Why I eventually quit my successful (and profitable) YouTube channel
There are a bunch of reasons I deleted a profitable and successful YouTube channel. Before I go deeper into those reasons I think it makes better sense to start at the beginning.
I started my channel in January of 2023. We were in the final throes of the Covid pandemic. I like to say that I could never duplicate the success I had a second time, because there were a couple of things happening due to the pandemic.
More people than ever were turning to YouTube for both entertainment and learning. And affiliate blogging was blowing up because AI writing tools and SEO optimization tools had made it easier than ever to spin up new blogs at scale.
People were looking for ways to make side hustle income and YouTube was filled with content creators showing people how to leverage AI tools and services to do it. Since I used to write end-user documentation for software applications, it wasn't a big stretch to move from the written word to creating videos on YouTube explaining how to use various types of software.
I settled on teaching people how to use the blogging, SEO optimization and keyword AI tools that were being rolled out right and left. They all had affiliate programs, so it seemed a good way to see if I could make a little online side-hustle income. I was pleasantly surprised that I started making affiliate money almost immediately. The blogging tool niche was a good fit for me.
I taught people how to use a variety of different AI writers like KoalaWriter, SEOWriting and Agility Writer. And I sold a bunch of subscriptions, particularly SEOWriting. At one point I had over 300 active subscribers. Another tool I talked about at length was NeuronWriter. I did a ton of in depth tutorials on NeuronWriter that were quite popular. And I sold the heck out of that tool.
In my first year on YouTube I grossed about $400 a month. That was with just a little under 2000 YouTube subscribers. While I didn't have massive subscriber numbers, it was evident that you didn't need them to make a little side hustle money.
The next two years my channel grew to a shade under 6000 subscribers. The side income wasn't just a little side hustle money either. While it wasn't quit your job money, and taxes and expenses did take a chunk, it wasn't anything to sneeze at. I'm firmly convinced had I started my channel three years earlier I might have grossed pretty darn close to my take home pay each month.
Here is where things start to take a turn. The Google March 2024 core update happened. It was known as the anti-spam update. And affiliate bloggers using AI tools were the prime target. Many blogs had their traffic reduced from thousands of unique visits per day to maybe a couple of dozen unique visits per day. Suddenly, the bloom was off the affiliate blog rose.
I was brave enough to do a couple of lengthy videos on the topic "is blogging now dead?" And I noted a loss in subscribers to various pieces of software, which meant my income declined. Truthfully, I was having a hard time pushing blogging and SEO optimization software when I knew the landscape had changed so dramatically.
In 2025 I tried to pivot my channel to other somewhat related topics like AI tools for social media, Pinterest etc. but the "gold rush" was over. I slowly bled existing subscribers who had given up on affiliate blogging.
I tried forays into some other niches, but without a lot of success. In the beginning of January 2026 I just stopped making new videos altogether. Creator burnout is real. And I was just done with YouTube.
The whole YouTube thing was an interesting experience, but I was just ready for it to end. Will I ever return to YouTube? Highly unlikely. It's become so commercial that I think the cool things about YouTube have been killed off. So now I do this blog. No monetization. No ads. No affiliate links. AND NO AI. Just the way content creation was meant to be.