Are they though? Who is "us"? Bored teens? Amateur content creators creating out of passion? Aspiring youtube stars, or someone else? Was the platform poisoned

Are they though? Who is "us"? Bored teens? Amateur content creators creating out of passion? Aspiring youtube stars, or someone else? Was the platform poisoned as soon as people figured out how to make even a single cent off of it, or after? I remember when people complained about crappy partner networks like machinima a decade ago. Didn't this commercialization and dream exploitation happen to every other new medium before youtube? Was this outcome inevitable, as how water rushes to be level when it lands in a puddle? People tend to move pretty quickly to optimize profit sources, after all. I am currently subscribed to a channel where a guy is painstakingly figuring out how to reliably mill and produce balisong-style folding scissors in a commercial capacity. He posts long videos without promotion on his schedule, because he's interested in documenting the process. It's fascinating, and completely divorced from algorithm appeasement. In spite of this, he has 80k subscribers. Some people are still doing it for fun. I think it's about being very picky with who you follow at the end of the day, as with most things, I suppose.