We used to laugh at YouTubers. As recently as two years ago, people looked down on people making content in their own homes with a makeshift home studio setup. People moving their content to an online platform was something that we didn’t see as much value in a few years ago. Now it all seems to be a wise move. Moving to YouTube allowed many of these content creators to better engage with their audience and own that relationship. Traditional media scoffed at first and YouTubers continued to be looked down upon by the former, but this is changing slowly, and will only be accelerated by this crisis. Old media is dying, and those who sweated blood and tears trying to make it own their and divorce themselves from their employers in old media will reap the rewards of all that work in the future. Google, as a platform has provided many content creators with a way to own the relationship with their audience, but it remains precarious. A lot of content has been demonetised and some creators have even been de-platformed, especially for producing political content. The money will not flow forever, and for some, the money has already dried up. This has led many creators to more lucrative sources of monetisation such as Patreon, that allows the audience to directly fund the creator, which again helps to bypass the platform itself. YouTube will prove as suffocating a platform as their former employers, so some YouTubers are already departing the platform, and the lucky ones will be able to take their audience with them.