<b>Evergreen back-catalog income: real, but smaller than the highlight reels suggest</b>

<b>Evergreen back-catalog income: real, but smaller than the highlight reels suggest</b>

Thesis: 'passive' back-catalog earnings exist and compound, but published examples over-represent the rare libraries that hit, while typical back-catalog decay is steeper than implied.

Context. Search-driven and evergreen content can earn for years after publication, unlike feed-driven content that decays within days. This fuels the 'build a library, earn passively' thesis.

Findings. Where creators have shared per-video lifetime curves, a small number of evergreen pieces carry most of the long-tail revenue, while the median video's earnings decay sharply within weeks and never recover. The library effect is real but concentrated: it's the same power law one layer down. Algorithm and search-ranking changes can also reset a 'stable' evergreen earner abruptly.

Caveats. Shared lifetime curves come from creators proud of their evergreen wins — survivorship again. We rarely see the dead weight of videos that never earned a long tail.

Implications. Budget back-catalog income as a portfolio where a few items dominate, not as uniform passive yield. Don't assume any single evergreen earner is permanent.

What we still don't know: the full distribution of per-video lifetime curves, including the silent majority that flatlined.