Precisely. It's not "YouTube's shifting algorithms" that are killing independent media, it's the wave of bad publicity in publications like the New York Times that lead to advertisers pulling out and made allowing ads on anything even vaguely political or controversial an existential danger to YouTube. The algorithms didn't do this by itself. And the clear-cut line between "videos that espoused extremism and hate speech" and "video makers who bear no resemblance to terrorist sympathizers and racists" that the NYT is attacking YouTube for not recognising doesn't exist. There are definitely loud, vocal, media-connected groups who classify The David Pakman Show under the former category, for example, because of his choice of guests.