Let us try to explore why YouTube is the most fascinating thing in the world. When I was growing up, there was a bandwidth problem in India. You can't access high-speed videos and therefore YouTube was not readily accessible nor available. However, the internet slowly started to pick up. And even if it didn't, we can go to our friends who have the internet or the computer and we can access the YouTube. And there were many kinds of videos. There were clips of the movies, songs, and there were some random people doing some random things.
People were lip-syncing, people were making sketch videos, people were making serious videos. There were all kinds of videos and it was interesting. And we started following the internet personalities like Smosh, Nigahiga, and so on and so forth.
YouTube Monetization Program
The YouTube was primarily dominated by the American creators because it was an American website and internet was of course readily available in America at a very reasonable price. YouTube although being a social media website like Facebook or other things, it is something very out of the box. They started sharing revenue with the creators.
This is a big leap. You take any social media, for example, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, they make billions of dollars every year. And the owner are literally billionaires because of this. But that value is not shared with the employees either. Many of the employees are not billionaires. And definitely it is not shared with the creator who created the content in the first place.
When you go to YouTube, of course, there is no content created by YouTube. It's just a platform for you to post your video. You do and you're just getting the YouTube as a mediator, and YouTube started sharing the revenue, 55%.
Suddenly, these creators started earning money, and lots of money, because the scale of YouTube is huge. And because of that, the advertisers started shifting on the YouTube and the trend continues.
Of course, then there are other platforms which started giving money, but it was not, and it is still not at the scale and the level and the sophistication of the YouTube. And therefore, YouTube created the creator economy in essence.
No matter wherever you are, you can have a following on Vine or TikTok, but if you want to monetize it correctly, you go on YouTube and you make the long-form video. And that's the goal. And that started the dream of everyone, like you and me, to become a YouTuber one day. And that is the most democratizing thing in the world.
YouTube Vs Movie Industry
If you want to become a successful or a named person, a famous person, the earlier channel was very simple. You would go to a movie audition and maybe 1,000 people would be successful, who would be famous and earn insane amount of money.
Now compare that with YouTube. You don't need any permission. You just need to put yourself out there. And maybe by sheer luck or the algorithm, you will end up successful.
These are people successful apart from the people who are successful in the movies. In addition, now there are more than one lakh creators who earn substantial amount of money such that they can employ other people. And it is a good economy in itself.
Take MrBeast, the biggest YouTube creator in the history of YouTube. He essentially employs 400 people and he is as big as any production house of the movie making industry. So YouTube is the revolutionary thing and therefore it has opened the gates for you, me and everyone who want to make a dent.
Give YouTube A Shot
If you are making an art and you want to monetize it in somehow, and if it art can be translated into a video form, then you should and definitely go on YouTube and make your hundred or thousand videos. Not because you will be successful, because there is no guarantee and YouTube might push you into oblivion and you might not get any views or money or so on and so forth.
But you should at least try. And even if you don't get the success, it's okay. You have put your art out there and it might reach at least hundred or thousand people who might get impacted. Maybe not enough to earn you money, but enough to get the appreciation and enough to get the follow-up and that is what art is for.
So go ahead and make that YouTube video if you are an artist. And if you are not an artist, go ahead and engage with one and try to support the artist directly so that this creator economy can even become much bigger.
That is the reason you and me and everyone have that fascination with YouTube. And it is a part of our lives being consuming or being creating or being the essential bridge to give a shot to anybody who can just sit in front of the camera and say a few words. It's magic.