Comment by jumpcutstudios | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jumpcutstudios | Hacker News Reader

Currently have over 4 million subscribers and 600 million views across multiple channels on YouTube (all organic, no paid traffic).

Usually what you see is about $1 per 1000 views (CPM) for US creators. This number can be much lower depending on which country you are from - US is the highest.

Since "adpocalypse" (advertisers pulling out of YT ads) and some other relevant events, CPM has gone down significantly for everybody. While we were making about $1 CPM a couple years ago, we are now doing about $0.50 CPM.

With that said, most business-savvy YouTube creators have known from the beginning that YT ads are a drop in the bucket compared to the potential of revenue that you can make using other monetization methods. Patreon is one way, but merch, live shows, and digital products are examples of other ways that a creator can make way more money from their following.

For example, one of our channels with nearly 1 million subsribers only made about $4000 per month on YT ads at its peak. During that same time, it made over $15,000 per month just selling t-shirts (3x+ more than ads).

Another one of our channels that had over 2.5 million subscribers was making about $10k per month on average at its peak. By selling our own digital products, we were able to make over $200k per month (20x YT ad revenue).

I know this was kind of a long answer but basically - for the YouTube creators who saw their channel as a business, not much has changed. YouTube ads continue to be a very small percentage of their overall revenue.

On the other hand, YouTube creators who were dependent on ad revenue are now feeling the pain. However, I actually see this as a blessing in disguise because it forces these creators to look at other ways of monetization and to view their channel/brand as a business rather than just a content creation machine.

> However, I actually see this as a blessing in disguise because it forces these creators to look at other ways of monetization and to view their channel/brand as a business rather than just a content creation machine.

Why would that be a blessing?

I'm just being curious. Are you talking from a business perspective or do you suggest that diverting work force to selling t-shirts instead of mere content creation is somehow more beneficial to humanity?

On some level it's a boon to not tie one's livelihood so closely to a fickle and shady advertising industry. I agree that t-shirt selling doesn't sound like an amazing alternative, though.

Recording artists have had a fairly similar set up for quite some time; the label takes almost all the money from album sales, so the artists tend to make their money off live shows and merch.

It encourages them to seek out these sources of income which should be able to produce much more value for them than the ads were previously

For a creator who is wholly dependent on ad revenue, The Algorithm is everything. It doesn't matter if anyone actually likes your content, just that they register ad impressions. You're naturally led towards clickbaity tactics and ephemeral content. The Algorithm has started to strongly favour topicality and frequent uploads, so creators who produce a small quantity of very high-quality videos are effectively being penalised. You need to follow every whim of YouTube's discoverability system and you're in deep trouble if CPMs suddenly decline.

If most of your income is from Patreon and merch, your incentives are completely different - your most profitable action is to convert a casual viewer into a loyal fan. You're incentivised to create meaningful content with deeper values than mere entertainment, because that's what induces people to buy a T-shirt or support you on Patreon. You have a stable and sustainable level of income, regardless of what The Algorithm decides to do this week.

I think that patronage and merchandising is overwhelmingly better for creators, consumers and the wider culture. You're beholden to nobody except your most loyal fans. You can make a living from doing something with very niche appeal, as long as there are a small number of people who are really passionate about it. You don't have to pay any attention to "virality" or "shareability", because view counts are practically meaningless to you. If you're doing something controversial or challenging, you don't have to worry about YouTube demonetising your content or sponsors pulling out.

> During that same time, it made over $15,000 per month just selling t-shirts (3x+ more than ads).

$15k profit?

You only have to sell 3,000 t-shirts with $5 profit each to make that much.

Many branded t-shirts sell for $20 so I bet they are making even more than $5 per unit.

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