One win, one loss, and one draw…
So, I’m about a year in to making YouTube content. While it’s felt like it has been a really bumpy ride, I think that’s probably not a rational way to look at the overall journey.
Yes, I struggled with SVP. I had videos absolutely bomb. I’ve struggled to get consistent performance from my content. That’s also a hyper-myopic view, because I got monetized in half the time I targeted. I got to 1k subscribers. Then 10k. Now? 80286!
I said - 80286! Yes, I’m an absolute nerd. My second computer had a Harris-manufactured 80286 at 16Mhz. 80386s were already out, so it’s not like the 286-16 was a speed demon. But I loved it. It was graphically a massive upgrade over the previous CGA. It was also much faster than the 8088 at 4.77Mhz. Oof.
Alright, back to the performance milestone…
I recently coughed and wheezed across the 77k subscriber mark. Subscribership and viewership were declining to the lowest levels in many months.
Credit Scores flopped. I consider this a vanity-driven mistake. I knew in advance that people probably didn’t care about this topic. Part of what I want to leave behind, though, is a body of work that is suitable as “dad” guidance - to whomever wants it.
Pi-hole Tailscale was very niche, and a low-lift gift to those that had been building the Pi-hole projects in the series.
Then I took a big risk and made Flock. If it wasn’t a failure, it certainly wasn’t a success, either.
What would I do to right the ship? Ah yes, Pentagon wants a Claude killbot. Well, that didn’t go well. If Smart TV brought a bunch of new subscribers, Killbot tried its best to get rid of them. A genuine failure.
Tuesday, I posted Dad Ruins Cloud Cameras
Initial indications looked like a better performance than my last few videos - though that’s not saying much. Then deceleration. Uh oh. Then a bump. Then deceleration. Then it went on a tear.
A little over three days from posting? 71k views, 5.5k watch hours, 1700 subscribers, 5.3% CTR (not great), 4:35 AVD (really not great), 807 comments, and 4448 likes. The really funny thing, is the 23 dislikes, which I’m sure included one guy that was big mad about my criticizing cameras that he says are great.
I think the video is staring to level off, but it’s nice to have a decent performer after my series of whiffs. It has set up a video on Frigate, and Reolink (having seen my cloud cam video) reached out for a sponsored piece of content. And I’m actually interested, for a change.
It’s nice to turn things around, if even only for a few days. Also, I’ll probably hit 80386 in the next hour or two. My third computer had an AMD-manufactured 80386 at 40Mhz (with a 25Mhz 80387. 80486s were already out, but it was like lightning to me.
Thanks for the support, everyone
