The Student Room Group

Is a Youtube career sustainable?

There are so many people dedicating their lives to vlogging (video blogging) on Youtube these days and seriously consider it as their career. My question is this - can it really be considered a career? I am not criticising them at all as I myself enjoy watching a few vloggers regularly. However, I always wonder what if something ever happened to Youtube or they changed their pay system which would effectively 'end' vloggers' careers; an example of Youtube paying less in recent times involve the demonetisations on content deemed inappropriate e.g. too much swearing.

Now I know that a lot of channels sell content or earn money through sponsorships, so they may be exceptional in this case including stars such as Pewdiepie who could pretty much happily retire now if he wished to.

I'm only talking about those who purely vlog and don't have a job on the side or just earn money through advertisements/sponsorships. A lot of people vlog their daily lives and have been doing so for many years. If something happened which meant that Youtube couldn't provide sufficient income, which jobs could they apply for or what skills could they say they could have gained through vlogging? I know that this could be applied to any other job scenario with an example being a company going bust/people getting made redundant; however, there would have been experience and skills gained on the job whereas I wonder what transferable skills would be gained from vlogging that employers would value, apart from increased confidence, communicational skills etc.

Please let me know your take on this, or maybe if you are a Youtuber yourself or aspiring to be. :smile:

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No.

Age, changing demographics, fall of the platform, fall of a genre, scandals, anything really.
It depends on how old the Youtuber is. A teenager who chooses to vlog on Youtube as a career may be in more risk than an adult. I wouldn't say that having a Youtube career is sustainable as anything could happens to Youtube, such as closing the website down. Say if Youtube closes its website today, then very popular youtubers like Pewdiepie and KSI will still have their fame and they will probably move onto other oppurtunities such as starting a show or an acting career. However if you decide to quit school and decide Youtube is your career at a young age, then that would be a bad move. In my opinion, no one should rely on Youtube alone as their career.
It can - depends on content type, how long your channel has been up for, age, demographics.
youtube isn't the most stable of sites though
Honestly YouTube is dying, now more than ever with the monetisation policies.
(edited 6 years ago)
I doubt it. The different social media and video streaming sites change over time. MySpace is hardly used now, and Flickr seems to have been replaced by Instagram, for example.
Reply 7
I’d say it’s like acting, if you reach the top yes if not no but the odds on reaching the top are tiny

And to the people who say if it shuts down then no isn’t that the same for any job?
Reply 8
With the recent "adpocalypse" I'd say no. There are people with hundreds of thousands of subscribers who barely get anything from some of their videos due to them being de-monetised, as they are not "advertiser friendly". The problem lies with YouTube's definition of "advertiser friendly" content which is determined by an automated system - obviously this has major implications on the income of those who rely on ads on their videos
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 9
Thanks for all your replies :smile:

Original post by joecphillips

And to the people who say if it shuts down then no isn’t that the same for any job?


This is my point - in any other 'regular' working job, you'd have learnt many skills which could be transferred to a related job, but would it not be much more difficult going back onto the job market and having a possible 5-10 year gap which was filled with vlogging, hence being at a disadvantage?
Have you seen the recent "adpocalypse"?

Just that alone would tell me that's not a sustainable job...
No, i don't think it is.

If you look at these vloggers a lot of them have ever other sounces of income such as property management / development, book / merchandise deals etc
Reply 12
don't do it
Reply 13
Original post by moopmeen
Thanks for all your replies :smile:



This is my point - in any other 'regular' working job, you'd have learnt many skills which could be transferred to a related job, but would it not be much more difficult going back onto the job market and having a possible 5-10 year gap which was filled with vlogging, hence being at a disadvantage?


I would say there are some skills that are transferable, persistence, entrepreneurship, communication skills and resilience are some things that employers look for
Reply 14
Original post by RoyalSheepy
Have you seen the recent "adpocalypse"?

Just that alone would tell me that's not a sustainable job...


True. Despite the effect it is having on video creators, I think it was a good move TBH in the hope of restricting violent/hateful influence, especially of that relating to terrorism.

Original post by 408655
don't do it


Haha, I am not going to! :biggrin:
I think the bubble has burst slightly, or is on the breaking point tbh.

However if you're not a neo-nazi then you probably aren't as likely to get kicked off the platform/have advertising withdrawn from your channel/lose large numbers of subscribers.

Unfortunately that seems like a prerequisite to be a "let's play!"-er...
Original post by moopmeen
There are so many people dedicating their lives to vlogging (video blogging) on Youtube these days and seriously consider it as their career. My question is this - can it really be considered a career? I am not criticising them at all as I myself enjoy watching a few vloggers regularly. However, I always wonder what if something ever happened to Youtube or they changed their pay system which would effectively 'end' vloggers' careers; an example of Youtube paying less in recent times involve the demonetisations on content deemed inappropriate e.g. too much swearing.

