• mkwt@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    How the heck do the YouTubers I watch sustain themselves on $330 / million? That seems really unsustainable when they only very rarely break 5 million.

    • Gork@sopuli.xyz
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      6 days ago

      That’s why they always tell you to SMASH that like and subscribe button

    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 days ago

      Sponsorship can easily get you a good 4 digit deal per video. Even for small-ish creators. 5 digits if you regularly get million plus views

      Patreon is the other big one

      Fun fact: yt premium views pay orders of magnitude more per view. In a world where a large percentage of viewers have premium, there would be almost no incentive for most small and medium sized channels to have sponsors in videos

      • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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        6 days ago

        yt premium views pay orders of magnitude more per view.

        This is a large part of why YT Premium is a no brainer for me.

        1. I support creators more without having to do anything myself more than just the same watching I would do anyway.

        2. I don’t have to bother with ad blockers, I still do, but I don’t need to. I don’t have ads when watching from different places either like mobile or TV which are more difficult to block ads than just a browser extension.

        3. It includes YouTube Music, so I don’t have to pay for music streaming separately. Was able to cancel my Spotify and save that money, which pays for the majority of YouTube Premium.

        So for basically $3 more than I paid for Spotify, I get ad-free Youtube.

        • BruisedMoose@piefed.social
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          6 days ago

          I actually had no idea that creators made more money from Premium views. It was already a sub I’m happy to pay for because of how it benefits ME, good to know they benefit as well.

          • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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            6 days ago

            Yeah I remember a couple years ago Linus Tech Tips did a breakdown of their income for transparency and education. That’s where I first had a creator directly mention that difference. It’s something like 5x the revenue per view.

    • saigot@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      In addition to what others have said, the value per million views changes depending on how profitable your audience is. Education is notoriously low, something like makeup is much higher.

    • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 days ago

      For a lot of creators it may not even be about the money they earn directly from it. I have a small educational YouTube channel. It brings in about 20 bucks per month in ad revenue, more in the past when I was more active. But really it’s a nice feather in my cap and something neat on my resume. A modest YouTube channel won’t pay enough by itself to make the effort worthwhile. But if that channel gets you over the top on a new high paying job? Then it’s worth it. In this context, a YouTube channel functions as a kind of personal brand/promotional material.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      6 days ago

      they have brand deals, promotions, sponsors and patreon. a asian ones i used to followed had to use these to stay alive they barely make 2million views per video. youtube does all sorts of stuff to your algorithim which can exclude you from reach other peoples feeds or not all. the big ones certain are using these+ they are already wealthy and expands to have thier own company which contributes more.

      some are quite small and only upload occasionally and dont sustain themselves on youtube at all, mostly the ones about sciences as many of them are burgeoning scientists, going to school,etc.

    • four@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      Not everyone earns the same amount of money per view. If you’re making niche content for more wealthy individuals, you’ll get more per view, from what I recall