Ross Whatshisname of Accursed Farms (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ6KZTTnkE-s2XFJJmoTAkw/vid...) does an extremely in–depth review of a video game about once a month, and doesn’t do sponsorships. He gets 200k–500k views on every review, which is very popular by any measure.
I agree that truly unpopular videos with a dozen views will never make money, by advertising or otherwise. But the converse is not true; as I have demonstrated, there are plenty of popular videos that don’t bother to try to make money by sponsorships. You know every single one of those is turning down a VPN company every week of the year though.
I disagree with that. A selection of channels that I watch regularly enough:
The Spiffing Brit doesn’t do sponsorships, and his videos are quite popular (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRHXUZ0BxbkU2MYZgsuFgkQ/vid...).
This Old Tony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9rlWu9KWe8) is not quite as popular, if you count popularity by video views, but still very popular and no sponsorships.
What about Ben Eater? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_koa00MBLg) He is exactly the kind of enthusiast who would make amazing videos even if all advertising disappeared.
Ross Whatshisname of Accursed Farms (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ6KZTTnkE-s2XFJJmoTAkw/vid...) does an extremely in–depth review of a video game about once a month, and doesn’t do sponsorships. He gets 200k–500k views on every review, which is very popular by any measure.
Posy (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmEmX_jw_pRp5UbAdzkZq-g/vid...) is another enthusiast who makes videos for the sheer delight of it and whose videos are quite popular. If you haven’t watched his videos about LCD displays then you haven’t lived.
I agree that truly unpopular videos with a dozen views will never make money, by advertising or otherwise. But the converse is not true; as I have demonstrated, there are plenty of popular videos that don’t bother to try to make money by sponsorships. You know every single one of those is turning down a VPN company every week of the year though.