Professional YouTubers and other social media workers

[Altherion]

Back in February, I read an article (The Lonely Life of a Professional YouTuber) which describes several people (though mainly focusing on one) who make YouTube videos:

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For a seven to eight-minute video, Will spends around nine to ten hours doing research, two hours writing a script and then 45 minutes of filming. Research usually involves trawling through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. "My favourite type of craic is on Twitter, but when you're taking the mick out of stuff you find the real weirdos on Facebook or the dark corners of YouTube."

What is research and what is procrastination is constantly up for debate. Is watching news story after news story about a man cementing his head into a microwave procrastination? Not if he can turn it into a ten-minute video with four ads.

"How long do you spend on the internet?" I ask.

"I'd say, actively, over 12 hours per day. I don't take days off. And even when I do, I just wish I was working. In the morning I get up, check my phone, then I commute three yards to my desk."

It's a strange lifestyle, but, as the article points out, these people are effectively in a symbiotic relationship with an entity far larger than they are and which holds all of the power and can change anything it wants at will:

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Last year, there was a controversy surrounding how YouTube vets its content, after companies discovered their adverts were sometimes being placed next to extremist videos or hate speech. Advertisers pulled their money out of the platform en masse. YouTube responded by changing their rules regarding what types of videos could receive advertising and therefore monetisation, but they carried this out in a vague and unpredictable way.

The change hit medium-sized YouTubers hard. From March of 2017 to April of 2017, Will’s monthly income dropped by 85 percent. YouTubers dubbed it the "adpocalypse". He saw some channels flicker and fade away. "Your life and livelihood can just change overnight," he tells me. He made that month’s rent by selling fidget spinners, something he’s embarrassed by when I mention it. Now, he’s made sure that his income is spread across YouTube advertising, merchandise and sponsorships.

YouTube's edicts are necessarily vague and unpredictable because they are enforced by machines as well as human beings and reverse engineering what the machines do is made difficult because otherwise people would game the system. In some sense, this is foreshadowing of the next level of alienation: not only does the livelihood of YouTubers depend on the fickleness of crowds and a large corporation (let's face it, many people depend on either one or the other or both), but also with machines -- and unlike with 9-to-5 jobs, what they do pretty much consumes their entire lives. I was wondering how long it would take until one of these people would be sufficiently angry to do something non-trivial about their symbiont when it screws them over. It came from exactly the opposite political position that I would have guessed it would and only the attacker died, but nevertheless, somebody did attack them:

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The woman's grievances against YouTube appear to be centered around censorship and revenue.

"There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!" one post reads. "Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!"

Another post accuses "close-minded" YouTube employees of putting an age restriction on videos, saying it's aimed at reducing views and discouraging the woman from making new videos.

On a YouTube channel, the same woman described herself as a vegan bodybuilder and an animal rights activist.

Do people think there should be some rules about how large corporations treat such symbionts or should we just let them sort it out the old-fashioned way?