Fun, Limited

As YouTube moves towards premium content, the challenge is to make people pay for what they see or hear

- Varun Ramesh

Every week, Vikramadithya Shivaram, a Bengaluru-based sexologist, sits down to roadmap the videos he releases on YouTube. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” he says, describing the process of making a video or two every week for his 1,360 (and counting) subscribers.

Called Self-Help Yourself, Shivaram’s channel has videos on psychology, sex education and self-betterment. A day in his life encompasses planning, scripting, shooting, editing and search engine optimisation. “I look at my videos as soldiers,” says Shivaram, 26. “I expect each one of these soldiers to go out and help make an impact on someone’s life.”

Shivaram aims to reach ten million people with his content, as part of a larger dream to better the world while also becoming an internet millionaire. It is a dream made possible by a platform that reaches a quarter of the world’s population every month. This is YouTube’s core creator base. YouTube today is the world’s second most-visited website, after Google. In 14 years, it has become the place for grandmothers to share recipes, for millennials to follow news, for artists to release work, and for advertisers to push brands.