It not an easy answer -- if I can cheat a bit and post a second channel that hosts a podcast where I talk about work a lot: https://www.youtube.com/@cortexfm
>It is just that story is being told backwards and in a snarky voice for dramatic effect, otherwise it would become clear that IATA codes are pretty much the most natural and logical thing in the world, which would rob author of a passable video topic.
I think most travelers, including myself until I started working on this project, have never heard of IATA and only know the ICAO codes -- which do seem like a real mess. It's weird to find out then when you look into them that a much better system exists, but it's not the one branded on the outside of all the airports!
My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/cgpgrey. Started it with the idea that it could bring attention to some other professional projects, but it turned out that YouTube was actually the career.
For the record, I suspect most Hacker News readers would get a lot more out of the text version. There was a lot of detail trimming to make it work as a video.
I don't remember the number of videos, but my goal was 200,000 subscribers before leaving my day job. Subscribers aren't views (and they mean less now than they did when I started) but that was my estimate on how big of a base I needed to be confident it would work. 200,000 subscribers wasn't paying me as much as I earned as a full-time teacher but I knew the lines would cross.
Yes: the ads you see on YouTube are split between the creator and YouTube. Now that I'm a larger channel there is patronage and sponsorships as well, but it all got started with building an archive of popular videos.