Post #1847218

So, how do you make money on youtube? Ask 10 successful youtubers, and they'll tell you the same thing. Diversify. You don’t make significant money from the ad revenue. You make it from merch, or product deals, affiliate links. Youtube makes money from your content, you make money from using their platform to get your viewers off-platform to something that pays you better. A while back, not terribly long. 3 or 4 years if memory serves, Youtube introduced something cool. A merch shelf. Directly below your content, you were able to link up your merch provider, and youtube would show 4 or 5 links to your own merch, right where your fans could see it. It was kinda a pain to configure, but once you had it, it was great. Your viewers had a direct line to your merch, you didnt have to link it in the description, or nag people in the video (though you could do those things for more eyeballs), but it was a nice thing they did to make it easier for us to actually do that diversification thing. I personally never made a dime from it, im just not big enough, and its possible that bigger youtubers didnt either, but i thought it was an awesome gesture, helping creators make money on the platform. Yesterday, i got an email from youtube. They're ditching the merch shelf in order to de-clutter the watch page. Remove the endless stream of shorts? no. Remove the ad overlays? no. Maybe tighten up the watch next panel? No. Remove the thing that gives the creator the most chance of making profit. This just de-motivates me even more, and makes me want to embrace peertube (where i get no views, but at least im not being abused). #enshitification #peertube #youtube