I’ve seen how channels and videos have progressed over the years, and it has been amazing to see the progress in general, but the last year or two, I’ve been running into more and more so unrealistic personal lab scenarios, that… IDK, I have a feeling that most of this stuff is fake… or I really have no idea where they get the funds for the equipment they say they have in the videos.
Like I was watching this video about growing human neurons 🤨… like WTF, is that a thing now? I mean, I go in the store, buy a bunch of neurons and off I am to growing them? What are they, sea monkeys 🤨. Next, the equipment. One light microscopes and another UV based, not the cheapest ones on the market I might add. Those two easily add up to over 150K. I mean… really, where do people even buy those, it’s not something an idividual owns.
I’ve seen this with other channels as well, like the restoration chanels. A big ass 3D printer, an expensive lathe, all sorts of high precision milling equipment, laser cutters… I mean… where do these people get the money to buy these things, these are not cheap, sure, they’re not as expensive as a microscope, but they’re still pretty darn expensive, we’re still talking about at least 10s of thousands of dollars.
Am I missing something? Cuz I watch these clips and I feel more and more like a looser, like why don’t I have that, how much money do these people actually make from YT 🤨.
Some might make money off their content through YT payouts or more likely sponsorships. Some might just have access to money (like rich parents, crippling debt, or a good day job you’re not aware of). Some might have access to cheap second-hand equipment or equipment they can borrow. Some people just prioritize their work over things like cars.
I could speculate all day and never give you a satisfactory answer. Why not ask them? Drop a DM and see if they reply. Maybe they have some secret they can share. Content creators, especially the more niche ones are pretty likely to respond and be open about that kind of thing.
Not a bad Idea, I might just do that.
Let us know too
Looking at the Patreons alone for one channel I watch, he makes $38,000 a month. Just from Patreons. Which is $456,000 a year. That’s before you get into YouTube ad revenue, sponsor spots and merchandising. This is a channel with less than 2 million subscribers. I suspect he makes 3-4 times that from the rest. So yes, $150K for equipment seems perfectly reasonable.
WTF, is that a thing now? I mean, I go in the store, buy a bunch of neurons and off I am to growing them?
You’d be surprised how easy and cheap that stuff can be. You can buy a crispr kit for a few hundred dollars and then go on to geneticially edit your own bacteria.
Jesus… things have advanced a lot… apprently, now you can be your own mad scientist…
This is just a guess but I think the Thought Emporium, which is probably the guy you watched for the neuron stuff, may also do these as actual research and publish papers about this and therefore gets funding from institutions or companies. It could also be he built it with money from other jobs or hot a loan to invest in this at the start then as the YT channel grew and people donated to him he expanded. Or maybe the lab is shared with others. Tbh idk but it’s not as unreasonable as you think for a single person to own a lab like that.
I actually know Justin from the thought emporium. He started with not much. Then grew his channel at the local Hackerspace, which gave him a space to build up a small DIY bio lab. At the beginning he had about 100K subs and was living off from it. He then grew out of the Hackerspace and into his own lab at which he employes a couple of people. He has a video about the move to his own lab.
A lot of these channels start by using equipment from their job, or losing money on a youtube channel as a hobby while doing other work. If you already have/work at a wood shop, there isn’t a startup cost to use a lathe. If you work in a lab, you can often use tools when they aren’t being used for work projects.
The vast majority of youtube channels don’t make any money. The majority of channels that do make money don’t make enough to live off of. The few that do usually make most of their money from brand deals, donations, and merch.
Then please explain this video.
Nothing here is cheap. Everything costs a lot. And the neuron cultures, I mean… how does an individual even obtain those 🤨.
The channel you linked is in the top 2.5% youtube channels, uploaded a video a couple years ago that hit 9.5 million views, and had an ongoing sponsorship deal with square space and other large companies.
The person behind the channel also appears to work at a college doing this kind of thing as their job. The way you get access to neuron cultures is by having a job where you work with them, being passionate about teaching and sharing that with other people, and asking nicely.
In this particular case, the youtube channel seems to be a hobby. A side thing. It’s not the driving force behind the availability of their tools and equipment.
OK, if that’s the case, then it makes sense.
