With all due respect (and I truly mean that as a long time viewer that fell off): Your channel is dying because you made a lot of bad decisions over the last few year... not because Youtube has changed and you are a victim of bad circumstances. Take responsibility for the things you chose to do and to neglect, and stop blaming trends and other people who started channels (your 'Death by a thousand cuts' reference). I'm not here to dog-pile hate, but I watched this entire video and could not help feel agitated by much of it. I have been in this space for a long time and am involved pretty heavily in the SEO and Social media aggregation part of web development these days, and I have witnessed this channel make countless mistakes and blame them on invalid arguments.
I'm sorry, but I will not sugar coat this: it is a hard reality, but true. I have no reason to write this comment and deflect hate towards you, nor do I have an agenda. I truly am a passerby who is shocked by how oblivious you are to what's happened and the way you seem to respond to these events by blaming the ether of Youtube and the Pandemic... instead of truly investigating the events that lead here, and speculating on what you've done wrong to sink your ship. This fate was not inevitable... your channel COULD be doing great, had YOU not screwed up by making certain decisions a several years back (the signs were there, and many of your peers course-corrected for them while you did not).
In my professional opinion as someone whose involved in the business of driving traffic, and as a longtime content consumer of web content (decades worth at this time) - I can give you some constructive criticisms to enlighten you on why this is a result of your own decisions, and not trends. I can elaborate, but perhaps some simple highlights of where you went wrong; distilled points of a few recent decisions you made... because honestly, I don't want to play-by-play your channel like some kind of detractor and loose focus on a handful of points:
1.) The Thousand Cuts argument is mute. The started your channel in Jul 25th, 2006, and uploaded content not all that long afterward (months). The way web media like Youtube works, is that content creators who monopolized a popular trend in the infancy of the site, often have a major advantage. By the time trends organically sprout and spread enough (years later) for others to start copying the Legacy 'content creator' - they are often forced to contend with being overshadowed and ignored by the original source. No bigger examples of this exists than: The Angry Videogame Nerd, Linus Tech Tips, Metal Jesus Rocks, LGR, Philip DeFranco, DarkSydePhil (yes, the OG Lolcow), Jacksepticeye, Dude Perfect, Vsauce, H3H3, Rhett & Link (previously Good Mythical Morning Show), Red Letter Media, Egoraptor/Gamegrumps, Digital Foundry and Marques Brownlee (to literally just a handful out of the potential thousands).
All these channels have TWO things in common with your channel. They all started their channels around the time as you did yours, and all forged content in spaces where there was no competition - giving plenty of time and room to grow and monopolize. To this day, these channels are still at the top of their respective genres... and when we look at AVGN, we see a content creator who has felt more heat and fell more victim to 'a thousand cuts' than literally any channel in the history of youtube. There have been so many clones over the decades, and many have massive followings of their own (like Scott the Woz, SomeCallMeJohnny and Irate Gamer/Chris Neo to a lesser extent) that do not seem to interfere with AVGNs success (only demographics seem to be doing that). The only way a legacy channel with a huge follow sinks to the tide of competition, is if it becomes lazy and refuses to evolve and grow - respecting its audience growth for more sophisticated content, timely uploads, constantly improving production value, and experimentation over time).
2.) You banked Your Growth and Future Finances on a easily predictably short sighted Trend. Like so many, you saw massive gains in ad revenue and viewership during a unexpected pandemic. And also like so many, you took the event as a sign of endless growth and for cause to not 'plan for winter'. Going into the pandemic, you should have expected that at some point, it would rebound back to where it was in 2019... if not worse. But like so many, you did not parle the short term views into getting eyes on other project or reinvest the money to evolve your operations. YouTube someone from the privileged and comfortable upper-middle class, used the money to support your lifestyle (especially after a incident with a certain texas storm and water damage).
Instead of downsizing your quality of life and taking advantage of the generous supporters (and government funds) during the lockdown - making use of the perfect time to grind man hours into your channel like you never have before, experimenting and innovating your content (with little risk of comparable failure in such a environment). Instead: you took long breaks, banked on patreon even more heavily than before (expecting money for less content, at a time when your viewers where getting burnt out from options), and spent more time on your home and mental health than putting in the effort at that one golden moment in time to give your business a massive shot in the arm.
