Why big youtubers do not want to collaborate with small ones?

There are those rare big youtubers who do that. Yesterday i was going though the channel prank vs prank, and I noticed for one of the pranks they brought in a small youtuber just starting his prank channel and collaborated with a video together I thought that was super nice.

But generally for other youtubers they probably think very business-like and want something in return.
 
I think a lot of it has to do with risk. Many smaller youtubers tend to quit after a while, especially if they don't see the results they want.

If a big name was to collaborate with a small channel and then that small youtuber quit, it would negatively affect the big guy. Also, if people didn't like the small guy, it could also negatively affect them. Ultimately, the big name could lose a lot of subscribers/followers by associating themselves with someone who isn't very popular or who soon quits.

They have to calculate the risk and or positive impact of every association they make, just like any business venture.

Like AlexGYQ said, they worked very hard to get where they are. They don't want to risk losing what they worked so hard for.

As much as it sucks for small channels like mine, it is understandable.

I hope this helps in explaining why they might be so cautious, :).
 
I agree with the replies here... I've helped out friends in the past with smaller channels than mine because they are real life friends. Other than that, I wouldn't collaborate with someone I didn't know unless they had a similar following and the collab made sense. Again, it is harsh, but if you have no personal ties whatsoever and it wouldn't help your channel in any way, then it won't happen. But, I've seen bigger channels shout out or talk about their "favorite YouTuber for the month" and that helps without the risk of a big collab :)
 
A bigger youtuber will prob collaborate with a smaller one if they know eachother in real life, but if its just a random person on the internet they prob won't. It depends on the sub difference i guess, but u have to remember a big youtuber will prob get loads of messages asking for them to collab with them. They will pick the person who will benefit their channel too, since collabs have to help both parties
 
It's simple... There's absolutely NOTHING in it for them and it can be quite risky for their YouTube career as well.

That doesn't mean it never happens though. Particularly if they somehow meet the smaller YouTuber and get to know them and form some sort of friendship. Or if they just already know you!

One recent example was Louise's channel (SprinkleOfGlitter). She has over 1 Million subscribers, but a few months ago, she did a collab with NikiNSammy (a channel with around 120,000 subscribers at the time). I'm sure Louise knew that by doing this collaboration, she would help out NikiNSammy MUCH more than they'd help her - in terms of views and subscribers anyway. But she still did it with one catch. NikiNSammy edited the video they filmed for Louise's channel. NikiNSammy are known for being fun/creative with their editing, yet Louise's vlogs are usually edited in a very standard way. So in return for the huge exposure she gave NikiNSammy, she got a funny and nicely-edited video for her own channel.

As long as you have something to offer that a big YouTuber might benefit from, there is a chance they might be up for it.
 
This weekend we'll have a colab with channel with only 60 subs (we are around 8600 now).
On the other hand we still didn't answered a shout out and offer for tag game of youtuber approaching 200 000 subscribers. We simply do collabs with whoever we like and subs numbers are not really of great importance (OK unless they are in the millions range) .:)
Also keep in mind that in collabs the content of the channels is of paramount importance - your channel may benefit much more in colab with somebody having only few hundred subs in comparison with somebody with a million!
 
There's nothing in it for them. They make lots of money from advertising, sponsoring, etc. By collabing with a small channel they are basically advertising that channel. They usually get paid for these things. I bet a lot of times when you see some big youtuber do a collab with a small youtuber, the small youtuber had to pay for it. Maybe if you can offer them something new, and creative they might do it. For a lot, it's also about competition. Why would they help other channels get big, when they could end up competing with them for views later on? They worked hard to get where to where they are, and they want other people to do the same.

Plus they probably get people asking them for collabs all the time, if they start doing it, their entire channel would become a cesspool of beggars.
 
All these people saying it's "cold" and "harsh".

Why would they want to spend large amounts of time recording, editing, etc. with someone small who will not benefit their channel, when instead they could collaborate with someone who could expand their own channel, thus making the several hours, if not days, producing the video worth their while.

If you had something like 2,000 subscribers, you probably aren't going to spend time recording with someone who has 10 subscribers unless it's because you're friends with them or they have AMAZING content (Which is unlikely because they are just starting out).

Big YouTubers (including people such as PewDiePie) do have shutouts for channels SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than there own, and although it is not the same as collaborating with them, it does help (look at jacksepticeye, he was small before PewDiePiew shouted him out).

Please don't take this offensively (The last thing I want to do is make anyone angry), I'm just trying to put myself in their shoes and think logically :)
 
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