Recently my manager at my main job asked me why I don't do Youtube full time. His kids are the "I want to be full time streamers / youtubers" type kids and he knows I have a modestly successful channel where I spend weekends filming.
I'm a small channel with around 7K subscribers. I occasionally get ~$300 - 500 brand sponsorship deals, but it's maybe 1 time a month. In ad revenues I'm making around $200 /m and I have several hundred videos on my channel ranging from 100 views to 250,000 views. I've been doing this for 5+ years as a fun side gig and there's no pressure really behind it. I film what I want when I want and if the quality is garbage well, I got my thoughts out onto video, who cares. To my knowledge nobody really follows me as a personality or a brand, but my videos have been helpful for people looking at specific reviews for off brand consumer tech.
I had to explain to him that I like to keep it my hobby. That being a full time Youtuber is, in fact, a demanding career in itself, and I could go the next year easily putting in 12 hour days trying to grow my brand and see little to no success. There's a huge aspect of luck to it (plus, I think that Youtube knows I block ads and some how de-promotes my channel because of it). The business side of Youtube is so important and understated by "everyone with a camera phone can make videos" type idea behind it. Those who are casually filming and manage success have a huge luck, personality, they're extremely attractive/thoughtful or other circumstance that makes them stand out. Most of the Youtube I watch these days are high level productions with multiple crews and likely million dollar yearly budgets.
Of course that's not the way for everyone, but when literally everyone is trying for the same thing it is a difficult market to compete in if you're just average like me. I think a lot about travel vlogging for example and that seems relatively ideal on paper but then I came to the realization whenever I travel everywhere I want to actually experience the place instead of filming constantly or bugging my friends to help me film or whatever, that is just annoying. When I go somewhere I don't want my primary purpose to be filming, I would prefer to go somewhere to actually experience in that moment and vlogging can really take away from it. You have to be filming constantly to catch that "special moment" in most cases.
I would honestly love to work for another channel doing set work, lighting or camera work; because then the pressure isn't on me to produce and I can still enjoy what I'm doing for fun on the side. But working for myself, maybe I just don't have the right drive to do it right now, or maybe one day it will come, but I still find myself thinking about that "what if" it does come and dreaming a bit, until a reality check makes me realize that I would have burned out a long time ago if I did it professionally. In the end it comes down to the sad realization that I'm average. My dictation is average. The product I'm buying and talking about are not super popular. My ability to edit videos, to market myself, filming and lighting. It's all kinda average. Could I make it big some day? Yeah, maybe. But at this point I try to keep it about enjoying what I do more than making money and in the end of the day I can go out for a bike ride, relax, film some of my ride and then get to doing that review when I feel like it with no pressure to perform. If it gets 100 views, whatever, if it gets 10K, great.