[M A D over CARS]

Taking youtube as the only career option is really risky. For every 10000+ channels created, only 1 or 2 dedicated ones become successful. Also Youtube isn't as easy as it seems from the outside. You have to grind everyday for content,thumbnails,script etc. There are numerous back stage works you have to do to make a good youtube video. Another thing I have seen is that, people who make youtube channels only for the money do not succeed. The only ones that succeed are the ones that have a passion for making videos. Let me give an example. My classmate's sister(currently 10 years old) Has been making videos since she was 4 years old with the guidance of her brother. They have been regular in posting videos but never used to get any views, But at the starting of this year, their channel blew up and has been getting unbelievable views. They got their highest viewership of 44 million last month alone and made 50L+ in adsense and sponsorships(this is for one month alone). They have been getting even more reach for september as well. As you can see from the chart, they barely had views before 2021.They too like many other "Educated people" and "degree holders" toiled for 5 years before getting any money. Also, even if you put out videos even for the long term, There is no guarantee of making money, You also have to be really lucky and chosen by the algorithm.



P.S. I have blurred out the name of the youtube channel for privacy reasons since this is a public platform.

[2000rpm]

I think there are a few youtubers you need to study. Their channel tells how much they earn and their business model. Youtube is full time, hardworking job. You cant casually become an influencer who people respect without having quality content.

I would recommend you follow PowerDrift (Auto), MKBHD (Tech), MrWhoIsTheBoss (Tech), Coin Bureau (Crypto) to understand the how their operating models are.

Taking a mobile and uploading a video cannot be called as YouTubing. Even people like carryminati would have a dedicated team now.

For example - MKBHD has a full crew with a studio dedicated for this channel!!

[am1m]

Content is king.

While Prime and Netflix have followed more traditional models to decide what to back and finance, Youtube and Insta have turned quite a few of those models on their head. There is no apparent rationale behind why some of those channels/accounts click, they just do and make money for their creators. That has prompted thousands of people to assume they can do the same. Like several have pointed out already, don't quit your day job yet though!

While the vast majority don't make any money at all, I've seen enough random accounts succeed to make it worth the time spent at least giving it a shot for anyone who genuinely thinks they have something unusual to showcase. The good thing is that it's possible to run an account while working a day job. If it does take off, great but till then keep your basic educational degree/regular job as a backup.

A better bet would be to explore how/if your current job allows you to migrate/showcase some content to these platforms, assuming there is an audience for that. I'm currently trying that out, we've been trapped in delivering content in very traditional methods but know that we have a much younger set of customers now and we need to reach them through platforms that they prefer.

[Raghu M]

Well, while you see the highly successful ones, I have seen people whose channels hardly get 300 to 500 views even after 5 to 8 months of being online. This topic is highly subjective. It's just like saying engineering is a high paying job - just look at Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichhai. While engineering is a good career option, not everyone makes it big. Same with IB, movies, cooking or any other career.

I remember what Dr. Kalam once said - be the best at what you do. So, no matter what you do, it can even be a cobbler or a street artist. If you are good at it, you will make money. YouTube is no exception. I am sure the highly successful ones have made quite a few sacrifices to get to where they are. Just imagine an Indian kid who is all of 18 or 20 years doing YouTube videos. He works hard and is successful. We all get to know him. Now, let's assume he is not successful. His life is ruined because he is never going to catch up with his education and get a decent job in line with his peers. It's a tough life, no matter what the career option is.

[vigsom]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Few more Youtubers are just 18-19 years old and are celebrities earning crores by creating channels which in general adds 0 value to people’s lives.

- if education (especially college degrees) matter anymore?

Are these dynamics good for our young generation’s future?

YouTube has wealth of information, and wealth of crap too. The old model of education, stable jobs and engineering/medicine/management is getting less relevant today with the net offering limitless opportunities for earning eg.YouTube. However, this is a bubble that will burst some day, and something else will become an avenue for earning. End of the day, YouTube as the sole source of earning isn't sustainable, but adaptability to something else in the future is key.

I was surprised to see one teenaged YouTuber enjoying his stay at the Grand Maratha, Mumbai, while I stepped in there first when I was 38. On the same note, with only YouTube and the associated risks, it won't take too long for reverse transition from the Grand Maratha to Maratha Mandir too.

