An article in the New York Times has shed light on something that online content creators already know so well: Despite illusions of wealth, making money on YouTube is much harder than the numbers suggest.

The article centers around Olga Kay and examines the financial viability of her YouTube career. Kay claims that, through her network of related YouTube channels (which combine for around a million subscribers), she pulls in between $100,000 and $130,000, much of which she must reinvest in her YouTube operation.

The most interesting part of the article, however, concerns dwindling CPMs (cost per one thousand ad views) on YouTube. According to data from Tubemogul, the average YouTube CPM in 2013 was $7.60, down $1.75 from 2012.

To the uninitiated, that may seem like a big number, though additional analysis from Tubemogul explains that CPM isn’t as it seems. “It varies a ton, but it wouldn’t usually be more than half, and for many partners it is more like two out of every 10 views will have a video ad,” Tubemogul spokesman David Burch told the Times.