That would be my point: without the FREE service that YouTube offers Odd1sOut would still be a Subway sandwich artist and not a multi-millionaire. Content creators who made their fortune solely by the fact that YouTube was available to them can STFU about the rules YouTube chooses to enforce on them.

Also fun to note - if YouTube "demonetizes" a video - that doesn't mean necessarily that they don't run ads on the video.
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Most YouTubers at this point are made offers from YouTube that if they provide content and get approved for monetization they will get compensated for making that content available on YouTube's platform.
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YouTube then changes the rules, doesn't properly inform ANYONE, uses incompetent algorithms, takes away the money from the content creator on content that had ALREADY BEEN APPROVED, and then often continues running ads on their videos anyway. It essentially takes their videos hostage and, if you don't happen to have several million followers, then in the words of an empty roll of toilet paper: "haha, you're fucked now."

Saying that youtube wouldn't be effected if what I believe is their longest running and probably single most successful channel in history is a bizarre stance to take. Of course they'd be effected. That's WHY they've tried to keep Felix on the platform.
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And for the record - iirc he, at least, DOES have an independent website where he uploads his videos. Or he used to. Idk if he still does. The problem goes right back to my original statement: convincing people to follow you from the thriving to the start-up is damn near impossible. All the other content people want is on youtube. A great many people would watch Felix if he went independent on his own. More would probably watch him if youtube tried to force him out. But at the end of the day a lot of people don't want to flip through multiple apps for content they used to get from one.
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And advertisers... to go to Felix's website the advertisers have to basically be willing to say "yes, we approve his content on an individual level" or "no we don't."
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In Felix's case there's been issues with rumors about racist antics and whatever else. Whatever your stance on it, it leaves a big ? Mark on who would actively advertise on his independent website.
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And, again, this is the most subscribed user on youtube (not counting T-series because the bots/forced-subscription and they're more than one person).

*side note ^ a lot of the bigger YouTubers also sell other merch on their own now (usually clothing) because youtube is so unreliable these days

There was a YouTube channel iirc that was fairly famous for doing livestreams of some sort. I don't remember all the details, but his subscribers used to think it was hilarious to say "show feet" in his chat. One day youtube decided this was no longer acceptable. Iirc his entire channel became demonetized because of that
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Meanwhile Markiplier had a livestream where he asked people to vote using one of two emojis. People did. YouTube's algorithm flipped the hell out and banned people instantly from their youtube accounts, their gmail accounts, and rejected all appeals. Markiplier had to reach out to YouTube personally to get the issue resolved because people who WEREN'T markiplier were being ignored by the platform

Point with all of this is: if you're a small-time content creator YouTube IS going to fuck you over. It's inevitable. And they also won't help you resolve the issue.
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So it IS a pretty risky business. It's also one of the only ways for animators and content creators to get noticed in this day and age.
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Most content creators DO have another form of income at the beginning, also. But when YouTube suddenly and without warning decides you no longer have a right to make money off content they'd previously promised you COULD we're running into a much bigger issue

Either YouTube is operating within the terms of service to which the content creators have agreed or those same creators have a legitimate right to legal recourse for breach of contract which they don’t seem to be pursuing. Your boy Felix may seem important because he’s the top (individual) channel but his content is less than 1/10th of 1% of YouTube’s overall consumption. Not bizarre to think they can probably absorb that loss if there even is any loss at all. Viewers would probably just watch something else instead.

the thing you dont seem to understand here scat is that youtuber's arent any different than any other kind of entertainers. The way you talk you seem to act like they are getting paided free money for nothing as tho there isnt as much if not more work involved in it than any other job, which is what it is, a job. it might have started as a hobby for some people but thats exactly how it is for a lot of jobs, not just youtube. Youtuber's deserve just as much respect and fair treatment as any other person doing a job. There is currently a big thing going on in a fairly huge portion of youtubers to get youtubers listed as full employees rather than the current thing of private contractors (the basis for this being that by the laws of basically every western country that youtube exists in have a thing called false self-employment which youtubers fit the category of in very way, the partnership system fits all the criteria of full employement)

you could say exactly the same thing of "the free service" that mcdonalds offers to their employees of giving them the chance to make money working for them. Youtube isnt providing a service to their content creators. Youtube is providing a service to their viewers. A more direct analogy is the equivalent of saying that AT&T is providing a service to the actors in their TV commercials by graciously allowing them to put in hours of their life to get paid.

