As mentioned by another commenter, the ad revenue is not nearly a majority of the revenue for these stars. I'm a data engineer for a major multi-channel network

As mentioned by another commenter, the ad revenue is not nearly a majority of the revenue for these stars. I'm a data engineer for a major multi-channel network and I work with the payments data quite closely . . . you might be astounded. The merch, live appearance, direct product placement, and crossover media earnings have made some unexpected people a lot of money. This trend will definitely continue. These YouTube stars are "organic" celebrities that emerge from the fan base upwards. This is opposed to traditional "top-down" celebrities who get their exposure from high level decisions in the entertainment power structure. Traditional celebrities have larger fan communities but the organic ones have much more tightly knit and loyal ones, and marketers know they have a much higher dollar value. Our two highest earning channels were under 5k subscribers within the past 24 months, people come out of the woodwork all the time.