Who Are the Idiots?

The Internet is an interesting place, to say the least. It can become even more, 'interesting', when there is potential foe someone to be scammed somehow, especially from their money. Some of this could be avoided by reading the fine print. The other by thinking a little. I began thinking about this while watching some Youtube videos about how to set up an e-commerce store. The two big ways to make money on Youtube is to monetize your videos to run ads and to have an affiliate link in the description to send people to in hopes they will buy something. In both instances, you are the creator of the content and someone pays you money to advertise for them. Usually, the affiliate links bring in a bigger cut, sometimes 70/30 or 80/20 of what is spent. This isn't the bad thing because all parties are entitled to make their money. This next part is where it gets interesting.
There are some honest videos out there inform you that there is money to be made, but that it will take some time. Rome wasn't built nor destroyed in a day. The problem is with what they insinuate and leave out. There are two things they insinuate and one thing that they leave out.
The first thing they insinuate is that your money is made by subscribers. Well, no it isn't. With ads, you money is made by how many people watch the majority of to all of the videos they watch. The more people that watch the video, the more money you make for that video. The more videos you make with a high viewer rating, the better. You will still need a thousand or two views per video to see any real money come in. Having a huge subscriber base is great for getting those high video views, but you don't get paid by subscribers.
The second thing they insinuate is you can generate huge numbers and make thousands of dollars a day in a couple of days. These types of videos are catered toward new Youtubers. The mistake new Youtubers make is they equate high subscriber number with big money. This is just simply not the case. As I have before, you make your money by high video views, and high video views on multiple videos.They also insinuate that a high subscriber base will make you money on your e-commerce store. Here again, not true. They may say, "in two days I made a thousand dollars a day." That may be true but what they are leaving out is all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into getting here. It takes time and effort to do this and it will not be overnight.
The final thing they do is make money off of you through affiliate links. Usually what happens with this is you go to a site that does affiliate links, sign up, and use a code directing people to the site and you make money off of what is spent and is usually a 80/20 split. What some have done is set up affiliate links where you get 70/20/10. You get 70%, the site gets 20%, and they get 10%. Ten percent isn't much until you get more than ten people using your code. Most people wouldn't care if they knew ahead of time, but you almost are never told. Just remember, if it sounds too good to be true, do your research.