[Konnstann]

YouTube is mostly there as an advertisement tool nowadays, once you get any amount of an audience youtube revenue becomes a small piece of your income compared to things like Patreon, live streaming elsewhere, and even alternative hosting sources like floatplane or Nebula where creators will host exclusive content.

[dinkumthinkum]

I hear you ... but I think you are massively downplaying how much many creators are earning a living largely off of YouTube monetization. You are right about that for some portion of creators but there are many that are earning most of their income off monetization (both from ads and premium).