It sounds more like a problem of trying to make a living in an industry with a very low barrier to entry. Fans expect to get it for free because they know that the only cost their favorite Youtube artist had was a cell phone camera.

If their favorite performer can't make a living, then the fans will just move to one of dozens (or hundreds or even thousands) of choices.

That same ease of entry that helped the Youtube performer gain thousands of viewers after posting a funny cat video will also let some other Youtube performer do the same thing.

It's a different world out there for artists, some for the better (it's easy to record your work and get it out there), some for the worst (it's also easy for thousands of others to do the same so you have to find a way to differentiate yourself).

> Fans expect to get it for free because they know that the only cost their favorite Youtube artist had was a cell phone camera.

Completely forgetting that the time spent to make something interesting isn't free.

> There was an article recently talking about some very popular YouTube celebrities who are still waiting tables. And, when they tried to monetize their channel, got sreamed at by lots of fans.

I don't know about youtube celebs, but the notion that musicians can live off their music is basically laughable right now. No one I know even tries to do that, unless they're ready to perform three times a week in cities all over the world — it's usually just DJ sets (as live sets make logistics much harder), which aren't as stressful, but still. And it includes musicians with 10s and 100s of thousands of subscribers on SoundCloud, with constant media presence in publications like xlr8r, RA, pitchfork and others.

A lot of them get income from music, but it's usually writing soundtracks, sound design, running a label/promotion agency/party line, being an art director of a club, stuff like that. And it involves a lot of hard work apart from actually writing music.