Why I Wanted To End This Channel

Summary

The speaker contemplates shutting down their 'Rambles' YouTube channel, citing financial losses, lack of growth, and the challenges of content creation. Despite the channel's costs and the time investment, they express a deep personal attachment to the format and its value for intellectual discourse. They acknowledge the algorithm's role in the channel's performance and consider the impact of their content's niche focus on its success. The speaker ultimately decides to continue with the channel, albeit with the recognition that it may never achieve significant success.

Takeaways

• 📺 The creator is considering shutting down the Rambles channel due to financial losses and lack of growth.
• 💰 The channel costs around 6,000 USD per month to run, yet it only generates about 4,000 USD in revenue.
• 📉 Despite the content being the same, the Rambles channel's videos perform worse than when they were on the main channel.
• 🔄 The creator moved Rambles to a separate channel to protect the main channel's algorithmic performance, but this decision has negatively impacted views.
• 📈 The creator believes that the YouTube algorithm favors content on successful channels, and the Rambles channel lacks this advantage.
• 🕒 The creator's content production process is slow, and there is a reluctance to enforce stricter deadlines on the team.
• 🎥 The creator's preferred content format may not be the most successful on YouTube, but it is what they enjoy making.
• 🚀 The creator feels that their YouTube success, tied to Grand Theft Auto content, limits their reach on other topics.
• 😔 The creator has experienced a decline in trust and belief in the value of intellectual discourse over time.
• 🕰️ The creator is considering reallocating the time spent on Rambles to other activities, such as speedrunning, which could bring more joy to a broader audience.
• 🤔 The creator is puzzled by the sudden drop in performance of their videos on the main channel, despite no significant changes in content or format.

Q & A

What was the primary reason for the creator considering shutting down the Rambles channel?

The creator was considering shutting down the Rambles channel due to its financial losses, lack of growth, and the belief that it was not a justifiable business venture.

How much money does the Rambles channel lose each month?

The Rambles channel loses around 2,000 USD each month.

What was the creator's initial motivation for starting the Rambles channel?

The creator started the Rambles channel because they enjoyed doing Rambles and wanted a platform to talk about random stuff they found interesting, not primarily for financial gain.

How has the performance of the Rambles channel compared to the main channel?

The Rambles channel received 7.5 million views from 90 million impressions over 150 videos, while the main channel received 3.5 million views from 80 million impressions over 50 videos. The main channel had a lower clickthrough rate but better overall performance.

What is the creator's view on the YouTube algorithm's impact on their content?

The creator believes that the YouTube algorithm does not favor their content, especially when it's not related to Grand Theft Auto (GTA), and that their audience is too tied to GTA for the content to succeed outside of that niche.

What is the creator's perspective on the value of their commentary content?

The creator feels that their commentary content does not have a significant social value and is not proud to be a YouTuber or live streamer, as they believe the system elevates the worst among content creators.

How does the creator's personal growth and changing values affect their content creation?

The creator's trust in people, belief in the value of intellectual discourse, and overall enthusiasm for content creation have diminished over the years, which has impacted their motivation to continue with the Rambles channel.

What is the creator's approach to managing the team working on the Rambles channel?

The creator does not like the idea of being a strict boss and allows the team members to work at their own pace, which sometimes results in delays in content production.

Why did the creator decide to continue with the Rambles channel despite the challenges?

Despite the financial losses and challenges, the creator decided to continue with the Rambles channel because they value the content and believe that it has a core audience who appreciates it.

What is the creator's strategy for improving the performance of their content on YouTube?

The creator is considering focusing on content that has a higher chance of being successful on YouTube, such as GTA-related content, and potentially adjusting the format to better suit the algorithm.

How does the creator plan to address the issue of content production delays?

The creator acknowledges the issue but has not yet found a solution. They are considering whether becoming more of a 'boss' and cracking the whip might be necessary to ensure timely content production.