I've had my channel monetized for 4 or so years now and the ad rev continues to go up and down. People that watch my videos can save a lot of money (diy auto and home vids) so I like to think that if I pushed that more I'd make more from direct donations.

Another thing you will want to do is embed your videos on your own website so Google search traffic can drive traffic to your site and then they can view the vid directly from your site. You want to increase discoverability as much as possible. While they're on your site, you can also try and collect their email and eventually send newsletters to them to also drive interactions and attempt to monetize them.

In the end if you provide value and do the digital marketing right you can make it worth it and if your lucky make enough to bring in some big money