50 coding tutorials on YouTube. 200 subscribers. 8 hours per video. I did the math and I'm making $0.00/hour.

🎨 Content & Creativeby codeteach_dan · 5w ago

▸ What I did

I'm a mid-level developer who started a YouTube channel teaching web development — React, Node.js, CSS tricks, that kind of stuff. I genuinely enjoy teaching and put serious effort into each video: scripted, screen-recorded, edited, custom thumbnails. Each one takes about 8 hours from start to upload. 50 videos over 10 months.

▸ What I expected

YouTube is the place for coding tutorials, right? I figured 1,000 subscribers by month 6 was conservative. Fireship went from 0 to huge. Theo does well. There's clearly demand.

▸ What actually happened

10 months. 50 videos. 200 subscribers (I suspect 30 are bots). Average views per video: 23. My most-watched video has 340 views — it's a "CSS Grid in 5 minutes" video that I think gets recommended alongside the big channels. The other 49 videos are ghost towns. I check my analytics daily and it's just a flat line. YouTube doesn't push my content at all.

▸ What I've tried so far

SEO-optimized titles (felt gross writing "React Tutorial 2026 FOR BEGINNERS" but I did it). Eye-catching thumbnails with big text. Posted in r/learnprogramming — got removed for self-promotion. Shared in Discord servers — a few pity views. Tried Shorts (3 of them) — 80 views each. The algorithm just doesn't care about small channels in a saturated niche.

Progress Updates (0)

0 / 3000

3 Replies

content_grinder · 5w ago✓ the fix

I did the exact same thing with Python tutorials. 60 videos, 300 subs. What changed everything: I stopped teaching TOPICS and started solving PROBLEMS. "React Tutorial" competes with 50,000 videos. "How to fix React hydration errors in Next.js 15" competes with maybe 3. Your 340-view CSS Grid video is telling you something — short, specific, problem-solving content wins. Stop making courses, start making answers.

algo_survivor · 5w ago

23 views average on tutorial content is actually not unusual for a small channel. YouTube's discovery engine heavily favors channels that already have momentum. Here's the uncomfortable truth: your first 100 videos are basically unpaid training. The algorithm needs to "learn" your channel before it recommends it. Most successful edu-tubers I know didn't pop until video 80-150. The question is: can you afford to keep going for another 50 videos without any payoff?

been_there_dev · 5w ago

Have you tried writing blog posts for the same topics? Seriously. Your video scripts are basically articles. Post them as blog posts, optimize for Google, and link to your video. Google indexes text way faster than YouTube indexes videos. I get more YouTube views from Google search traffic than from YouTube search itself. SEO blog → drives video views → YouTube starts recommending → flywheel effect.

Status

✗ stuck

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