The issue here isn't the money in a direct sense. People in the real world do worse jobs for less money, yes. But those jobs aren't intermediated by some benefa

The issue here isn't the money in a direct sense. People in the real world do worse jobs for less money, yes. But those jobs aren't intermediated by some benefactor who essentially treats human beings like lab rats. Prostitution may be grueling but people generally do it to pay the bills in a trivial sense. Being put into some sort of alternate reality where you are being treated and experimented on like a video game character, to an audience who also probably perceives you as a virtual source of entertainment deserves to be looked at through a different lens than just bucks/hour made. It's a sort of low stakes hunger games where rich patrons throw people into an arena for their fun and benefit. The Mr Beast content could be its own Black Mirror episode. And it's terrifying not despite but because the money isn't even that relevant. There's probably people who would do that stuff for free just to meet Mr Beast or get five minutes of online attention.