[geerlingguy]

This is correct. If you're around the space long enough, you can see the hundreds (thousands) of tiny channels (per big channel that could conceivably grow into anything resembling a business) that are pulling in 50 views per video with 22 subscribers, languishing for 5+ years.

Unless you are extremely lucky or already have things set for you, building an audience is a very long-term grind, and typically a large percentage of those with some potential get burned out after 1, 2, or 5 years.

(None of this to say you shouldn't try, especially if you love the work... I enjoyed editing video since grade school when my Dad first bought an analog video capture card so I could dump a few minutes of VHS footage into a video editor and make dumb family videos.)