12 million subscribers? So you’re telling me that your son has received a Diamond Play button, and is running a channel that generates enough income to live comfortably, and you’re telling him it’s not a viable career? Let’s do the math: on average, you generate $1 per 200 views in ad revenue. So 1 million views on a video would pay $5,000 on average, which would be what I expect from a 10m+ subscriber channel. That’s $5,000 per video. A month’s income for a lot of people in the US. If he were to upload twice a week, that’d be $20,000/month or $240,000/year. If he uploads every weekday, that’s $1,300,000/year. Plenty of money to put towards investing, and set himself for life. I’d encourage him, if you don’t want to be left a nursing home in old age, while he’s living the dream.
You are an idiot. A YouTube channel with 12 million subscribers is a dream of many very experienced and professional YouTube content producers who actually do make a career out of it. Even if YouTube goes kaput in a few years and nobody uses the platform anymore, the skills your son has at marketing and content creating are extremely transferable to just about any industry imaginable. Your son already has a much more viable career than you do. Maybe take a seat and let him teach you something.
I truly hope this is a troll question, but let’s try this.
He’s among the top 400 channels in the world. Your son has the very real potential to earn over $1M a year with that amount of subscribers.
Even if he only does this for a few years, he’s able to earn $3M+ from ads and sponsorship deals. Closing down something so valuable is ludicrous. I’d suggest you take some time to learn a metric ton about managing money so you can guide your son, like a parent ought to. At the least, consider finding a money manager to help you two navigate this situation.
Why would you do that to him? It takes amazing hard work and perseverance to have such a reach on YouTube and for a 12 y/o to achieve that makes it much more impressive.
You should support him while keeping him grounded. Don’t impose your way of thinking on him. You should see his success as your success, not as a threat.
If you shut him down, he’ll shut you out, perhaps for life.
Whilst I am not saying anything that has not already been said at this point, you really need to re-assess your views on being a content creator and it’s viability as a career.
12 Million is a phenomenal number of subscribers and any channel with that many has extremely good prospects. Anyone with that number is potentially set for life if they play it right. I live very comfortably from my own YouTube career and I do not have even close to that number. I am approaching the 400,000 subscriber mark and have been able to make an awesome career from it. I left my job to pursue content creation at 200,000 and I know people who have made a success at even less.
Yes, it’s true, advertising revenue can be unstable, it can fluctuate. But if he’s got the views to match that subscriber count then even those fluctuations won’t put a dent in a very profitable career. And on top of that, there is immense potential for sponsorship which can far surpass that of advertising revenue if played right.
I won’t talk about my own figures or name names, but I know people easily making six figure salaries on far less than what your son has achieved. And I know that channels with that kind of 8 figure audience can easily make millionaires of their creators.
I get it, to someone who isn’t familiar with online video and the world of web content, making videos for YouTube can seem like just a silly hobby. But it isn’t. Internet video is the future. TV and Film industries have been struggling to keep up with the huge paradigm shift in entertainment, there’s huge money in it. Everyone wants to make it big on YouTube and to get to an audience of 12 million is so very difficult to do.
To put that in perspective, his audience is bigger than almost every prime-time TV show in the US last year.
To get to 12,000,000 followers is an incredible achievement and I sincerely applaud your son for getting there. That takes time, dedication and a passion for creating content to entertain people around the world. Do not destroy something that thousands of people dream of and slave for but so very few achieve, take away an incredible career from your child, just through your lack of understanding.
