[arpanjha]

The problem is, most aspiring youtubers start treating this option as nothing short of a lottery ticket from success stories of some not so appreciable content creators. There are many channels which have terrible content but somehow in real life end up making good money, these are the people who become role models for these aspiring youtubers.

Sadly this causes the end of creativity, or to start with absolutely nonsense content which they compose in their minds just because they so desperately want to earn that money. This is in itself a struggle value wise comparable to getting a top job after a top college, but begins with a mistaken ambition.

I have a friend who has failed in few of his business ventures and eventually starting doing what he passionately loved, running a fitness gym, but somehow lost track and started youtubing with most irrelevant contents, and like someone said above, keep posting regularly only ensures the views and all that algorithm, this has further brought up the need for creating irrelevant content. I see no value at youtubers like these. I think soon after a few months of frantic tries such people will return to what they were doing.

On the other hand, some are there who genuinely use youtube to showcase their creativity without the ultimate aim of being rich super quick.

[porsche_guy]

Originally Posted by vigsom

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.

Definitely, it's not something you'll be able to do your entire life and this sort of a career path needs one to be dynamic in their decisions. What's relevant today, might not be tomorrow but it's also how you handle it that makes one successful. Long back there was a platform called Vine which was super popular. It was similiar to what we see TikTok as today but then Vine slowly gave way to newer apps like Twitter and Instagram and now we're again seeing a shift to other platforms. And just to draw an example from yours, the new car won't be long lasting but it will get disposed off sooner than a car from the 90s was and will be replaced by a different one


Times are rapidly changing and I doubt a majority of my generation will do the same job for 20-30 years at a stretch anymore

[how_you_doing]

I was part of a startup that was building a vlogging tool in 2007 which didn't take off as we were too early. I was part of the early vlogging trend too of following lifestyle bloggers like Jenna Marbles, =3 and Ryan Higa etc (2009-11 years). I myself tried to create a youtube channel in 2010 to share my startup knowledge but I was too self-conscious to record myself and put the videos on youtube. I also didn't enjoy recording/editing videos etc.

Anyway so based on my experience and what I have seen in last 14 years in vlogging, there is no right or wrong answer but here are few points to think about

Who should take Youtube as a career option

1. Be design, the younger you are, the better chances you have of being successful and taking it as a career. It helps a lot when you are 16-22 years old and can experiment with YouTube/Instagram lifestyle without worrying about money.
2. If you have some story to tell/sell
3. If you enjoys making videos and getting attention
4. If you can take this as a full-time job and not as a hobby. You can make it big if you can build a personal brand and later form your own company.
5. Having some personality and being attractive help. These two points help in standing out from other thousands of vloggers.
6. You are willing to commit (say for 5 years)
7. If you can share some industry knowledge and expertise which others can't offer.

Who should not take (or be very careful)? Questions you should ask yourself

1. If you already have a job of 20+ Lakh, does it make sense to leave the job and start from scratch? There are good chances you may make 20Lakh after 5 years taking YouTube as a full-time job whereas you can be on 70+ lakh salary if you continue your job.
2. Leaving the Top 50 Indian bloggers, the rest are making < 50 Lakh (just a broad assumption). I am pretty sure other than the top 1000 Indian vloggers, the rest are not even making 10 lakh a year. Vlogging is a very top-heavy industry.
3. There is no job security. If YouTube strike down your account, you will lose everything overnight.
4. You have nothing new to offer - Plenty of people start but lose interest because they lose the early excitement and have nothing new to share.
5. You are only doing it for the money - All those people who made it big were able to do it because of their hard work and passion. If you are not passionate about vlogging, don't care about your viewers and don't want to spend time on your material, you will not be successful.

The reality of Youtubers and their earnings

1. Almost every lifestyle vlogger lies about his lifestyle and how much money they are making. The whole idea is to attract aspirational eyeballs so showing them the fancy lifestyle helps.

2. I know a tech blogger who was claiming he makes 2+ crore per year but I know his videos get around $1 CPM (which means he make $1 per 1000 impressions on his videos) and with just 750k subscribers, there is no way he can make that much money. But he did make people start talking about himself by saying he makes that kind of money which was the whole point.

