That's what they did initially. Many advertisers left and Youtube ad revenue dropped like a rock. Eventually maybe advertisers would have realized that in the a

That's what they did initially. Many advertisers left and Youtube ad revenue dropped like a rock. Eventually maybe advertisers would have realized that in the age of cord-cutting they have increasingly limited ways to buy <=millennial eyeballs, but communities are fragile and I think Youtube was justifiably worried that by then their highest-value creators would have abandoned them for better-paying platforms (which was already happening and is continuing to happen). Someone above said this post was really aimed at advertisers and not at creators, and I think that's half-right in that advertisers really are the immediate audience, but making advertisers happy is a thing many creators have been pushing for too, so advertisers will come back and ad payouts will go back up.