My 365-day YouTube watch time is over 5,000, but the YouTube earnings page shows it as 1,500. What is the problem?

I have finally posted a video, albeit it short & obviously imperfect. BUT I DID IT!(like Dora). I'm proud of myself & working on my next one.

So after the call yesterday I decided as it’s Saturday I can spend some time on YouTube. I’ve gone back to the beginning and I’m looking at lesson 2 about names. I thought I’d settled this but I want to road test it. I wrote a book three years ago called Stories That Matter - The Everyday Stories of Extraordinary Business People (followed by another one, How To Show Off). That is the title of my website and I was going to build a business round that name. My flagship product is Back Story To Brand Story. I work with clients to use their (sometimes vast and untapped) lived experience to build marketing and a personal brand. I thought I could use that for YouTube but it could be limited. So for now I’m using my name although I’ve had to use @mikegarnerstories for my handle because my name isn’t available. Am I right?

Hey everyone, I launched a new YouTube channel in the Astronomy niche just 3 days ago. Since my target audience is primarily in the US and Western countries, I want to make sure my voiceover is clear and easy to follow. Could you take a quick look at one of my videos and let me know if my accent is easy to understand? I would also highly appreciate any harsh critiques or advice on how I can improve the video quality, pacing, or storytelling. Thank you so much for your time!

I am feeling so encouraged right now. My posting schedule is every other Sunday. Usually I get a small amount of impressions the first two days and then they plateau. My views graph will have a small spike that immediately returns to the floor in a couple days until the next upload. But with my last upload my impressions are not coming in big numbers but they are still coming steadily after two weeks. My CTR for this story remains high and while the retention rate is falling as we go into colder and colder audiences it is still around 36% on an 18 minute video. I love seeing how the line on the views graph for my channel has finally defied gravity just a little bit. To me this feels like a milestone. I have gained some new subscribers and I hope to continue the momentum with the video due to post tomorrow. 🤞