5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Want To Be a YouTuber
YouTube was created on Monday, February 14, 2005, and since then has gained immense popularity. The term “vlogger” appeared after the explosion the video content had all over the Internet, to refer to those who communicated with their audiences in the form of videos. YouTube was the main reason behind this and YouTubers started becoming extremely famous and rich.
It has grown to a highly influential platform that changed the way people get informed, educated or entertained. Today’s children are three times more likely to want to become a YouTuber when they grow up. And this is because YouTubers are living the dream. They can generate revenue by doing something they are passionate about. But is this truly the case?
Everyone is blogging about how easy it is to become a vlogger and what is the best way to sell videos online. But many YouTubers have started to feel let down by the platform’s changes and demands. So, we decided to put down the truth no vlogger speaks about.
We present to you 5 reasons why becoming a YouTuber is probably not a good idea:
- It is highly competitive
- Doesn’t pay off
- It’s draining
- It’s lonely
- It is unstable
But let’s take a look at each one of them in more detail.
1. It is highly competitive
A survey from Bärtl showed that 3% of YouTube channels receive 90% of the traffic. This means that 97% of YouTubers need to create such good content to rise above the competition and take claim on a portion of that 10% traffic that is left.
If you are a small creator and you don’t want to pay for ads, then the only option for you is optimization. Many YouTubers share their insights on how to get more traffic on your channel. Amongst those are good content, title and description optimization, valuable tags and engaging with fans. However, you are not the only one that does these. You have to compete against a large number of channels that are doing the same.
I was making videos for about nine months and some of those videos, I’d spend like a solid week or two on, and they’d be seen by, like, 30 people, I’m not gonna lie, that it kind of gets to you, it really does. To pour so much of your heart and soul into something and then not get noticed? That’s definitely a major thing… it’s a massive struggle to get noticed.
Chris from Cynical Reviews mentions exactly that. How difficult it is to get noticed on YouTube. When you surpass the 1,000 subs and 4,000 hours watch time threshold, then it starts to feel like you gain something out of it. But what happens until you reach that?
2. Doesn’t pay off
Say you have managed to rise above the competition and now you are eligible for monetization. How much can you actually make? The answer is Not enough!
Surely, many channels earn more than$22 million, including Jake and Logan Paul, Dude Perfect, PewDiePie, and others. However, the platform is much more competitive now than it was when those channels became popular. So, it will take more time and effort to get close to that amount of income.
According to Bärtl’s research, an average channel with 1.4 million views per month could earn up to $17,000 a year. Additionally, Roberto Blake uploaded a while ago an article on Medium talking about how difficult it is for Middle-class YouTubers to live only out of their YouTube channel. According to his article, channels that generate 10 million views could gain 45k per year, which is pretty nice. But a YouTuber needs to take out his expenses as well, taxes, production resources, and living costs.
I could live comfortably between my AdSense revenue, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing directly tied to my YouTube channel. If I wanted to always worry about when YouTube makes changes or someone says something negative about me… oh and also as long as I don’t live in California or New York.
3. It is draining
In a previous article, I talked about how demanding it is to be a YouTuber. You need to constantly create content, be active on social media and engage with your followers while trying to balance your work and personal life. Many creators have broken down because they felt trapped, lifeless and ashamed of the content they ended up uploading.
I am mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted. I am not my optimal happiness right now. I could be mentally happier.
Not only Lilly, but also other YouTubers like PewDiePie, ElleOfTheMills, and AlishaMarie have spoken up about their struggles with burnout. YouTubers see the need to upload one video per day because in this way they get more traffic and exposure. This, alongside the ongoing algorithm changes and the demonetization on not so conventional topics, has left YouTubers frustrated, defenseless and neglected.
4. It is lonely
Being a YouTuber is very time-consuming. Vloggers spend on average 3–4 hours for each video. , who has more than 1 million subscribers, usually 1 hour on shooting her videos and most of her weekdays on editing them. The time in between she tries to reply to her fans on social media.
On the same note, a famous YouTuber with more than 3 million subscribers, devotes 16-hours per day working on his videos as he told. According to his interview, it takes him 9–10 hours to research his every topic, then 2 hours to write down his script and 45 minutes to film the video.
With my roommate working away a lot, the only real interaction you can have sometimes is with yourself on the other side of the screen. You’re like, shit. It can be lonely. I could force myself out more, but I get so focused on what I’m working on that I block out everything else.
For creators, there is no space for personal social interactions. One might argue that YouTubers have an active online social life. However, this is not always the case. As Courtney Raine the messages she gets are mostly: “Hi! Can you follow me back?” or “Hi, you are very pretty!”
5. It is unstable
With every passing year, even more users sell their content for a 6 figure amount. This might give the impression that there is potential for every young creator out there. However, this is not the case.
YouTube has struggled with many issues regarding some ads from big brands appearing on videos with In the same sense, YouTube is constantly controversial topics. This has had as a result the demonetization of certain topics like changing its algorithm to make it better and this has had catastrophic consequences even on big names.
David Dobrik said in his interview on Men’s Health that his earnings went from $275,000 a month to under $2,000 because some of his videos are not advertiser-friendly.
Additionally, many creators see that some of their videos are getting demonetized without any particular reason. YouTube is being reluctant to be open about it and YouTubers are left neglected and burnt out.
Being a YouTuber is an unstable profession and deep down YouTubers know it as well.
We all have a sell-by date on this. There will come a time when people don’t give a shit about my videos anymore. I ‘m just working on growing my skills in such a way that I can prolong that date.
Author: Evi Tsokanaki
Created: 2019–11–27T11:41:00Z
Originally published at https://shabingo.com.
