Five Years on YouTube!

Welcome back everyone, I'm Jordan Geesege and this is The Limiting Factor. Well, it's been about five years since I started this channel. It's January 10th as I record this and I originally began the channel. I believe it was the 6th of January 2020. And in that time I've produced about 150 videos once every two weeks. Each of those videos, I've done the best job that I possibly could. Condensing information as dense as I possibly could to make the most the best UC year time. And surprisingly, as dry as this content can be compared to a lot of other channels, I've managed to build a pretty solid following more than I ever expected for content like this. I think I'm getting close to 130,000 subscribers now. And about two years ago, I finally got my play button, which that was quite an achievement. But I guess where are we at now? My original goal with the channel was to make it about five years. And here we are five years later. The reason five years was my goal is because there's so many different topics that I wanted to cover. And generally, when I do a job, I last about two or three years before I get bored or I make myself redundant within two or three years. It's my view that if you do your job well, you make yourself redundant. And to a certain extent, I have with this channel, I've covered a lot of the major topics and one of my original goals for the channel was to elevate the level of discourse around batteries, because there's so much hype out there around batteries. And I've tried to focus on the technologies as much as possible that I thought were viable. And a lot of the companies that people wanted me to cover that I didn't end up covering for that reason, they've gone belly up now. So even a lot of companies that I thought would succeed because I thought the technology was solid, haven't made it. And yeah, as I said, I feel like people, I feel like I've helped elevate the discourse. It's part of it, I think, is some of the content I put out, but a lot of it is, I think people have just, people who followed batteries closely over the past few years have learned to take everything with a grain of salt. Either way, there's people have grown less enthusiastic about battery technology over the past three to five years. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think as people have learned about more about batteries, they have more realistic expectations, which is a healthy thing from my perspective. But during that time period, I've seen that happening and I've tried to shift my content slightly away from batteries. It's still going to be the core of the channel and my core expertise. But as you've seen, I'm covering things like nuclear energy and wireless charging and casting, et cetera.

欢迎回来，大家好，我是乔丹·吉斯格，这里是“限制因素”频道。在我开始这个频道已经差不多五年了。我是在2020年1月6日左右创建该频道的，现在录制时间是1月10日。在这段时间里，我大约每两周发布一次视频，总共制作了大约150个视频。每段视频我都尽全力浓缩了大量信息，虽然内容较为枯燥，但没想到能吸引到这么多的关注，目前已经接近13万订阅者。大约两年前，我终于得到了YouTube的“银色播放按钮”，这是个不小的成就。 最初，我的目标是运营五年，因为有太多我想要探讨的话题。通常来讲，我对一个工作持续保持兴趣的时间是两到三年，之后可能会感到厌倦，或者在两到三年后认为自己可以退休。我的观点是，如果你把工作做好，那就意味着你使自己变得可有可无。在某种程度上，我对这个频道也是如此，因为我已经探讨了许多主要主题。我最初的目标之一是提升关于电池的讨论水平，因为关于电池有太多的炒作。我尽量关注那些我认为可行的技术，因此没有覆盖的一些公司现在已经倒闭。 即使是我认为技术稳固、有希望的公司，也并没有全部成功。总之，我觉得我帮助提升了公众对电池话题的理解。一部分原因是我的内容，另外是随着时间的推移，关注电池的人们变得更加理性，对待信息更加谨慎。过去三到五年中，人们对电池技术的热情有所降低，但我认为这未必是坏事。随着了解的深入，人们对技术有了更现实的期待，这从我的角度来看是一种健康的心态。 在这段时间里，我开始尝试略微转变内容重心，虽然电池仍是频道的核心主题和我的专业所在，但我也开始探讨像核能、无线充电和铸造技术等其他领域的话题。

But over the course of the past, that's probably 2022 when my channel peaked. That's when I was getting the most views and that's when Tesla stock peaked. And that's when, like my channel revenues from Patreon were the highest. I think it topped out at like $6,000 or $7,000 a month and like June of 2022. And it's probably about half that now. But luckily, you know, besides those individual contributions, which are hugely helpful for the channel, there's been, I got a sponsor, rebellioner. That's the kind of help backfill in that revenue that I've lost and also X. Since Elon allowed monetization on X, that's been a contributor as well. So probably half my income now is Patreon from individual supporters. And the other half is from a mix of a lot of different funding sources. Whereas previously, it was more like 80 to 90% Patreon revenue.