3. Almost everyone buys bot subscriptions. You can get thousands of YouTube subscribers for just a few thousand rupees. Fake it until you make it.

I have a lot more points to add and share. I will try to find more time in the coming days and add those.

[benbsb29]

I manage an Instagram account related to cars, and can tell you that not every pic manages to attract attention or likes. It takes persistence over a period of time to gain any traction and then build a userbase who feel motivated enough to not only click the Like button, but also continue to Follow your account.

The dashboard which Instagram provides shows on a weekly basis how many users clicked Follow, and how many unfollowed. I frankly don't understand what would make someone unfollow after clicking Follow, but that's the kind of issues you face.

Some pics i feel will do well don't, and some that are plain jane to my eyes suddenly see a lot more interest. Clearly, the algorithm playing with me. Behind all this is time spent clicking, editing, uploading and a whole lot of other stuff. Come to think of it, I don't even post daily!

Just wanted to say how it all looks so easy and achievable, but the effort behind the scenes is not seen or understood. A TBHP friend told me in my early days, "As long as you enjoy what you are posting, and content is good.. the interest will come".

Just my 2 cents.

[landcruiser123]

Majority of (non-musical) entertainment content out there is all glitz and glamour. Just watch for fun and don't make it your main livelihood.

Real success is through hard work, perseverance, and sheer will. You need to provide people something they value.

Examples of people I don't follow: (no offense to anyone)
1. Investment advise: Real experts like Warren Buffett will not give you advice on YT. They'll use their knowledge and gain more free time.
2. Programmers: Expert programmers will be probably creating the next revolutionary software/tool. (Remember Siraj Raval anyone?)
3. Business advise: Real businessmen are building businesses like Walmart or Reliance. None of them are spending hours giving advise on YT.

Entertainment is an area where someone with more resources or more attune to changing trends can catch up very easily.

[1.2TSI7DSG]

I would always ask the question: What value do you want to add?

And if by YouTubing you can add that value, its fine.

[akshye]

While I agree with everyone here, who says it's hard, and I agree more with GTO saying "keep YouTubing as a part-time career option", if anyone is really interested in pursuing YouTube career, (s)he should do their homework. Here is one input, I can provide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng

[prajwalmr62]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

I frankly don't understand what would make someone unfollow after clicking Follow, but that's the kind of issues you face.

Hey, I do that! These are some reasons why I actually put an effort to unfollow.

• Content does not seem familiar anymore.
• No more interest in that particular topic.
• General feed pruning. Keep the one or two interesting channels and unfollow the rest.

Hope it helps!


---

YouTuber as a career option is a bad idea. Because you are always bound to YouTube's policies (and your videos too). But you can use any of these platforms as spring board, and make your own brand.

What you are looking at is content creation. So, correct name for YouTuber can be content creator.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by prajwalmr62

These are some reasons why I actually put an effort to unfollow.

Great points and that is the end-user rationale. But for someone who is just using instagram to maximize their follower count (and then monetize it), they unfollow immediately if they find the accounts they are following have not followed them back. It's a "you scratch my back..." scenario and insta rewards mutually linked accounts with better visibility because insta too wants more users connected so they can figure out trends better and sell user data to advertisers more effectively! I think there's a feature to list the accounts you follow that don't follow you back and the option to unfollow them all.

[ADFreak8322]

A topic which I wonder about a lot often.

Mumbiker Nikhil, Flying beast and likes I feel that they always have a first-mover advantage as they are the ones who introduced the concept of moto vlogging, vlogging to India. And they just showcase their 10min of their 24 hours daily in which we cannot see what struggles they are going through. Though their lives look easy that they are buying fancy houses, bikes, and cars we don't know enough.

Nowadays, YouTube has become so competent that these influencer's don't get enough money to survive solely on it, that's why we see nowadays a ton of products being endorsed by them.

I feel that in no way we can substitute YouTube with a traditional career as its success depends upon a lot of factors. Also what we can observe is that these YouTubers started out making videos out of their passion or just some side business along with their own work, but when they saw its a success they totally dedicate their time to YouTube. So, it was not started as a money-making option but money eventually followed later.

