YouTube number of subscribers

So Im not on the Internet much. The majority of my time is on gamefaqs but I do use YouTube regularly. Especially at work. Mostly all gaming related but Ill use it for movie trailers and show clips and some other random stuff like a British professional eater I enjoy his videos.

Late last night I was goofing off on YouTube killing 15 minutes before a movie started and Im a huge Farming Simulator fan who plays the hell out of the games and a new game recently released so there is a lot of videos on the various aspects of the game.

I have one guy I regularly follow I like that 99% of his channel is all about Farming Simulator. I like his style, his presentation, and his overall demeanor. He is an older gamer like me of a similar age and hes a console gamer on PlayStation like I am so I just like his channel. Have watched for a few years but this isnt specifically about him.

Its about subs and just random curiosity and observations. Its weird how some people channels can skyrocket and some dont. He has just over 100,000 subs which hes content with and I think is great. I think he honestly has excellent top tier content but his channel gets dwarfed by other channels I dont think is nearly as good and thats what I find interesting.

Some of my favorite channels I have come across have much smaller subs and Im curious why they never exploded or had the growth others do. A video game review channel I really liked had about 15,000 subscribers and quit uploading videos a year ago. One of my current favorite reviewers has about 65,000 subscribers and they do awesome spoiler free reviews.

This brings me to last night. Ran across a guy doing a farm sim video that stood out. It was informative, tackled something I hadnt seen others doing, was edited well, and in my opinion he has a great narration voice and temperament. It was a solid video. The guy has 125 subscribers and has been on YouTube since 2010 and has a couple hundred videos. Hes basically been ignored and it just made me wonder why.

No real point to this other than random observation and acknowledging there is some great under the radar channels out there doing work for years for their own pleasure probably but its kind of a bummer they dont get more recognition.

This late into Youtube's lifecycle, most people are basically fighting against the RNG of being recommended over others, unless there's some extrinsic way they're leveraging to become popular. Unfortunately, effort doesn't always get rewarded

sauceje posted...

This late into Youtube's lifecycle, most people are basically fighting against the RNG of being recommended over others, unless there's some extrinsic way they're leveraging to become popular. Unfortunately, effort doesn't always get rewarded

I get that but I still would have thought after 14 years somebody would have amassed more than 125 people stumbling onto their videos. Especially when there is a decent chunk of us that specifically seek out that specific type of content and their content is quality.

It just really highlights how random it really is.

I have over 2K subscribers and I literally have done nothing but upload just raw gameplay of me playing NHL video games.

I was making like $2-300 a year on YouTube before they removed my monetization a third time.

It's all about exaggerated thumbnails; red arrows, circles, yellow text, words like insane,

There's a lot of random chance involved really.

I have a youtube account, it's got like 20k subs, whatever. one of my videos has like 4 million views, significantly more than every other video I've made combined. Why? Who knows. be in the right place at the right time at first I guess and then the rest is just a recommendation algorithm feedback loop

Error1355 posted...

I have over 2K subscribers and I literally have done nothing but upload just raw gameplay of me playing NHL video games.

I was making like $2-300 a year on YouTube before they removed my monetization a third time.

And thats my point. You did absolutely nothing but upload videos and get a couple thousand people. This guy only had 125 subscribers and was putting out effort and quality content. You can say Farming Simulator is niche and it is but sim games are popular and its pretty much the king of simulation games and sells millions of copies. It definitely has fans and there are a number of channels who do nothing but cover farming simulator.

I get the algorithm is a big factor in this but Im still surprised at his low number. Thats all.

One part random chance, one part playing the keywords in description game, one part thumbnails...

YouTube and streaming is a game of luck, that's it. You can know how to game the algorithm (thumbnails, video length, titles) but that's not enough. Getting a boost from streamers watching your videos really help, or even someone posting it on reddit, but that's all luck. There have been some big names who try and "start over" to see how easy/hard it is to be successful using their current knowledge and hiding their name, Ludwig is the first that comes to mind. Even with their knowledge, it's hard to get off the ground.

But there is some effort the creator has to do. They have to make good quality videos (as in good video/audio quality, maybe editing skills too), and also have to try advertising themselves. Post on Twitter or reddit, but just making a video and sitting around won't help.

They monitor length of play and play count more than anything else.. the number of subscribers is just a place holder to validate how much money they should pay

The algorithm
We all can't be YouTube stars like pojr and Crono

I had a YouTube channel back in like 2006/7 where I did random shit with my friends and myself or tell stories of being a latchkey kid in the 80s and never gave a shit about subs or anything

The less you are known, the less the algorithm pushes you, which keeps you less known.

It's just "rich get richer, poor get poorer" in a new format.