But as the market gets more and more competitive — and the platforms and their algorithms remain unreliable — creators are devising new, hyper-specific revenue streams.

While creator funds and one-time payments work in the short-term, YouTube's long-term goal is to help creators make a consistent living by giving them a cut of the platform’s revenue. There aren’t many other platforms that can offer creators what YouTube does: stable income, massive distribution, and tons of different ways to create content.

Five years ago, a YouTuber ago might have run their entire ‘business of 1’ through YouTube. Today, that same creator might chop up clips of their content for TikTok, redirect traffic to their personal site through Beacons, sell their own branded merchandise via Shopify, and offer fan interactions via Cameo.