I thought mrbeast was making so much money and was so money wise... Why would he be needing to take so much investor money?
Jimmy's got his hand on the pulse of YouTube like no other creator, he's got the endless favour of the YouTube higher-ups, and he is arguably the most visible content creator nowadays... but he ain't no PewDiePie. Felix rose to stardom and profited immensely during a different era of YouTube. Jimmy's arguably more visible, more ubiquitous, and has a significantly wider audience to pull from, but good ol Jimmy's relentless gaming of the YouTube algorithm can only take him so far. The main MrBeast channel can get like a billion views on its latest video, and...
- a good 80% of that traffic is fundamentally worthless because it comes from the third world (remember: third world lacks spending power so they're worthless to advertisers, sponsors, and Jimmy's in-house merch team)
- 10% of that traffic is sidestepped via uBlock Origin and assorted ad blockers (incl. users of stuff like SmartTube, NewPipe, Invidious, Piped, etc)
- 7.5% of that traffic don't have ad blockers but won't ever click affiliate links and partner websites. Don't forget that CPMs and advertiser revenues for content creators have diminished significantly since their halcyon days between 2008-2012, and they continue to plummet.
- That leaves a measly 2.5% of the hypothetical billion viewers left to actually make money off through advertisements, sponsorships, and in-house merchandise... and that's assuming they're not minors (like the vast majority of his audience is) or that they're minors who can goad their parents into spending money on MrBeast merchandise or whatever product he shills through sponsorships.
- Don't forget that he's got an entire production crew and significant operational overhead. That overhead only gets bigger depending on what crazy stunts he orchestrates, how many participants he gets on board, any potential licensing or permits that needs to be arranged, need I go on?
- That's also not factoring in how much he spends on off-site social media marketing.
Multiply this song and dance by however many channels he has, and it's plain as day to see why the MrBeast network needs to seek out investors. Jimmy's able to make vastly more money than any content creator before him, but the catch is that he's
super late to the party. The floor is abyssal and the ceiling seemingly infinite from Jimmy's position. Scale doesn't even matter at this point because large revenues are offset by huge operating costs. Whatever profit remains isn't necessarily worth scoffing at in all fairness, but I would bet serious money on his margins being razor-thin and highly variable. Seeking out investors is the next logical step, making MrBeast as an enterprise approach startup territory: huge scale, high operating costs, and variable profitability. Not a good omen of things to come.
To invoke the PewDiePie comparison once again: Felix was a huge creator in his heyday, but he had his heyday in a different era of YouTube where CPMs were higher and advertiser payouts were generous. Pewds was running a peanut operation relative to what Jimmy does now. Felix didn't need sponsorships, Patreon, off-site merchandising, or other aggressive forms of monetisation. He was even able to more or less bow out and live a (relatively) low-key life where he got married, had a kid, and still occasionally makes the odd video for whatever piques his interest. Jimmy can't live that comfortably, if at all.
Jimmy's a richer creator I'd imagine, but he's admitted in interviews that he gets frequent panic attacks due to the high pressure nature of MrBeast as a business. You can always write it off as pretentious fluff to make him more relatable, but considering the scale and scope of what he does? I'd say he'd have a coke habit, a drinking problem, or some other outlet for dysfunction if he wasn't having panic attacks on the regular. That shit is
stressful.