3.) Your brand and content is outdated. If we have learned anything from 'Retro' inspired content, it is that there is a shelf life, and that shelf life is intrinsically attached to the viewer demographic. The reason so many Legacy channels have rebranded or simply dropped certain spellings - is due in part to a need to expand their audiences outside the 35+ demographics. Terms like Retro, 8-Bit, 16-Bit, Oldskool, Classic, DadGamer, Old Guy Gamer, or any variation of a classic intellectual property... they are simply limiting to audiences in a way that is was not 7 years ago and back.
There are ALOT of scientific reasons for this that markers utilize, but even without much knowledge of psychology, trends and demographic - the very basic heart of the matter should not be obvious if you think about it: 77% of Youtube's traffic is from user between the ages of 15-25 in 2023.... with the next biggest demo being the 25-35 range (leaning heavily towards the mid-20s). The funny thing, is that this demo trend is a just a repeated cycle of a continued market aggregation of viewers. In 2014, those in currently the 25-35 range ALSO made up 77% of Youtube Viewers. See the trend?
Basically, viewers of Youtube as a platform are almost exclusively (statistically speaking) people in their teens and twenties (largely more male than female too). Meaning:
In 2007, the majority of the people who grew up with retro gaming, computers, pop culture, physical media, etc - were in their teens to late 20s.
By 2014, that demographic was mostly males in their late 20s-late 30s.
Now in 2024, we are looking at that same demographic being people in their late 30s - late 40s.
What changed during that time is: the people in their teens and 20s (and who had endless free time) in 2007, started dropping off as avid viewers by the millions in 2014 because they were now approaching middle-age and having families and management jobs. Now in 2024, we are actually seeing these same people more preoccupied with their health/wealth/and raising families while THEIR children replace them in the content viewership markets.
So if you are a Angry Videogame Nerd, a LGR, a Metal Jesus Rocks, Red Letter media, Linus Tech Tips, Jacksepticeye, or Rhett and Link... you have been forced to find a way to repackage your content to a much younger audience (because you can no longer rely on your legacy viewers). This often means either disguising your 'outdated' content with a new paint job and fresh eyes editing and writing your content... or you are forced to take the spirit of your content and forge totally new content around it. LGR for example reviews computers now, while he used to be Lazy GAME Reviews. Unlike Your channel, you will notice his comments are populated by mostly younger people inspired to buy and play with old hardware, and those just there for the jokes. He doesn't get the middle-aged commenters talking deep specs like he used too, as his content is very much approachable and casual now.
Someone like LinusTechTips for example, has managed to take the 'evolve' philosophy and utterly change his brand, image and channel from a hardcore tech enthusiast channel all about benchmarks and engineering - to jokes, gags, reality tv content, presentors, product placement, and essentially pure entertainment. He hired a mostly early-20s workforce, and set his older employees into management positions. Allowing youth writers to craft his dialogue, and young presenters to be the face of much of it. The guy even changed his look to appear more youthful and hip - dropping a lot of the substance to appear to the youngest and widest demo.
4.) You fell victim to the allure of Convention-itus and became another "eBeggar" (as the troll channels say). Bare with me here with this one, as I no doubt can guess that sentence set an alarm off in your head as to the good faithness of my intentions. But I swear I am not one of those people who worries if people have patrons - but it does play a part in this very important point. You see. By your own account you have uploaded and produced far less content over the last few years (a literal fraction)... yet you still have made several public patreon pushes. Patreon exists to allow viewers to support creators, but when abused as a long term unemployment check with no return on the supporters investment.... the proposition starts to taint the well.
Yes, MANY will still give you money as you clearly currently know; but this comes at a cost. You WILL stifle your growth as mainstay viewers begin to migrate their viewers and money to content creators elsewhere who deliver on a schedule and focus on producing content instead of augmenting their living with regular travel and conventions.
