There are ~12k YouTubers with >1M subs, though, so the math is a little more generous than those with 10M subs. Also, remember that this couple has more sources of income than just YouTube revenue. There are surely some YouTube engineers making >$1M/y, but not very many. And none of them have a job called "living on a boat and doing fun boat things," nor can most of them boast a basic cost of living south of $40k.
NOW, none of this should be taken as an endorsement of YouTuber as a viable career path for most people. You are, I think, correct that your expected value is much better if you pursue software engineering. Especially if you're not extremely attractive, multi-talented, adventurous, and highly risk-tolerant. It is also a lot of work to make these videos -- SLV had one video where they went over the actual process of making their videos, and it is a six day a week job. But I want to make sure we're being fair to the YouTuber lifestyle here. For the ones that make it, very decent or even insanely good money is possible -- more than most people realize.
NOW, none of this should be taken as an endorsement of YouTuber as a viable career path for most people. You are, I think, correct that your expected value is much better if you pursue software engineering. Especially if you're not extremely attractive, multi-talented, adventurous, and highly risk-tolerant. It is also a lot of work to make these videos -- SLV had one video where they went over the actual process of making their videos, and it is a six day a week job. But I want to make sure we're being fair to the YouTuber lifestyle here. For the ones that make it, very decent or even insanely good money is possible -- more than most people realize.