I didn’t say they didn’t put in work to earn the money, I said without YouTube they would never have had the opportunity. Yes, they are entertainers and they have a much sweeter deal than most entertainers. YT distributes their content and pays for everything without requiring anything from them. They even go as far as to share the revenue from the platform. With. No. Obligations. Imagine if record or movie distributors worked that way. No exclusively, no ongoing cut of all future profits, no ownership of the content itself. The worst thing they could do for themselves is become employees. Then they surrender ALL intellectual property rights for their creations. Billie Eilish would be giving 10-30% of her record sales to SoundCloud under that model and would not be the holder of the copyright.

As it stands now, any person over 13 can record themselves and have the entire world see it for no cost. If they turn out to be popular they can then choose to make money from it. They should be treated fairly as dictated in the terms and conditions to which they agreed but at the same time if YT gets sued for $170mil they have the right to change the platform to protect themselves against future litigation. YT pays for all that legal defense and has sued the copyright trolls on behalf of the creators. From what I can tell the creators didn’t have to sweat any of that. YT is absolutely providing a service for the viewers AND the creators.

As I've said, my big issue with this is how it harms the animators on the platform
JaidenAnimations, Let Me Explain Studios, the Odd1sOut, GingerPale, GingaNinja, Icecreamsandwich, and dozens of other animators post on YouTube. Already the algorithm isn't kind to them, as it boosts daily posters and they can only post once or twice a month. They don't complain about this. However, COPPA is then taking away what money they do earn and even further limiting the promotion they do get. Many animators have gone to animation school, and are using YouTube as a way to build up their portfolio and gain experience in a field that is very small and hard to grow in.

you are confused scat, the vast majority of the good things youtube creators get is from their "networks" which is the equivalent of unions just that the equivalent of union dues are a percentage of your income rather than a set yearly fee.

if you dont have a network fighting for what you want youtube wont do a god damn thing for you at all.

That’s quite vague. What “good things” should a content creator expect beyond what I specifically listed?

well for 1. even the things you listed arent correct. The content creator wasn't ever liable for any of the millions that the ftc fucked youtube over with until youtube decided to screw over the content creator by settling with the ftc to make the content creator the one that had to be specific even tho the reason they got fucked over is data collection. It's youtube that is collecting data not the content creator, the problem isnt even technically the targetted ads, its that youtube reads the cookies from the browser to target ads to non-users (meaning possibly people under 13) which has nothing to do with the content creator.
2. Youtube doesnt "sue copyright trolls", youtube protects youtube by adhering to the law of copyright and thats it. It takes a network exerting pressure to get anything more than "your dispute of the copyright claim has been denied." copyright trolls have full control over it. If you dispute a copyright claim, youtube doesnt even check it, the claimer does.

and on the "targetted ads thing" i forgot to mention that the problem legally is the reading of the cookies, which is collecting data, not what that data is used for (targetted ads.)

I'm not 100% certain that dispute a claim thing not being checked by YouTube is correct. There have been times when people have claimed their copyright is being infringed on and demanded it be removed when that's clearly not the case.
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YouTube eventually has realized the person laying the claim is abusing the system and reinstated the content, which DEFINITELY wouldn't happen if only the copyright holder reviewed the case
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.... That said, everytime someone lays a copyright claim it almost instantly results in the monetization of the entire video (or the money being given to the person who owns the copyright), the video being blocked in certain countries, and users may even lose their ability to livestream for months at a time - with no clear indication on when, if ever, they will get their channels reinstated.

Considering a lot of YouTubers use livestream to connect with their audience and earn revenue from things like SuperChats (which youtube takes a cut of) this can be a BIG problem. Especially for people who do livestreams regularly to cover current events and such...
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... which has it's own brand of issues as even saying certain words, regardless of context, seemingly can lead to the video being blackmarked, and eventually the entire channel following suit. "Words" can include even specific peoples' names if youtube is trying to discourage conversation about that subject. I've seen more than one YouTuber being forced to suddenly spell any word that might trigger youtube to the point it's honestly ridiculous