YouTube as a job?

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I notice that some people on YouTube, such as Nalts and JPizzle1122, say that they make their income from ad revenue on their videos. So, would it be a good idea to try to do this, to make youtube videos for a living, and does anyone know what the conditions of making money are? I haven't been able to find work since I lost my job at Wal-Fart back in 2007, and people in my area are incredibly racist and paranoid of white people in general and seem to fear beards as well, so I think that getting a job in Minneapolis may be a lost cause. But as for YouTube, is it actually possible to get paid for making videos? I have a few and haven't been paid yet, so it may be a matter of popularity or something.

It is hard to use common sense to make money today,
especially if your bank charges You fees for their
privilege of borrowing and lending and investing your money.

Common sense implies that Youtube offers a free video
server funded by their own ads, because you can embed
Youtube videos on your web page and ads of your choice
too, but you cannot afford the bandwidth to have the videos
on your website host server because it isn't as fast as
Youtube and if your site does get popular, you will run
out of bandwidth for streaming videos on your website.
IOW
Videos on your website costs more and may be slow.
Youtube videos embedded on your website are FREE.
AND
Youtube might put ads on your video to pay for their
free service, and you can rent adspace on your site too.

BUT the best ways to find out is to read all of Youtube's
policies, and maybe WP might advise you how to
make some money from ads.
Making money from ads doesn't seem to be enough
for WP, so even if your website has popular or very
educational Youtube videos, you'll probably still be
frugal with the ad rents on your web page. Also,
ad rents may need to be based on how many clicks
or buys result from the ad on your site.

My own experiment with renting ads made me think
it was a scam, because I know people bought from ads
on one of my sites but I should have gotten at least
a penny, but I didn't, so I removed them all.

Another thing you can advertise on your site with embedded
Youtube videos is promotional merchandise for your site.
T-shirts are a very good example, but all kinds of other
things can be made with your site name on it in such a
way that people might want to buy them. (People DO
buy promotional T-shirts and Other Stuff.) But your
videos and site have to be at least cool enough for
people who hang out in T-shirts in their basement
clubhouse playing videogames or whatever until
they wear out your shirts, faded and full of holes.

Is your video educational, entertaining, or otherwise
interesting enough to attract viewers and buyers?

Don't want to burst your bubble but it is unlikely to happen. People don't just start from scratch making serious money on youtube, unless they have something extremely marketable. These people don't just start making money, they have become popular over several years due to a mixture of luck, talent, and effort. If nobody visits your channel there is no revenue to be made. You need to understand IT, film making, video production, web/viral marketing, plus be really comfortable in front of a camera/borderline attention whore. You need to have some edge. For instance some people are very sardonic. You can't really learn stuff like that.

Although some of these people may make it look amateurish/effortless, don't be fooled they know what they are doing. There a high learning curve for most people, a marked difference between true amateurism, and comic effect amateurism.

Don't be fooled by YouTube, these people could do well in other environments too. Yes YouTube has revolutionised and enabled fame from your living room but that doesn't mean it is a walk in the park.

You are also going to have to put in some money. I have been doing my homework in order to make decent instructional videos (not to make money). So far I have spent between me another guy around £600, and that is using various tricks of the trade to keep cost down.

People who do this for a living could easily pay £2000+ on just a camera. Most people think all they need is a camera and some software. Wrong. To produce decent clear crisp videos there is a lot more to it. High street cameras on the market seem impressive, especially as they are HD. It is pointless recording in HD if you can’t capture decent footage and sound in the first place.

Most high street cameras up to the mid market can’t film well in typical lighting conditions; they become grainy and have poor detail. The sound is terrible in all camcorders. Professionals nearly always use external mics, however with high street cameras many don’t even have an outlet for one. If you are just doing a video log, you may be able to use a button mic and record it separately and then sync it with the video. Otherwise you need decent Supercardioid/shot gun mic and these need to be isolated and handled correctly. Then there is all the stability equipment, to produce smooth moving/panning footage.

One way you could save money is stick to animation, etc.

Pay per click advertising revenue has been falling for years. Youtube may PPC be popular now but don't count on it staying that way. If you are doing anything vaguely intellectual I wouldn't expect to much it is only those with zero attention span that are likely to click on something for no reason (which is what most of PPC traffic is made out of), and you will be doing a lot of work filtering the right type..

You also have to consider the costs of making that video. How much do you make per thousand views? How much does it cost for a thrift store microwave and a used iPod?

How many thousand views will you need to break even on the microwave and iPod, and what do you need to do to earn money once you pay for the video camera/tripods/lighting/SD cards/editing software, etc. Plus, how many hours are you going to put into a video.

Not saying that it can't be done, but it's tough to do.

The people who do make money from it (I don't know if they're actually profitable) have a product (DVDs, CDs, T-shirts) that they're selling.

Google brentalfloss and Angry Video Game Nerd for some good examples of people who seem like they're making it work.