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3D printers and laser cutters are significantly cheaper now. Also those and CNC machines, people can use them for business like you send them the file and they ship you the item. Laser cutters people use for custom engraving, they just buy a bunch of blank keychains, coasters, etc off alibaba and make them on demand. You can find tons of these stores on etsy (people will just steal the models for popular characters and print them out on demand for a profit), here’s a more expensive one. Or like my family, print out warhammer 40k models instead of buying them because it’s literally cheaper.
Also these they might not have bought them new, like our university will rarely get rid of equipment to free up storage and because it’s so specialized and so few people know how to get access, you can get a really good price. We had two rooms of printers that we had to get rid of because students kept breaking them and it was too much of a pain to keep them running. We also bought new milling equipment to upgrade the shop and got rid of the old stuff which was working fine.
3D printers and laser cutters are significantly cheaper now.
I’ve fixed a few laser engravers for people that use them for jewelry. The current price of one for, let’s say, ring engraving (3 axes) is in the ballpark of about 7 to 10K euros. And we’re talking about the cheap Chinese copies here, not ones made by brand name companies.
This is still expensive in terms of personal ownership. Unless you use it for uour business, there is no way you can buy this solely for your YT channel.
You can build engraving lasers for less than $500. Lots of people have expensive hobbies, some decide to make content with them.
Not the likes I’ve seen in some of these clips. Sure, the 1W ones, yeah, you can. 20+W ones, no. The head and the control board alone cost between 1.5k and 2k.
You can get laser cutters for far cheaper than 7K.
My dad fixed up a Chinese laser cutter to save money (it was like 1k by the end of it), it sat in the basement for a while there. Personally, I assume YT is not their only job. I’ve worked with people that have sunk way more than 10k into their hobbies, the car people in particular are sometimes unbelievable and that I don’t get. Drone and boat people too. The small planes are kind of cool. At least with these tools, you can actually make money off them.
Apparently, people have way more money than they let on… cuz when I say I don’t have money, I litelarly don’t have money for anything else except food for the rest of the month.
I’ve definitely had people who were working for me say “I have four boats” and I’m like wtf bc I know how much they make. Then I find out they live over an hour away from work in the middle of nowhere, their mortgage is less than half my rent and two of the boats are “project” boats that don’t even run. The only drone person I know is childfree, huge savings right there, and they don’t live in a city either. Tbh some of the things people do for these things, the amount of work does not make sense to me but if that’s what you want to do with every single weekend, go right ahead.
Plus I find these people with a lot of money invested in their hobbies tend to be older, like 30-40 years old. Then I’m like, I could probably afford a 5k 3d printer in a decade but that’s not what I would spend my money on.
I’m 38… the only thing I have on my name is an apartment. Fully paid, but that’s it.
But, than again, I don’t live in the US or any western country, so I’d have to take that into account as well… and that I have a child.
I don’t think of it as “how much does this person make”. Each channel is a business, and the YouTuber is a business owner. The things they buy for videos are business expenses. Only part of the channel’s income goes towards the YouTuber personally (like a salary). Some channels have actual employees they have to pay such as editors, event organizers, managers, which in turn work to make the channel bigger and earn more money.
If you think of them as businesses (companies), the fact that they’re buying expensive equipment for their business makes much more sense.
How should I explain it? With a YouTube video
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/eoWcQUjNM8o
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Don’t forget $600,000 for a destroyed Mclaren P1
Haven’t watched that…
Tavarish
Jesus 2 mil 🤦… I can dream of making that in 5 life times.
Isn’t the goal with these rebuild channels to actually try to make money on their rebuilds?
Sure, Tavarish may have spent 600k on the car and 500k in parts by the end, but he should send up with an asset worth 1.5m.
Sure but that remains to be seen. Will someone really pay that much for a novice rebuilt flood car? Can Freddy afford to keep it?
Oh yeah, the man’s a lunatic. Still, the idea is that the rebuild, in itself, should be profitable - and then there’s the YouTube money.
He’ll be making hundreds of thousands just off the traffic this project is bringing to his channel.
Same place young privileged people traditionally get money from: their parents.
Now, instead of paying for film school or acting lessons, wealthy parents can now just finance their brood’s YouTube channel.
