<b>Niche, not skill, is the dominant RPM variable</b>

<b>Niche, not skill, is the dominant RPM variable</b>

Thesis: across the available data, content category explains more RPM variance than production quality, posting frequency or audience size combined — a finding creators consistently underweight.

Context: advertisers bid on audiences, and audience commercial value is set largely by topic. Finance, legal, insurance, software and business-to-business content sit in high-bid categories; gaming, comedy and general lifestyle sit low. The same video skill applied to different niches produces RPMs that can differ by 10x or more.

Findings: niche-segmented RPM disclosures repeatedly show the high-CPM categories clearing many multiples of entertainment categories at identical view counts. The gap is an advertiser-demand artifact, not a quality signal — a polished gaming channel can earn less per view than a mediocre finance channel.

Caveats: these comparisons rely on self-reported, unverified RPMs and rarely control for audience geography, which independently swings CPM (US/UK/CA/AU audiences command far more than most others).

Implications: choose niche with eyes open to its monetization ceiling before investing years.

What we still don't know: no dataset cleanly separates niche effects from geography effects, so their relative contributions remain entangled.