[CM30]

Yeah this is true. Adsense is a very difficult way to make money on YouTube, and it's stuff like sponsorships, selling merch, selling courses, Patreon, etc that usually keep a lot of creators afloat.

If you can get those working for you, you can definitely get by on a few hundred thousand subs, and I know lots of creators in exactly that situation.

But yeah the challenge there is definitely building enough of a community that people are willing to pay you for that stuff, which is more difficult than just posting videos would be. Especially given that your niche has a huge effect on how easily you can make money from those things, and whether your community is going to be 'loyal' enough to support you that way. Creator focused and topic focused channels have very different routes and possibilities for monetisation...