Originally Posted by bluevolt

One Youtuber recently (Explore unseen) left his high paying banking job to pursue YouTube as career! College degrees, professional experience be damned!

I have seen his journey earlier videos that he made was of quality content when he made out of passion. But, now I don't think that he even be enjoying doing so, as he himself gets busy editing + transferring data. Also, since he moved full time into YouTube now, we can simply see the level of endorsements he is doing in his videos.

[n33rav]

Being one who has mentored many Youtubers (and many Bloggers a decade ago), I can say for sure that Youtube is not and will never be a replacement of regular job/business. A decade ago, same scenario was with blogging, seeing people like Amit Agarwal, but very very few was able to earn even single check from it. Same is the case with video platforms like Youtube these days, hardly 1 in a 10000 get even a single check for all their efforts of a year or two.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, but don't try at cost of your regular job/business.

[Red Liner]

I think youtube is just a medium to showcase yourself. You can't become a youtuber. What does it even mean?

If you are a serious hobbyist or traveler or know something technical that could be of use to others, then you use youtube to share that with a wider audience. Along with that you tidy up your video skills for YouTube.

I find it amusing and slightly unnerving that kids want to become youtubers and instagrammers. What is the world coming to? Send these kids out to the Himalayas to work a volunteer or send them out to a local farm in the country side for a few months.

Kids these days have almost no character building. No foundation. Everything is fed from the outside, spoon fed even. There is no scope for internal introspection, visualisation, dreaming, observing, listening, doing hard manual work, reading books, hearing the birds... If anything, it is ONLY the parents to blame. I shudder to think what the next few generations are going to look like.

[SN88]

There are some very informative channels which are interesting as well as have utility is following them ie: travel vlogs, financial advisors, even a few news vlogs etc.

What amazes me are some "youtubers" who talk about what they do daily( which is basically wasting time) and have a few million followers. After a while when they themselves dont have more to describe their daily live's they change gear and start doing obnoxious things. One brother sister duo from Dubai make me cringe every single time they come up on my feed. Absolute dead weight on earth but they apparently buy everything from a Rolls Royce to million dollar mansions etc. I fail to understand honestly!

On a random day the guy will start YOOO I just bought a Rolls Royce and threw paint on it!!!

[AltoLXI]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

I think Youtube is just a medium to showcase yourself. You can't become a Youtuber. What does it even mean?

Those who practiced smithy have surname Smith, those who practiced wood working have surname Carpenter. Those who upload videos may have surnames Tubers, Grammers - in future

Originally Posted by Red Liner

I find it amusing and slightly unnerving that kids want to become Youtubers and instagrammers. What is the world coming to? Send these kids out to the Himalayas to work a volunteer or send them out to a local farm in the country side for a few months.

In fact a youtuber whose videos I watch does volunteer while travelling in exchange for a place to stay. So not that bad yet.

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Kids these days have almost no character building. No foundation. Everything is fed from the outside, spoon fed even. There is no scope for internal introspection, visualisation, dreaming, observing, listening, doing hard manual work, reading books, hearing the birds... If anything, it is ONLY the parents to blame. I shudder to think what the next few generations are going to look like.

Sad but true. While we cannot blame the kids, parents cannot be blamed as well.

I moved from a town in North Karnataka to Bangalore decades back. As kids we grew up in farm house and trained by my grandfather (a British timer, no nonsense person, strict disciplinarian and a educationist) in many aspects like gardening, rearing farm animals, selling farm produce etc..

When I try to "teach" some of these skills I learnt to kids in my family, including my son, none seem to be interested. A yawn is what I get as a response when I try to take them to the farms, which some of my relatives have, and teach them what we learnt. Not that all kids can be put in the same bracket. Kids who grow up in rural areas still develop the skills you mention. Sadly it is the kids who grow up in urban areas do not develop these skills.

Funnily people in rural areas think city based kids are smart and have access to better "facilities". I feel otherwise. The grass in greener on the other side - literally and figuratively and there is still hope.

[BhayanaV]

Works well as a hobby if you pick a subject close to your heart. Not as a regular day job.