YouTube Is Not a Magic Bullet for Success

Last night I watched a CheapRVLiving video all about how everyone should start a YouTube channel to make money to support themselves on the road. Having tried this and failed (at least, so far), I feel a need to make a rebuttal to the information provided in this video, which makes it seem like a magic bullet for success that anyone can do.

Here’s the original video, so you know what I’m talking about.

Carol of Glorious Life on Wheels gives some legitimately excellent information in this video for someone interested in diving into YouTube. Take a long-term approach. Don’t expect overnight success. Respect your viewers’ time. Tell a good story. Be yourself. Be sincere. Study successful YouTubers and emulate what they do, but don’t copy them, either. Consistency is key. This is all great advice. I’ve heard it all before and taken a lot of it myself. If you’ve already made the decision to try starting a YouTube channel, there’s a lot of good stuff here.

The advice I have an issue with, though, is their recommendation that everyone should start a YouTube channel and that if you put in the time, you will be successful, and anyone can make money on the road doing this. As much as I’d like it to be true, it simply is not.

YouTube Is Already Saturated

The beauty of YouTube is that anyone can start a channel. Technically, you need nothing more than a smartphone to shoot, edit, and upload your videos. I prefer to edit and upload from my laptop because that’s how I’ve always done it, but you don’t have to. You also don’t need to go to college for broadcasting like I did to learn how to do this. There are YouTube videos out there that will teach you everything you need to know about how to make videos.

The problem with YouTube is that anyone can start a channel. Many topic areas, including nomad life, are already oversaturated with too many channels to choose from. The same goes for cars and motorcycles, other topics I’ve tried making channels for in the past. Some people, like Bob and Carol, are successful, so success is definitely possible. But when you’re a little fish in an enormous ocean of van life content, it’s extremely difficult to stand out. People have complimented the quality of my videos, which helps me to stand out, but it isn’t nearly enough. As I sit here writing this, I have 722 subscribers. That’s down two subscribers from the last time I refreshed my Creator Studio page.

It’s up to the YouTube algorithms to decide what videos to recommend to people. No one except YouTube knows exactly how they work, and they’re changing all the time, so it’s like trying to read someone’s mind to figure out how to get your video recommended and gain more views and subscribers. You can do everything right but still lose out to a worse video that the algorithm likes better. My biggest problem with my entire Smokey Da Van online presence, including this website, has been figuring out how to get more eyeballs on it. I haven’t figured that out, which is why I’m still a small fry in this world, despite the advantage of knowing how to make videos better than most people.

Monetization Is Hard

Carol talks about how making an extra $500 to $800 a month off her YouTube videos provides a great income, particularly since living on the road is quite inexpensive. Her experience is the exception, not the rule that she presents it to be.

To even apply to the YouTube Partner Program, which is how you monetize your channel, you need to meet the following requirements:

• At least 500 subscribers
• At least three video uploads in the past 90 days
• At least 3,000 public watch hours in the past year
  OR
  at least 3 million public Shorts views in the past 90 days

This is the bare minimum before YouTube will even consider letting you make money off your videos. The upload minimum is a no-brainer to meet. It can be tricky to get 500 subscribers. Until recently it was 1,000, but they changed it to 500, which means I now meet that qualification. Many of my subscribers are people I already knew in real life. Others I met online through other communities. Some did manage to stumble across my channel randomly and subscribe because of what I post. Others are fellow nomads whom I met on the road, handed a card with my channel link on it, and subscribed because they met me rather than anything online. But it took me a long time to reach 500 subscribers. Meanwhile, CheapRVLiving is sitting pretty at 666,000 subscribers, and counting.

My real stumbling block is the watch hours. This depends partly on me to produce quality content on a regular basis that people want to watch. But it also depends on YouTube promoting my videos, recommending them, and drawing in more people to watch them. This is particularly important to smaller channels, which can’t rely on a large group of core subscribers to meet this qualification consistently. It’s a chicken and egg problem. You can make some of the best videos out there, but if YouTube doesn’t promote them, you’ll never get the required number of watch hours.