在过去的时间里，可能是2022年，我的频道达到了顶峰。当时我获得了最多的浏览量，特斯拉的股票也正处于高峰。同一时期，我通过Patreon获得的收入也非常高，大概每月有6000到7000美元，特别是在2022年的6月份。而现在，这个数字大概是之前的一半。不过幸运的是，除了这些来自个人的捐助外（它们对频道的帮助非常大），我还获得了一个名为rebellioner的赞助商来弥补我失去的部分收入。此外，自从Elon允许在X上进行盈利后，X也成为了一项收入来源。所以，现在我的收入大概一半来自于来自Patreon的个人支持者，另一半则来源于各种不同的资金渠道。而以前，大约有80%到90%的收入都是来自Patreon。

So as I say in every video, every dollar helps, every contribution people make helps. So I guess what I'm driving at here is I'm going to try to keep the channel going as long as I can. I think to a certain extent, I'm always going to be doing this channel. Occasionally putting out videos because there's things in my brain that I just need to get out. But, you know, we're probably getting to the autumn of the, autumn of the channel. There's, this is having a YouTube channel and doing it right is all consuming because there's so much information to keep up on.

就像我在每个视频里说的，每一块钱、每个人的支持都很重要。所以我想表达的是，我会尽量让这个频道一直继续下去。我觉得在某种程度上，我会一直更新这个频道，我脑子里总有一些想法需要与大家分享。不过，我们可能到了频道的“秋天”了。经营一个 YouTube 频道并做好它需要投入极大的精力，因为要跟上太多的信息。

And it takes a lot of time to put out quality content. So I'm going to try to keep going, you know, at least for another year or two. But there seems like there's less interest in the type of content I do. And I feel like I've delivered on the original goals of the channel. So at some point, it might be time to move on. Not yet though. Not yet. On that note, if you do, if you are able to support the channel, I appreciate it. That does encourage me to keep going as long as I can. And the best way to do that is either Patreon, which has a lot more options in terms of how much you can contribute and in terms of what sort of perks you get from me. There's also X and there's my Tesla referral code.

制作优质内容需要花费大量时间。因此，我打算继续坚持下去，至少再做一两年。不过，似乎人们对我所做的内容的兴趣逐渐减少。我觉得我已经实现了频道最初的目标。所以，也许在某个时候，是时候考虑转型了。但现在还不是时候，还不是。说到这儿，如果你能支持这个频道，我会非常感激。这能激励我尽可能长地坚持下去。支持我的最佳方式是通过 Patreon，这个平台提供多种支持选项和相应的福利。此外还有 X 和我的特斯拉推荐码。

I think only one person has ever used my Tesla referral code. And I don't think I got anything from it because it was during a time period when Tesla wasn't giving very many incentives for using the referral code. But generally, if you use my referral code, you get like $1,000 off your vehicle. If you've never purchased a Tesla vehicle before, and then I get a kickback as well. So I can use that for like supercharger miles or my monthly connectivity package. I'm not sure why people don't use my Tesla referral code.

我想大概只有一个人用过我的特斯拉推荐代码。当时特斯拉并没有给出很多使用推荐代码的奖励，所以我好像没得到什么。不过，一般来说，如果你使用我的推荐代码买车，你可以省掉大约1000美元。如果你以前从未购买过特斯拉汽车，我也会得到一些好处，比如可以用来换取超级充电站里的充电里程或者每月的联网套餐。我不太清楚为什么大家都不使用我的特斯拉推荐代码。

I think people don't connect with me because I don't put my face up that often. So I don't think they think that I'm a real person. Maybe an AI disembodied voice. Or maybe it's just because most of the people who watch the podcast or the people who watch this channel, a lot of them, they're very deep into Tesla and they've already had Tesla vehicles for years. Either way, that's just one more way you can support me and I would appreciate it.