Many content creators fall for the allure of the convention circuit life thanks to Youtube creators like John Riggs, Pat Contri, Metal Jesus Rocks, Radical Reggie, John Hancock, Screenwave Media, Pixel Game Squad, and so many more. Obviously you get paid appearance fees in many cases, you have a table sometimes to further sale things, and you get to claim to your audience that you are producing something of value for them by allowing them to meet you. For someone with a slowing channel, or limited growth- this seems like the way to go. Have a stagnate channel that pays half the bills, and augment it with appearances and merch to cover the rest of your living.
HOWEVER. This is folly. Firstly, it's not sustainable, as that demographic problem we mentioned earlier is not going away. We are starting to see the attendance demo of these conventions, and even focus swaying. In 10 years when Generation Alpha are in their 20s - you can not tell me we will have so many convencions dedicated to 8-bit consoles or 80s computers as we have now. And to get away with this 'life-style' in the meantime requires that your brand be very strong and your content regular and of exceptional quality. Metal Jesus Rocks makes sure that his videos continue to grow in production values and even as he travels he rarely misses a two week span for uploads. Even Pat Contri for years managed to grow and keep his podcast going under that travel - constantly stirring up drama and controversy to feed it. Managing his businesses too.
Someone like yourself cannot (and will never) make a living off that. If you had a million subscribers and 100K viewers per video, with weekly or biweekly uploads and organic word of mouth consistent viewership... then yes. But for you, every week spent preparing for and then traveling to make a few hundred dollars (or atbeast thousand) - means potentially dirthing your channel of content in a very public way - which leaves you susceptible to public scrutiny from long time viewers who see you ignoring them for those tiny minority of viewers who can afford to travel to your appearance.
It's a bitter taste for them - and believe me when I have literally read and been present to viewers of yours and your contemporaries privately speaking ill of you guys in the retro computer and gaming scene. It is the reason you have these countless tiny youtube channels (and discord groups) who dislike you specifically, Metal jesus, and literally dozens of the these other guys that have attended the same events as you (or who also have patreons). Is it fair? Probably not. But you leave your brand to be damaged when you choose the easier money.
5.) SHORTS ARE THE FUTURE HASHTAG. You are absolutely wrong about the tktok audience only swiping videos and not knowing the creators. You are mistaking how the platform works for apathy from its audience. Simply Put: Ttok is a deliver mechanism for quick bites of content. The platform makes a killing off advertising attached, while the creators make piecemeal at best. So T*ktok's creator economy functions true tagging creators outside the platform - meaning a viral video might lead to a content creator overnight having millions of followers on other social media platforms - where that creator may make vastly more than a youtuber for the same audience, because they are able to monetize the same viewer on multiple platforms (multiplying ad rev).
Youtube Shorts is an organic way to draw attention to your channel - and while it doesn't pay much, you do it, because these short specifically prey on the youngest demographics (who primarily do not 'search' for specific content in the traditional sense as frequently). By regularly creating new daily or weekly 'tailored' content specifically to hook viewers via short, you can encourage Youtube to promote your channel in the backend... and do so, to a much larger, youthful audience who might not even consume your genre of content. The only catch being, that you cannot be lazy and expect growth.... these videos you are producing for free on a daily or weekly basis NEED to get views (so repackaging old content often doesn't work well). Youtube Shorts also present in their own category in the Youtube app (especially on mobile), meaning that they can be used as a entry point to link to your social media. This much like T*ktok can result in advertising opportunity outside the google ecosystem, and grow your brand massively.
As the newer under 30 audiences, consume their content thru applications on their phones - as opposed to using a single web address on a browser and parking there. These app often complement each other, and there is a web that SEO manipulation and social media optimization services rely on to grow creators to levels thought impossible half a decade ago. These days on Instagr@m and T*tok, there are hundreds of thousands of practically nameless generic kids with follower counts that put the biggest Youtube subscriber counts and views to shame.