Originally Posted by Eddy

Highly Highly risky and under no circumstances this should be your only means of earning especially as a fresher

Absolutely; as cited above, earning mega bucks and living way beyond one's normal means isn't going to last forever.

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

if you like doing something and then share it with people

- reaching a stage where Youtube starts paying decently in India needs a lot of time and effort

Rewards don't come easy, and those YouTubers who think this is an easy way to earn big bucks fall flat when they see the quantum of effort involved.

Originally Posted by porsche_guy

if you're good at it and understand the market well one should very much pursue it

Again, if one has the aptitude and passion for something, it is definitely a path worth taking. However with YouTube, I'd say it is like one of the new gen cars - good for a few years but not a lasting model.

Originally Posted by Akshay6988

don't know how people are comfortable v-logging every damn thing in their lives

The biggest threat in doing so is in making one's life public.

Originally Posted by Shreyas Agarwal

Steve Jobs was a dropout, so is Michael Dell (the founder of Dell) and so is Elon Musk. All making huge money without a degree.

Again vision + mission+ passion + perseverance = success.

Originally Posted by GTO

wherever there is money, there is always hard work + intelligence + commitment + challenges + problems.

- I value education & a stable career path when starting off. Do that, and keep YouTubing as a part-time career option. If you click in the latter, awesome. If not, the traditional path will take care of you.

Quality, commitment, hard work, smart marketing are key on any on line platform. This forum has come this far only because of all these. Sustaining the position is even tougher where strategic changes keep happening to keep the forum relevant to changing times.

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

can take a longer loss-of-pay break in case of other genuine issues. Can a YouTuber do that?

A YouTuber cannot afford to be off vlogs for too long. Unsubsrcibe won't take too long to implement, and before one realises, one's popularity will go south.

Take this forum for example - I've observed that mod @ Aditya invariably has to be up at 0430hrs everyday to move threads out live everyday. It is either him or some other mod who is assigned this responsibility. Threads marked to go to the Homepage is a daily affair. Think of what will happen to the popularity of the forum if this stops for a few days.

[download2live]

YouTube, Instagram, FB etc are basically platform hegemonies. As such they wield too much influence over the people who use them to monetize their content.

Any person who aspires to be a YouTube sensation or Instagram influencer needs to acknowledge this inherent weakness in their career choice.

[Samurai]

Long term Youtube/Instagram success depends on talent, just like career in sports or showbiz, where academic credentials don't matter. If you think youtube videos are easy, try making a video and then watch it yourself. Keep away from sharp objects when you do that, lest you stab yourself.

Originally Posted by aargee

There may be some differences in skills, but what truly separates the two is for the most part a single factor: luck. Plain luck.

Someone once said, Luck favours ones who are prepared.

[dileepcm]

I follow many channels having variety of contents. My only advice is to try it, build a trustworthy audience, ensure a good track of consistent growth and income and then decide on leaving your job for a YouTube or social media career. Even when you become a successful YouTuber, its a good idea to have multiple sources of incomes.
As many suggested, having genuine content being frequently uploaded is the most well known success criteria. Trying to copy someone who succeeded is unlikely to last long.

[m8002?]

Many already have mentioned it. We only see the successful people. We take a couple of data points and extrapolate for the whole population. Its like telling since Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are college dropouts, all college dropouts go on to become billionaires.

Some mentioned content is king. However, I am personally not sure where this is leading to in terms of content and the audience.

A person I know, posts videos of her walking in her garden, talking about her choice of wardrobe, some cooking, grocery shopping, feeding her kid, etc. etc., and she has 100K subscribers for that. I mean, there are 100K+ people out there who have time to watch someone walk around in their garden. I guess, next hit is a video of paint drying. She does spend time in editing though.

So content may not be everything. There is something extra ( is it luck? ) that makes some channels click.

[SnS_12]

It can be a career option if one is clear on what one wants to do, which he strongly feels will get him the followers and viewership and despite having all this things sorted out the money will not start rolling overnight and will need lot of patience and luck.

