Youtube is making people millionaires!
Here’s how.
According to mediakix.com, 75% of children ages 6 to 17 want to become YouTubers.
Docter! nope, Lawyer! Nah, YouTuber? hell yea.
Youtube is a platform(app) that allows low budget filmmakers to share their videos online. It is free and very easy for all users. Before youtube, in order to become a filmmaker, you would have to go to school and land a job in the industry, so eventually, after years of moving up the ladder, you can convince people to fund your film idea. Once youtube was created anyone, educated or not, could share their videos with the world as long as they had any type of camera, and with an easily accessible editing platform, anyone could become a filmmaker. Youtube like many other social media platforms provides an audience.
So what’s so great about youtube
As a kid did you ever want to be a movie star or on a television show. Did you ever want to be famous and super-rich. Welp once you find out that stuff is nearly impossible to achieve, YouTube is your next best option. With YouTube, anyone with a camera and a laptop can become famous. You don’t have to go to school, you don’t have to be good looking or talented, Hell, you don’t even have to be nice or likable. The only requirement is to find people that enjoy watching you or just watch you. You can be the main character in your own show. There are no limitations to your creativity and anyone in the world can find and watch you. And the best part, if lots of people watch you, you can get paid. Like seriously paid.
So how do you get paid?
Advertising
Youtube wasn’t always the cash cow that it is now. In it’s beginning stages no YouTubers expected to make money from their videos. It was just a fun way to express their own creativity, but like every social media platform, finding an audience can make you money. With YouTube's massive boom of viewers, advertisers were not far behind. Thousands of businesses paid YouTube to feature their advertisements on YouTubes page. YouTube gives a large percentage of the advertising money to the creators that are bringing in viewers. That is how YouTubers make their money through advertisements. Just like cable, the bigger your audience, the more advertisers are willing to pay. Cable makes most of its money with advertisers on commercials. The only difference between Youtube and regular television is that Youtubers usually work alone or with very few people on low budgets. They create their own videos, edit, and upload without a massive crew or production set. YouTube is low budget entertainment so the creators receive almost 100% of the profit, unlike high budget entertainment that requires loans, investors, actors, crews, and all types of fees.
Sponsorships
Just like with celebrities or influential people YouTubers can get sponsored by businesses. Sponsors will pay YouTubers to shout out their brand and maybe review a product or service. It’s basically just a more direct way to advertise. When you see a movie and the car in the movie is a ford F-150 the movie gets paid by Ford for that advertising. So in a youtube video YouTubers will drink “white claw”, for example, in their video, then say something like “ Man, I love white claws”. This is another example of how the ability to obtain an audience is worth money.
Jobs
Even though Youtube is typically done by individuals there is always an opportunity to upscale your content. Though youtube is usually low budget once you start making money from youtube you can create higher quality videos. Thus leading to the hiring of more people. Many successful YouTubers now hire friends and family to help produce their videos. So if enough money is coming in you can own your own production company, by hiring editors, cameramen, and even actors. Overall providing more opportunities for people that want to be in the entertainment business. No to mention being a YouTuber is a dream job for people with a passion for filmmaking because of it’s creative freedom.
Freedom
Typically when working in a film you are an employee. Whether your a director or an actor you have a boss, you're working a job. Youtube is a little bit different. In youtube you are acquiring you're own personal audience. You control what you say to them, how they perceive you, everything. Your youtube channel is completely yours. You choose what to make, how to make it, if it gets edited, when it gets posted, everything is your choice. It is complete creative freedom. Everything you post is owned by you and you alone. Youtube is not a boss it is a platform. Therefore YouTubers can do whatever it is they would like to do with their time. You can never be fired for posting late or saying something offensive because as long as you maintain that audience your money will come.
Views not Subscribers
Just like every form of visual entertainment you get paid off of the number of people that watch you, in other words, your views. For youtube, you only get paid off of the number of views on each video. Your subscriber count definitely helps your views but it does not equate to money. Many people believe that if you have 20 million subscribers then 20 million people are watching your videos. That is incorrect. Subscribers are like fans to a musician. It’s great to have a lot of them, but not all of your fans are going to come to your concert.
Actual Money
So how much do YouTubers really make? Well, it’s kind of a limitless range. All YouTubers start off making little to no money. It takes about 10,000 views to be able to get monetized for cash. Those first 10,000 views can be very hard to obtain, maybe impossible for some, but let’s just say your incredibly entertaining and you’ve built a massive audience. According to turbo.intuit.com one of the biggest YouTubers on the planet is Pewdiepie in 2020 he stands at about 106 million subscribers his channel is worth about 15.5 million in just advertising, as of 2018. However, with YouTubers, you can never really be sure. I would assume that number is somewhere in the 30 million range because of sponsorships, side deals, and all kinds of other things we don’t know about. I’m almost positive that Pewdiepie’s channels are worth a lot more. Still, though 15.5 million is definitely a lot of money to be made off making videos.
The average salary of a YouTuber with 1 million subscribers is about $57,200 per year according to turbo.intuit.com, but just like entrepreneurship, it is not a salary, every paycheck fluctuates. Most people, however, are probably not getting any money from youtube. It is not an easy job. Obtaining an audience is a lot harder then it sounds and it is definitely not for everyone, but if it is for you, it could be a step to a very wealthy life.
Do you get why kids are so obsessed with being YouTubers now? Why work hard at becoming a doctor when you can make dumb videos and get rich. Obviously it’s not as easy as it sounds but Youtube really is a great place for creators to turn their hobby into a career. In today's age entertainment comes from many sources and I can’t imagine a world where youtube isn’t one of those sources. So when your kid drops out of college to make youtube videos don’t be surprised, it really is just them following their dreams.
https://turbo.intuit.com/blog/relationships/how-much-do-youtubers-make-5035/