*6.) Subscribers mean NOTHING in 2024. Youtube has changed its algorithm so many times over the years; and whether it was apromoting long form content -> to punishing it and promoting shorts -> to pushing engagement over views -> to finally valuing watch time over other metrics... one thing that changed a few years back which YouTube seems to be pretty content with, is the backtracking from Subscriber Count.
To be frank: A channel with 20k subscribers who gets 75K views per video will trounse a channel like Boogie 2988 with millions of subscribers who barely gets that on a good day. youtube weights the ratio of subscribers versus views (on a regular basis, not just the odd video). So it is actually a detriment to have a lot of subscribers and a fraction of views. This is to such an extend that over the last few years, we have seen channels with literally MILLIONS of subscribers, who have observed a sizeable enough drop since the pandemic - actually make videos begging people to UNSUBSCRIBE if they do not plan to watch their content anymore.
This is the cold hard reality. Youtube is favoring smaller creators who can make viral videos, and draw in the youngest dmo with shorts. They want videos to generally receive 20-50% more general views than subscribers of said channel (this is a easy barometer to see potential projected growth of a fledgling channel), and they want to see retention times... meaning that video length is less important than those who click on the video watch it mostly to conclusion.
This is where your channel is a HUGE screw up. You rely on having lots of subscribers, naively bragging and boasting about it - while much larger channels eat your lunch and laugh their way to the bank while you are befuddles what's wrong and make excuses. Then when you do upload content, it is rarely promoted outside your bubble, and is extremely long form videos (which I as a engineer and tekkie love... but I'm the minority) - resulting in your videos often getting less views than you have subs, and (the most important thing for the algorithm) unfortunately less than half of your viewers watch the videos (retention) to the 80% mark.
CONCLUSION: There is literally so many more points, constructive criticisms of specific things you could have changed over the years, places you altered the course of this channel drastically altered the direction of your channel away from prosperity, and other insights about how youtube works these days. However, I will end this long-winded comment by admitting that I lied earlier when I criticized your use of the 'Thousand Cuts' terminology as not being applicable to you.... you sir basically ARE dying from a Thousand Cuts. The only catch is, that you did it to yourself by blindly walking into a lawn mower and now confused and blaming the neighbor kids in any attempt to figure out why your previously successful day has suddenly gone south under your nose.
It is obviously to anyone on the outside over the last several years that you appear to now lack that the (literal) hunger one needs to grow this channel and reach higher levels of success with it. You're heart is else were, and there is no environmental stimuli forcing you into fight or flight. Barring a few Major Metro Cities, you are self admittedly doing better than the vast majority of people in the world (including most people in the US) by most metrics; and it would be a lie if I did not say that many people in this community talk about the stereotype of the up and coming content creator who works diligently to grow and make it from poverty into a comfortable success on youtube... and then lets the quality drop as they change focus to other things.
Now to be fair to you against those critics who complain about that on R*ddit (they are wrong and need to get a life): you actually started your Youtube journey already pretty comfortable. Which is a bit different than say a AVGN or Linus Tech Tips... but like it or not, the Youtube (and social media) content creation landscape as a whole in 2024 is a VERY different than a decade ago. When you have hundreds of millions young people and adults who are suffering from an global economic, cost of living, housing (and energy in some places) crisis unlike anyone alive today has ever known... the competition hardens.
There are no lack of people who are literally forgoing food of medicine, and whom might not have access to a livable wage.. but a phone or computer and the glimmering of hope that a opportunity to change their lives exists online. No dearth of people willing to do anything on planet earth to no longer suffer, and who will put in any amount of hours it for initially nothing at all.... even exploit themselves... for a chance to change their lives. THAT is the internet economy that you are vying for sir. Yes, you have a retro computing channel... but Google Ad revenue is one lump sum that is shared across everything.
There is still TONS of money to be made on Youtube, and plenty of channels making hundreds per upload (some even thousands). But if in your case, you are having your money taken from you by prank and drama channels, bodybuilding content, egirls, drama, and other long form content that might as well be on streaming or in a cinema because the quality is insane (often by talented people without lives or money... just time and hunger to grow).
@mr.selfimprovement3241 - Youtube - 01/08/2024
