Maybe not totally on subject here. But Cleetus McFarland is one of the people I think is starting to make his move away from YouTube, or at least, diversifying

Maybe not totally on subject here. But Cleetus McFarland is one of the people I think is starting to make his move away from YouTube, or at least, diversifying dramatically. Merch is huge for YouTubers in a lot of ways. He's been doing solid merch for a long time. He also has been doing his Cleetus & Cars events for a few years now and those bring in big numbers. Last year he announced purchasing an abandoned race track. Which he opened officially this year. This past weekend he had an event and the place was packed (COVID not withstanding... it feels like in Florida, where this is all located, COVID isn't a thing). He seems to have successfully saved an abandoned race track. In an extremely creative maneuver they had to tear up part of the race track for repairs. To help fund the repairs he sold chunks of the track in a bottle with a t-shirt and a few other merch goodies. He literally sold chunks of the track. He's now doing Pay-per-view events, which he started last year. I'm sure a good chunk of his income still comes from YouTube, but in a lot of ways he's seemingly finding creative ways to make his business bigger. Eventually, I anticipate that YouTube and him part ways and he starts his own platform where he can make it more of what he wants it to be.