Most people don’t start making videos to make money. In the early Tube days there was no money.
Not anymore, people have jobs which take up at least 8 hours of their day, sleep another lets round it to 8 hours, then other responsibilities. Anyone who seriously want to make quality videos on a consistent schedule wants to make money and the end goal being to turn it into their job.
PeerTube only has 1 less avenue for monetization than YT, among dozens.
People on Youtube are much more easily able to make money and make a living. Most of it actually has nothing to do with Youtube other than the fact that Youtube provides them with a base of billions of potential viewers.
- AdSense which is hands down the worst of them.
- Sponsors allow people to decide who they are willing to show on their videos and makes people decent money especially bigger creators. That’s not going to happen on smaller platforms.
- Patrion this is probably the biggest one people are able to get consistent monthly income and make Youtube their full time job.
- Creator made subscription platforms. This is another big perk I pay for 2 curiosity stream and the history one.
No one is going to a platform thats “just for fun” because content quality will suffer and be less enjoyable for creators.
Back then videos were a lot less produced and more raw style. When I first started using/watching youtube in 07 content was a lot quicker to make.
The requiring money isn’t about cost to produce its the time it takes. Most successful channels now have several hours of editing for each video because the average standard of videos now looks like it could be produced for TV.
I agree with this on paper, but in practice the “customer base” is currently Youtube and TikTok. If I want to create a serious channel with a lot of views and a large community I’d need to spend all my free time making and editing videos and without a real chance to monetize its just not worth it.