Plus its not like you just put in a few hours a day and let your videos work for you and earn. Its a high demanding venture and will take up a lot of work hours money and you have to constantly keep inventing thinking out of the box to stay relevant.

If you see, a lot of Youtubers now upload daily content to keep the money and viewership rolling or else someone else will attract that follower base. Also, you need to interact with your viewers and respond back to their comments.

Look at Tim Burton (Shmee 150) he keeps updating his social network constantly and keeps interacting with his followers and he now has a dedicated team to handle most of the work at the backend.

If one is young and just out of college making YT a carrier option can be a risky proposition and one should draw a plan as to how much time/money and effort one wants to put in before he find outs this is going to work or not. Not everyone is lucky as James (Stradman).

Number of active users on YT is around 2.3 billion out of which 2 million are part of their monetisation program. So one needs to ask himself does he/she have what it takes to be a part of that 2 million or what he/she needs to do differently to join the club. All he Best

[RohaNN_kWh]

As tempting, fascinating and lucrative it seems, it isn't. As GTO mentioned

Originally Posted by GTO

Problem is, the barrier to entry is so low & the earnings so high for top performers that competition is brutal.

BUT, then again the audience, money & fame makes almost every kid dream of being a full-time YouTuber. I mean look at some young Indian talents who have been spending big from their youtube earnings (brand deals included) !!


This is sc0ut, he's a gaming creator and a Monster Energy Athlete with a YouTube Channel with 4M Subscribers.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYx...KQx7utYcYK3waA


This is MaVi with a YouTube Channel with 1M Subscribers.


And there are several more people doing good for themselves on YouTube. But the audience mostly sees the success and money, not the hard work & motivation the creator puts into reaching that level.

[aargee]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Someone once said, Luck favours ones who are prepared.

Hello Sir, again from Taleb's, Fooled by Randomness...

The scientist’s behavior while facing the refutation of his ideas has been studied in depth as part of the so-called attribution bias. You attribute your successes to skills, but your failures to randomness. This explains why these scientists attributed their failures to the “ten sigma” rare event, indicative of the thought that they were right but that luck played against them. Why? It is a human heuristic that makes us actually believe so in order not to kill our self-esteem and keep us going against adversity

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by m8002?

Many already have mentioned it. We only see the successful people. We take a couple of data points and extrapolate for the whole population. Its like telling since Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are college dropouts, all college dropouts go on to become billionaires.

That's true. For every successful person there are 99 others who might have failed. The world will never get to know these people. No one has ever written about "How I failed in my business".

Originally Posted by m8002?

Some mentioned content is king. However, I am personally not sure where this is leading to in terms of content and the audience.

A person I know, posts videos of her walking in her garden, talking about her choice of wardrobe, some cooking, grocery shopping, feeding her kid, etc. etc., and she has 100K subscribers for that. I mean, there are 100K+ people out there who have time to watch someone walk around in their garden. I guess, next hit is a video of paint drying. She does spend time in editing though.

So content may not be everything. There is something extra ( is it luck? ) that makes some channels click.

People watch TV serials, which mindlessly dish out useless content, and viewers even passionately discuss what will happen to the characters in the coming episodes. People try to emotionally connect with the characters in the virtual world. They try to see themselves in the characters that are depicted in the stories - whether they are in the form of books, TV or social media. The clever ones know how to manipulate the behavior of the target audience and people fall to that. This is how marketing also works.

100k+ followers does not necessarily mean all will be watching all the episodes all the time. Just click the follow/like button and the numbers climb up.

If these online platforms can reveal the numbers - actual followers, how many are online at a time, how many are really interested in the content, how long is a channel able to generate the interest - I suppose the figures will be interesting. Of course, the data crunching will be happening but would not be revealed in entirety for obvious reasons

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by AltoLXI

No one has ever written about "How I failed in my business".

I can disprove that without even going out of the forum.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift...king-home.html (Lost my business to Covid | One year of 'not' working from home)

[akshaymahajan]

Just the other day I saw a video from Supercar Blondie where she talks about how big her team is and the new office she has setup - IIRC, its 30+ full time people and they are hiring. I did not ever realise how YouTubing is a proper business before this video. My mental image was just a dude with a Selfie stick.