Creating content also has other advantages:
-Meet interesting people and grow a network of business contacts for the future.
-Learn while teaching. Discover new things and put in effort to understand them enough to be able to teach others.
-Keep up with new tech - it's hard to do when you are focused on just one area, but content creators are all about novelty.
-Builds your profile... a few years from now you will have a lot of open doors because people remember you.
But yeah, if you want to put out a video and make a million bucks like Mr. Beast, you better have 250 million subscribers and average 70m+ views per video.
Alternatively have very niche content and have 1000 very loyal subscribers willing to pay $10 per month.
Both are very hard work with a LOT of competition. There is a lot of free content out there.
Even highly paid information services like Reuters, Bloomberg don't really command high values for the information itself. Companies don't pay $2000 per month for a BBG terminal for the data feed alone. They are paying for access to clients on BBG chat, secure messaging, legal proof of orders, etc... network effects + other services are what allow BBG to command such a high price.
So if not even BBG can make money just from content... what chances does an individual creator have?
There are only 3 business models in media since the time of Dickens:
-Propaganda "get paid to print something"
-Blackmail "get paid to not print something"
-Sensationalism "if it bleeds, it leads"
That means that if you want to be independent, say the truth, not sell out, not try to appeal to the lowest common denominator... you have to have another source of income.
Alternatively embrace the marketing aspect of it and be as honest a salesman as you can, keeping your independence by selling multiple competing products and giving your honest opinion about each.
Or, a reasonable compromise, choose what you think is the best, most positive thing to sell and then sell that. Explain to your viewers that you could make more money selling X shit, but you think that Y shit is better. Long term what you gain in loyalty and respect for your honesty can compensate giving up on the quick buck.
