According to this article, YouTube Stats, there are 114 million active YouTube channels. 321k channels have surpassed the 100k subscribers, according to statistical data. Only 10% of those can be monetized with more than 100$/day (ask ChatGPT for this number - it will pull a few reliable sources).
So, probability for monetization with >100$/day is 0.00028 (or 0.028%), after you created a new channel. This is about a probability to be killed in a city in the US (try to pull the number from the Internet, i.e. - homicide rate).
$100/day is a small amount of income for the Western world. It is even less meaningful for a few creators. To have $300/day income, one needs to decrease this tiny probability 0.028% by a lot.
Note: when you start a new business, a probability for success is 10% on average. This is a well studied number. It is not so tiny chance as for YouTube channel after you decide to create it.
You might say that it depends on the 'niche' and the 'quality' of the videos. That's true, but the same applies to any new business. The difference is that for most new businesses, an average chance of success is many orders of magnitude higher than for a YouTube channel to earn $100/day in 2025.
This basically says everything you need to know about the "success rate on YouTube". Just do a simple test: create a channel and upload a few good videos. Most likely, you'll only get around 5-10 views. And full stop. This tiny "kick" is not enough to algorithms to make any decision about the quality of the video..
Based on just 5-10 views, how do you think YouTube will promote your video to a wider audience, especially if so few people are even clicking on it and there is no a fair metric for so small click statistics? And do you believe those viewers are real people?
The problem isn’t about the video being “good” or “bad” quality. The issue lies in the small initial “push” to a video when it's posted, which puts it in front of an audience before the community has any real chance to decide whether it’s good or bad. Hash tags are not as affective as they are used to be. Keep in mind that much of the success depends on YouTube’s employees, - many of whom are outsourced to third-party companies in India.
Much of the money YouTube earns comes from "dreamers" - people who create channels, see little to no activity, and end up paying for ads from YouTube studio. Then, YouTube staff send an army of bot-subscribers, which completely ruins the channel, since the watch time remains very low and there's still no engagement on any new videos from "subscribers". My recent estimate gives about 4% of views coming from "subscribers" I've got from Ads. Why did they subscribe then? Correct - they are not real. Now you must close the channel.
Normally, this would be considered a fraudulent activity. If you buy potatoes in a store and they are all rotten from inside, damaging your health, you would hold the company accountable. Not on YouTube. Bot subscribers, which you acquire through ads and which can destroy your channel, are completely acceptable.
After losing money, most of these creators never return. This is a damaging "tax" on low income people, who dared to have a dream.
by T.Markom (editor)
Based on the discussion on Reddit.