I ran a YouTube channel back in 2017 for personal hobby of mine, and within 3 months i had 20k subscribers and 1 million views. I got featured in several big channels that now have millions of subscribers. Some of my viewers would do design work for free for me as they were fans of the channel. The channel had alot of potential and could of one day grown into something that may if i was lucky make alot alot of money. All i would of needed is a few brand deals with sponsors and your talking making a few £1000 per video.
The problem was, it was taking up 3+ hours of time EVERY DAY of the week. Plus weekends i spent 6+ hours per day running the channel. It literally was a full time job, but with 0 pay. It took all my energy, and my window cleaning business actually suffered that year badly. It was great fun, but i realised YouTube takes up so much time, you need to be able to consistently keep it up, otherwise you end up burning out.
I burned out from YouTube in 6 months, and ever since then ive never been able to get my heart back into it. I was focused my time now on my actual businesses or in my personal life just taking time for myself.
I can see why Dan stopped it. It takes alot of time and energy and initially very little financial reward. YouTube is basically a full time job if you want to do it properly.