The lie at the heart of the Internet is that it allows all creators to find their audience without having to go through the tastemakers that have mediated audiences and artists since the dawn of patronage. What it does is replace humans with algorithms.

An artist like Pewdiepie is every bit the slave an artist like Amy Schumer is - the difference being Amy Schumer is interacting with humans who are making money off of her. Pewdiepie is interacting with algorithms that are constantly trained and retrained by computer scientists to optimize engagement - which is not the same thing as fandom. Unfortunately the money is rewarding the algorithms over the tastemakers and has been for long enough to fuck things up royally.

There was this awesome period where everyone was convinced Netflix was going to rule the world because the Napoleon Dynamite problem had been solved and they had all this algorithmic engagement data and it was going to help them pick the best movies and best stars because that's what everyone was watching and that's why they gave Adam Sandler a quarter billion dollars not because they're tasteless shitheels but because they know more about what you like than you do and then they made Marco Polo and then they decided that maybe it wasn't that the algorithm was straight bullshit it was because Ted Sarandos didn't trust the algorithm enough.

With the exception of Orange is the New Black and 13 Reasons Why, every series up there was originated within traditional media channels by traditional media moguls adhering to traditional media standards. Notably, a lot of those series are resting on the season-or-two they made on traditional channels and limping through the two or three seasons Netflix pasted on in a zombie-like afterlife of scuttled greatness.

Youtube stars are having to navigate this dichotomy with no experience and very little insight into what's driving the process. Youtube is not a starmaker; it's a telescope that cryptically wanders the heavens and points at some things more than others.

A telescope the stock market thinks is worth $75 billion.