of youtube, is to have people watch and if nobody does..well..
 
Success to me is being happy with whatever you are doing in your life. It doesnt have to be making tons of money or having a huge mansion. Just something that you are willing to do 24/7. Once you have found that job or whatever, then you are successful. No amount of houses, no number can beat that.
 
.For me, success definitely surrounds having a bigger audience for the characters I've created, but I think it'll mostly be from something beyond YouTube. I'm trying to use YouTube as a showcase for our puppetry and skills in playing characters, and while I think there's a good chance we could come up with a series that would flourish on YouTube, I'm more working toward capturing the attention of a larger media company (the Henson company? Sesame Workshop? Somewhere else?) who could give us opportunities.
 
Interesting question. I've been thinking about something like that for a while, now.

To be perfectly honest, I really did consider "getting high up there" at some point. For a short while (well, in hilariously short bursts, I think), I tried doing what I thought would help. Reddit, consistent upload schedules, different video types, talking about current topics, and whatnot. Needless to say, they often didn't work out and led to some halts.

Success used to mean the obvious. That meaning kinda faded away for me when I came to some conclusions -- even the more obvious ones.
Luck is unpredictable and inconsistent. Popular videos are reflections of the type of content people are interested in, for whatever multitude of reasons, so the amount of exposure you could get can or won't matter much at all. Creative stuff like this does not directly reward you based on how hard you work. There are millions of people trying to accomplish YouTube fame; I'm not magically different from others to make me entitled to be one of the successful few, because "I'm totally not going to give up, ever, and stuff! Perseverance!!!"

At some point, I just stopped caring and went back to focusing on trying to improve my content. I found a system of videos and live streams that finally clicked with me. I actually have people that usually leave comments, which I never really had during my first years. There are people that I interact with because we like the same things. Almost each new video is a challenge to make, and I love that. My videos probably don't matter at all outside of my own bubble, but people still give me a chance, anyway.
I, like most YouTubers, certainly wouldn't mind being able to use this to make a living, but when things are the way they are now, I can't consider myself a failure or anything far from satisfied and happy, really. Things feel right when I work on a video for two months and still won't release it until I'm satisfied, so I guess it's just personal satisfaction and having fun with sharing stuff.

TL;DR: Success is pretty much managing to maintain the way things are on my channel. As long as I can continue to interact with nice people, challenge myself, make stuff I'm happy with, and have any amount of people actually be interested in my content, I consider everything to be a success.
 
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