This is quite interesting. You opened your channel in 2018, and it exploded recently in 2023 after five years. Do you know what caused it to explode? Did an online newspaper or media publish your videos of Cuba?
If you don't mind me asking or anyone else here in the thread who does the same kind of videos, how long did it take for your channel to be monetized? Did it take one full year or two? According to the stats in the first year of posting a lot of videos, you only had 200 subscribers. It seems that things really started to take off in the second or third year. During those first two years, were you not concerned with making any money? What happened in the second or third year that allowed you to go from 200 subs to 20,000?
Those stats are pretty accurate. I could personally open a new YouTube channel, grab a 4K camera with a stabilizer, and walk to do these videos, even broadcasting live, and I would have zero visitors for a long time because YouTube doesn't give new channels much relevance. I could walk for one full year, doing one live broadcast every week, and YouTube wouldn't send me a single visitor. With luck, I could maybe get 500 subs after one year of hard work plus time and money invested, and maybe I would not even hit the threshold to enable monetization. Isn't it ridiculous? Even with the best content possible, with the best thumbnails and titles, it's not only about the algorithm.
YouTube wants us to work for free for years before they give us anything back. Of course, for some people, this is not a job; it's a side hobby, and the money rewards are just like a gift they are not expecting at all. But if someone is looking to do this as a job and earn money from day one, it can be extremely frustrating.