You can also try YouTube Shorts, which I’ve dabbled with. It’s frustrating to put hours of work into a ten-minute video that almost nobody watches, yet get thousands of views on a quick clip of Lister being cute that took absolutely no effort whatsoever. Even then, I’d need to post thousands of those clips every month to meet YouTube’s 3 million view qualification or have one go viral. Once again, YouTube holds the keys to that kingdom.

YouTube Doesn’t Pay

Let’s assume you jump through all the hoops, play your cards right, and you do qualify for the YouTube Partner Program. Let’s also assume that you stick to safe topics, use royalty-free music, and do all the right things to not get your videos demonetized. Finally, you can start making money off your videos.

Don’t quit your day job. A while back, I actually built a motorcycle channel to the point where I did meet YouTube’s requirements at the time. About twice a year, I would get $100 from YouTube for my videos. They won’t even bother to pay you until you make at least $100. They’ll track your earnings from month to month, add them up, and once you cross the $100 threshold they’ll pay you. Even when my motorcycle channel was at its peak, it would earn maybe an extra $200 a year. That’s great for buying a new helmet, upgrading the lighting, or taking a small trip somewhere at someone else’s expense. But you’re not going to be able to make a living off it, even at this level. You have to keep grinding to attract viewers and grow your channel to the point where you can actually earn a living by doing it, even living for cheap in a van. That’s why so many channels sell merchandise and plunk long sponsored advertisements into the middle of their videos. That’s where the real money is, not what YouTube pays out. And once again, you need a large enough audience to get enough people to buy your merch, or for sponsors to want to pay you to talk about them.

Then there’s the issue of the somewhat regular “Adpocalypse,” as creators like to call it. YouTube can change their policies at any time, for any reason, and chop how much they pay to a small fraction of what it was. This happens during an economic downturn when YouTube wants to keep more money for itself and cut how much it pays creators to a fraction of what it used to be. It can also happen if they suddenly decide that certain topics are too controversial, so they demonetize all of them. Popular gun channels disappeared overnight when YouTube decided to demonetize all gun content. You never know what’s going to happen next. For all we know, someday YouTube might decide that it’s too dangerous to talk about living in a vehicle because somebody’s van burned down, leading them to demonetize all vehicle living videos, cutting off all van life creators’ income with no notice.

Why I Don’t YouTube Anymore

Aside from the occasional YouTube Short (which I also post on Instagram and Facebook), I’ve pretty much quit the YouTube game for all these reasons. It takes hours to shoot, edit, upload, and post a video, only for almost no one to watch it. I never expected to be an overnight success, but I’d hoped for steady growth that I just haven’t seen. My Big Loop around the US that I’ve taken this year would’ve lent itself to many great videos, but I just couldn’t be bothered to put in the work for little, if any, return. Besides, I find that when I’m focused on making a video about a place, I don’t end up soaking it in and enjoying it the way I would if I just let myself experience it, and then write about it later. I’m out here for the real-life experiences, not to turn my life into a TV show.

That’s the other thing I have going for me that many people don’t. I’m a writer. I’ve worked hard to become a good one, but it also comes to me naturally as well. I can spend an hour whipping out a rant like this, or a story about my day, throw in some pictures, post it, and it’s done. It takes many times longer to create and post a video, only for YouTube to bury it. At least here, on my own website, there is no gatekeeper, and everything I post gets shown to everyone who comes here. I still have the same problem of not knowing how to get more eyeballs to come here, but at least I don’t have the platform working against me instead of helping me, or at least not interfering.

This website doesn’t make me money — at least, not yet, though I’d like it to. That’s why I have other writing and editing jobs that do pay me. I spend far less time writing or editing articles about cars, motorcycles, and UTVs, and already getting paid to do it, than I would making videos and hoping that maybe, someday, YouTube would let me make a few bucks off them.

I’m not knocking those who have found success on YouTube. Good on you, and I wish you continued success. It’s also not a bad thing to throw your hat in the ring and take a crack at it yourself. It’s best if you already have a reliable income, and can do YouTube as a hobby that might pay for a few extra goodies someday, not as your full-time job. I just take issue with this video that promotes starting a YouTube channel as a way that anybody can make a living. That’s only true for a small, select few. If anyone could do it, we already would be.