Now I know that a lot of channels sell content or earn money through sponsorships, so they may be exceptional in this case including stars such as Pewdiepie who could pretty much happily retire now if he wished to.

I'm only talking about those who purely vlog and don't have a job on the side or just earn money through advertisements/sponsorships. A lot of people vlog their daily lives and have been doing so for many years. If something happened which meant that Youtube couldn't provide sufficient income, which jobs could they apply for or what skills could they say they could have gained through vlogging? I know that this could be applied to any other job scenario with an example being a company going bust/people getting made redundant; however, there would have been experience and skills gained on the job whereas I wonder what transferable skills would be gained from vlogging that employers would value, apart from increased confidence, communicational skills etc.

Please let me know your take on this, or maybe if you are a Youtuber yourself or aspiring to be. :smile:


Unlikely. From what I've heard, Youtube is already on the way down as ad revenues are falling. Almost all of them are now resorting to other sources of income like merchandise, books and the like. The tech world is moving extremely quickly - anyone remember what MySpace is? In 10 years time, I wonder if people will say the same about Youtube.

It might be sustainable if you were capable of earning enough money during those few years in order to live off investment interest when Youtube almost inevitably goes under. But the problem is that a lot of Youtubers sacrifice things like education in order to get ahead with their career. That's great if it works out, but not so great if it fails and they're stuck there with no official work experience and few qualifications. Some skills might be transferrable, but if Youtube really goes down (which I reckon could well happen), it'll be difficult to prove them.
Original post by moopmeen
True. Despite the effect it is having on video creators, I think it was a good move TBH in the hope of restricting violent/hateful influence, especially of that relating to terrorism.


Yep, I agree with them making that move for those points. However, it adversely affected genuine video creators.
Youtube monetisation isn't great, not a lot of money can be made. A lot of Youtubers will normally look at other avenues (once they have built up a good base of subscribers) such as sponsorship, advertisement or collaborations (like Zoella wrote a book and developed her own beauty range - nothing amazing but a lot of her subscribers bought into it). A great deal of Youtube success depends on the content, what your target viewer is and the quality and regularity of your videos. It isn't easy to achieve success. For some vloggers, they can spend a great deal of time filming, editing and uploading videos with not much reward or views. If you have your heart set on a Youtube career, I would do it alongside your day job, so you have something to fall back on if it doesn't go to plan.

In terms of finding work after a failed Youtube career, it depends on their job experience before. Youtube wouldn't really contribute much, you could say it was creative expressive outlet for your passions and it shows you can use social media, but that alone won't guarantee you a job.
Original post by moopmeen
There are so many people dedicating their lives to vlogging (video blogging) on Youtube these days and seriously consider it as their career. My question is this - can it really be considered a career? I am not criticising them at all as I myself enjoy watching a few vloggers regularly. However, I always wonder what if something ever happened to Youtube or they changed their pay system which would effectively 'end' vloggers' careers; an example of Youtube paying less in recent times involve the demonetisations on content deemed inappropriate e.g. too much swearing.

Now I know that a lot of channels sell content or earn money through sponsorships, so they may be exceptional in this case including stars such as Pewdiepie who could pretty much happily retire now if he wished to.

I'm only talking about those who purely vlog and don't have a job on the side or just earn money through advertisements/sponsorships. A lot of people vlog their daily lives and have been doing so for many years. If something happened which meant that Youtube couldn't provide sufficient income, which jobs could they apply for or what skills could they say they could have gained through vlogging? I know that this could be applied to any other job scenario with an example being a company going bust/people getting made redundant; however, there would have been experience and skills gained on the job whereas I wonder what transferable skills would be gained from vlogging that employers would value, apart from increased confidence, communicational skills etc.

Please let me know your take on this, or maybe if you are a Youtuber yourself or aspiring to be. :smile:


As a really new Vlogger myself, I never started youtube to try and earn a living.

I'm actually going back into full-time education with a Postgraduate Physiotherapy course at Southampton, after which I intend to work as a physiotherapist in a hospital.

I started VLOGGING to record memories in my life, to push past social boundaries that I never thought I could (I had very little confidence as a teen), and hopefully to offer good quality content, in the form of informative videos.

I'm actually a Personal Trainer too, so I post fitness videos too.

I think the main reason I do this, is simply because I love recording and editing videos.

I'd VLOG even if I never got paid, and even if nobody watched. Although, it is nice to get recognition (subs and likes) for all the hard work I put in.

These are my thoughts and I hope they were insightful :biggrin:

Oh and here's a cheeky little link to my channel btw:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4uKzyzfOuW-RiWq7xXFpvA

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