YouTubers are getting priced out

“someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this”

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

In other words: The internet is gentrifying. — Kate

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Are Hims and Hers ads following you around the internet? Do you keep getting served sponsored videos of nutritional gummies? And is it safe to actually buy any of these things? We chatted with NPR’s Sydney Lupkin about the online pharmaceutical boom and how to avoid scams:

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YouTube is my old faithful: my loyal companion since I was 12. MySpace, Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter have come and gone for me, but YouTube has always remained. I’m still watching some of the same creators and have subscribed to new ones as recently as last week. I love YouTube. I want to root for YouTube. But YouTube is doing its creators dirty.

On February 13,

carla lalli music

announced she was quitting YouTube. For the past three years, she has been posting recipe videos under Carla’s Cooking Show. The cost of producing these videos, which were professionally shot by a team, was $14,000 per month. All worth it, potentially, if it drove sales for her second cookbook, That Sounds So Good, or led to her own cooking show (or getting cast on a pre-existing one).

While her promotional efforts, including the YouTube channel, initially landed her book at #7 on the New York Times Bestseller list, it had already fallen off by the next week. And while she did sign a development deal in 2024, the show wasn’t picked up. And, as she revealed, even her best-earning month on YouTube, which shares a portion of ad revenue with qualifying creators, still left her $6,500 short of breaking even.

The True Costs of Being on YouTube

Now, someone might look at this breakdown and say: $14,000 per month to have the videos professionally shot? Swap in a tripod and ring light, and number go up, yes? Well, yes—if it was 2014.