It just makes me sad to see thousands of young people putting in 12+ hour days making less than minimum wage on the hopes they'll someday 'make it big' and will be able to support themselves playing video games.

Very few streamers make a good living from just playing games - many of the profitable channels grew through deceptive marketing dark patterns, allowing their audience to gamble, or being porn-lite.

Streaming does have some value, but it seems like there is disproportionately large amount of wasted productivity being put towards it in the last decade.

That’s an argument as old as time. Playing in a band, sports, acting, etc. Thousands of years of “get a real job”.