Passive income: YES

Earning passive income as a YouTuber is challenging and rare. Most YouTubers need to consistently create content to maintain and grow their audience, as the platform rewards regular uploads. Automation and outsourcing can help, such as hiring editors or using scheduling tools, but the creative process often requires personal involvement. Only a few outliers achieve true passivity, typically those with large libraries of evergreen content that continue to attract views over time. Many people mistakenly believe that once monetized, income will be steady without ongoing effort, but this is misleading. Realistically, it becomes passive for those who can leverage a significant backlog of content and have a strong, engaged audience. For most, it requires continuous work and adaptation to trends.