How do people actually make money on Youtube?

There are a few different ways to make money on YouTube, and most full-time YouTubers will use all of them to make a living. Smaller YouTubers will pick and choose their methods based on how hungry they are to make money. So, first you have the YouTube Partner Program. That allows you to get a cut of the advertising revenue. To join that program, you have to reach a certain viewer/subscriber threshold though, and it typically takes over a year for most YouTubers to reach that level. The other thing video-makers will do is offer channel memberships where viewers can pay a monthly subscription to get special perks. After that, you’ve got things like affiliate marketing and sponsorships, but those typically won’t be an option until you’ve got the first two revenue streams rolling.

If you're more of a streamer, you can also make money from donations that come in during your stream. This may not be the most effective method of making money from YouTube when you first start out, but once you build up an audience it's nice to be able to create a stream schedule that's built up of however many hours you want and make money when it's convenient for you.