Thinking of starting to explore youtubing

The idea of starting to record videos for youtube has come to mind every now and again over the years. Partially as a potential side gig (earn money just for going on about my life? Why not!?!), partially from a sense of pushing myself out of my comfort zone. On the one hand, you look at some youtube channels and wonder how on earth something that boring became so common and beloved. Unboxings were the first time I remember thinking that. I mean, apart from hating that word, it's one thing if someone I follow happens to get something and opens it. That can be kind of fun and interesting. But there are channels out there dedicated to nothing else. I have to admit to finding cash envelope stuffing videos kind of mesmerising and I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are as mystified by them as I am by unboxings. 

A recent stunning sunset

On the other hand, I do realise how much work goes on behind the scenes and honestly, I don't think I'm technically experienced or talented or interested enough to bother with all of that. So it would be the youtube equivalent of, well, this blog and its photos. Alright but not of the highest quality. That would irritate me while not actually inspiring me to invest the time and money into getting good equipment and learning how to do it all properly myself or paying someone else to do it for me. Although I have no interest in learning to do it all properly, and although I'm not even someone with particularly (or even any) high standards when it comes to photography or sound, I'm very likely give up immediately if everything isn't perfect.

 

 

Actually, this is another area where I'd be stepping way outside my comfort zone, which means it could in fact be good for me. Maybe. 

So between technical issues, potentially boring content, and the potential privay issues around putting your real self out there without the safety blanket of anonymity, I've never done anything about it. And of course there is also the fact that at some stage I learned that monetisation on youtube doesn't even start before something like one thousand subscribers and four thousand views. Even when I was posting regularly, this blog has rarely had more than about 50 views in any one day. 

The idea has reared its head again, though, to some extent because I'm working through some very tough issues in therapy at the moment, revolving in part around who/how I was as a child and teenager. The two threads have kind of come together in my head. On the one hand, if I could manage to get the word out and try to get my family to all subscribe to a youtube channel, I'd be well on the way to a good amount subscribers (just my siblings, their spouses and kids is already more than 25 people, if aunts and uncles and cousins started to get on board, the numbers really grow to the hundreds very quickly). More importantly, it might be a way to actually get in touch with some of that extended family that I haven't had contact with for years, and maybe be able to get some of them to share with them what I was like as a kid, thus answering at least some of my questions about my past.*

Anyway, it's all just ruminating for now. If anyone reads this and has any advice to offer one way or another, feel free to comment. And if I do decide to go ahead with it, let me know if you'd be interested in following. It would have to be completely separate from this blog, as it would be my online persona that is essentially my real life one (still not my real name but a real nickname that people who know me would recognise easily). I try to keep the two separate but since I'd be desperate for followers subscribers anyway 😁, I'd be willing to share with those of you I've had contact with over the years.

* I do realise most people, at least most people my age, would reach for fb for this but I can't stand that particular platform and only made it about two days becoming totally overwhelmed. Youtube seems like it could be a bit more like a blog in that it's slightly more in my control, with less input from others.

Subscriptions break the budget

Santis over at The Caribbean Dub posted a question yesterday on instagram asking people what kind of subscriptions they have. I confidently replied:

1. €7.99 per month for either Amazon Prime or Netflix most months. I'm going to aim to cut this down to at most six months a year but I'm not sure yet how/when exactly to do that.
   
2. €30 per month for patreon (supporting The Blindboy Podcast, Laura Kennedy, David McWilliams, Maintenance Phase, Fundie Fridays and Rock the Housework in case anyone is interested)
   

There was a similar thread on the MMM forums recently and so I decided to read that. I also read  some of the other answers Santis posted and so I've been thinking about the less regular subscriptions I have. It really shows once again that it is a very useful exercise to review this kind of thing a couple of times a year, because when it comes to apps on my phone, it's so easy to just click to see what the added functionality is like (and then never bother to actually decide if it's worth an annual fee or not), or even just to get rid of ads. 

So, as well as the two mentioned above, I actually have more than a few other subscriptions:

1. Irish Times online - I did try to cancel this a while back but was offered half-price for a year so kept it at €6/month.
2. GoodBudget app - I used this a lot for the first 14 months or so, then got overwhelmed and have since returned to physical cash envelopes. €64.99/year - I need to pull all the information I have out of the app and onto my PC and then I'll revert back to the free version. 
3. Yazio app - €29.99/year. Only used this for a couple of months. Again, got overwhelmed and have gone back to paper-based tracking, if at all.
4. Merriam app - €2.19/year
5. SleepCycle app - €13.99/year for premium. The free version would be ok, but I do use it almost every day and I like to support them. There's one premium feature that I could live without but prefer to have. Can't at this moment recall exactly what it is though.
   
6. Wetter app - €5.49/year for ad-free. 
7. Medium.com - already cancelled a few months ago. Thought I would use it loads and just didn't.
8. Flickr - just recently added this due to the changes they're introducing. I have several yahoo email accounts, which means that at some point I acquired several flickr accounts. I've just upgraded one of them and paid the €82.54 for a two-year subscription. That gives me some time to actually think about whether I need the service or not.  

I also have a VPN service but, like domains and hosting, consider that a business expense for my side-gig. I used the two months free youtube premium that was offered to me a while back but cancelled it before it ticked over into a paid service.  The other app I use a lot is Insight Timer. There is an option to support them financially and when funds allow, I will probably start doing that. I do get a lot of use from it.

 Annual costs (rounded):

1. Netflix/Amazon Prime (target of six months a year!): 50
2. Patreon: 360
3. Irish Times: 75
4. GoodBudget: 65
5. Yazio: 30
6. Merriam: 5
7. SleepCycle: 15
8. Wetter: 5
9. Flickr: 45

A grand total of: €650/year or almost €55/month!  Cancelling GoodBudget and Yazio will bring that down by almost €100/year. Patreon is by far the biggest chunk of that and yet supporting all of those is something I'd like to continue doing. Definitely worth making an appointment with myself for once a year or so to consciously decide whether or not to continue with all of them.