我觉得大家之所以和我无法建立联系，可能是因为我很少露脸。他们或许觉得我不是一个真实的人，更像是一个AI的虚拟声音。或者，也可能是因为大多数看这个播客或频道的人都对特斯拉非常熟悉，他们很多人已经拥有特斯拉的车有好几年了。不管怎样，这就是你们可以支持我的一种方式，我会非常感激的。

But getting back to the main topic of the video, there is so much that I've learned doing this channel. And that's for two primary reasons. First is the comments that I get from people, both on YouTube and on X. Those comments get me thinking. Even the unconstructive criticism, it gets me thinking and it kind of sharpens my blade. And helps me look at things from different angles. But the majority of the comments that I get are from people who often know more about these technologies than I do.

但回到视频的主要话题，我在做这个频道的过程中学到了很多东西。这主要有两个原因。首先是我在 YouTube 和 X 上收到的评论。这些评论让我思考。即使是那些没有建设性的批评，也会让我反思，让我的思维更加敏锐，帮助我从不同的角度看待问题。但大多数评论来自那些对这些技术比我更了解的人。

And I feel like I have one of the best audiences on YouTube and one of the best comments sections on YouTube. Because there's so many people that jump in. I think people can tell that I put a lot of work and a lot of effort into the video and I try to get things right. And I think experts see that and appreciate it and they add their two cents and that expands my view on things and gives me other topics to talk about and refines my thinking. And then it's also of course the experts that I'm able to talk to. Just having a platform like this is a real gift for a curious person like me. It gives me a platform to talk to people that I normally just wouldn't be able to contact out of the blue and pick their brains.

我觉得我在YouTube上拥有最好的观众和评论区之一。因为有很多人参与其中。我想大家能看出来我在视频上投入了很多心血和努力，并且我努力做到正确。我认为专家们能看到这一点并欣赏它，他们也会发表自己的见解，这拓宽了我的视野，给了我新的话题去探讨，也让我思考得更加深入。当然，我还能和这些专家交流。对于像我这样好奇的人来说，拥有这样一个平台真的是一种礼物。它让我能和那些我平时不可能随意联系的人交谈，并向他们请教。

And I have people often contacting me wanting to share with me what they're doing. So overall, I've really enjoyed having the channel. It's given me an opportunity to interact with all of you and a lot of other different people. So thank you for tuning into the channel for the last five years, especially for everybody that tunes in every two weeks to watch my extremely information dense videos.

我经常接到人们的联系，他们想要分享他们正在做的事情。总体来说，我非常享受经营这个频道。这给了我一个与大家以及其他许多不同的人交流的机会。所以，非常感谢大家在过去五年里关注这个频道，特别感谢那些每两周就来观看我信息量超大的视频的朋友们。

I hope I've provided information and insights that you don't get elsewhere and I hope I always get you thinking about things. And as always, thanks to my Patreon supporters, YouTube members, ex-subscribers, rebellion air, and everybody else who contributes to the channel in a number of different ways. Whether that's likes, comments, or the experts whose brains I get to pick to make the videos that I do.

我希望我提供的信息和见解是你在其他地方得不到的，并且希望我总能让你思考一些事情。一直以来，感谢我的 Patreon 支持者、YouTube 会员、前订阅者、Rebellion Air，以及所有以各种方式为频道做出贡献的人。无论是点赞、评论，还是那些让我能够交流经验、制作视频的专家们。

I think that's all. Happy five years to me. And we'll see how much longer we can keep it going. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you.

我想这就是全部了。庆祝我的五周年。我们看看还能继续多久。感谢你的收听。谢谢。