I’ll admit, that I like having a lot of subscribers. I’m also pretty realistic in knowing that I’m never going to be Mr. Beast. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever get to 1 Million subscribers.

But I will also admit to being human and being a bit jealous of Linux YouTubers who started well after me and have done better. I’m not saying they don’t deserve it. They most definitely deserve their success. My jealousy isn’t about them so much as it is about disappointment in myself.

I have taken a lot of time off in the last few months. The video schedule hasn’t been as firm as it needs to be if you’re going to sustain success on YouTube. That is entirely on me. I was on pace to get to 100k subscribers in 2025. It’s not going to happen, and most of that is simply that real life got in the way and I got a little burnt out.

So it is unfair to be jealous of my fellow YouTubers when they put in the work and I didn’t. For a while, though, I admit that I let the jealousy rule me and get me down. But I think that it’s better to, instead, take it all as motivation to do better.

I don’t think I want to make more videos. In the past, I’ve figured that more was better, but all that got was a lot of burn out and a smidge of depression. Instead, I want to make better videos. And I want to make videos I’m actually interested in. I got into a place for a while where I was trying to make videos others would like, not videos that I liked making.

I’ve been thinking about the types of videos I want to make and what I’d enjoy making, and I think I want to focus on topics that help people do things. I’m quite done with the distro wars. I don’t care what distro you choose, and making yet another video on the distro of the week is not what I want to do. Instead if I make a video on a distribution, I want to look at it from the view of “how does this help me get my work done?”

I’m not sure if this will be successful from a “views” perspective, but I don’t care. I think if I enjoy my own videos, others will too. With my main job ending, and a job search in front of me, I’m looking forward to doing some really good videos for my channel.

The jealousy I felt was irrational, but it did help me realize that I want to do better. Now that I know that, I can say “Congratulations” to my fellow YouTubers, no matter how well you’re doing.