This topic was inspired by the periodic comments under the publications that the authors in Zen are fattening at the expense of the readers, and rudeness (which for some reason some call "criticism") is not accepted. They say that culinary bloggers and all sorts of chefs are completely untied, they need to close their access to Zen, let them earn money by work.
Therefore, I decided to go through the earnings. Well, and according to what these earnings are made of.
I honestly say right away that I don’t earn money by cooking. I have a different field of activity, thanks to which I can not only add butter to bread, but also put caviar. And, thanks to which, I can afford a Zen channel.
But back to the earnings of culinary bloggers and chefs.
In order to earn decent money in the gastronomic business, you need to become a famous chef. For this, it is not enough to just get an education; it requires tremendous perseverance, iron health and an amazingly stable psyche. Oh yes, talent is also desirable. Very desirable.
If a person has all this, and if he is ready to spend years on his career (moreover, these years will be rather poor, albeit well-fed), then he, having achieved fame and honed his skills in Moscow, can have... From two hundred to three hundred thousand rubles a month only at the main job.
I repeat - for this you have to be the Chief. With a capital letter. The one the restaurants are fighting over. One who is able to develop a concept and a menu from scratch. The one who creates dishes for the capricious and, let's be honest, the bored audience.
If you work in a restaurant or cafe of the middle or lower price segment, you will receive from 50 to 100 thousand rubles. This is in Moscow.
A lot of money is spinning in the restaurant business, but the best of the best will take it. This is the reality. And the most hardy ones. Few of those who now decide that chefs earn more than their work is worth will spend twenty hours in the kitchen and still be on their feet.
Cuisine, especially catering, in a popular establishment, should generally be equated with a hot shop. The same high temperatures, the same long hours on your feet, the same not at all small physical activity. Only in TV shows do cooks exclusively wave knives. In fact, they have more work to do.
And yes, there is no need to deny the obvious - any famous chef can do a lot more on their social media. YouTube, Insta, Tik-tok. With due effort, correct SMM, not sickly investments in the initial tapa, a million a month is not the limit at all.
But, as you can see, here I have not indicated Zen. Because the income from channel monetization is not at all big enough to talk about it.
The main source of income in any social network is not direct monetization, but advertising integrations. Well, a small (for many pleasant) bonus is income in the form of advertised goods - equipment, products, and everything else. Although this should not be taken into account. It seems like a bonus from the outside, in fact - ordinary consumables.
But for advertising integrations, you need to have, firstly, a loyal audience and, secondly, the ability to guarantee customers at least an approximate minimum coverage.
And here we come to the fact that Zen, alas, does not give such an opportunity. By the way, this is normal - the platform was created in order to generate income for owners, not authors. Yes, those who write here have a pretty penny. But it is so small that it is very difficult to perceive it as income.
And this penny does not come from the reader's pocket at all. The reader does not pay the author. He just reads it. Yes, he sees (or does not see) ad units in publications. But even if he sees them, he does not pay.
And he has no moral (or other) right to write that the author lives at the expense of the readers.
Even when there are ad integrations, the author lives off his own labor. And at the expense of the investments that he makes in the development of the account. And this is a lot of money. And the work is also considerable. Moreover, this work goes after the main work. For you cannot put all your eggs in one basket.
And yes, I believe that when you read or watch a person who shares their experience and at the same time does not require anything from you, in addition to observing the banal rights of politeness, then we can say thank you if the information turned out to be useful or keep silent, if otherwise. Just don't watch. Do not listen. Do not read.. And even more so, trying to demonstrate oneself as a “client who is always right”.
And if such income hurts someone's eyes and hurts, then you try to achieve them yourself - in the same cooking. Honestly, I won't even try, it's very hard work every day, and without rest.